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Resistance to Trump finds plenty of LGBT help

Some see parallels to Tea Party obstruction, others fear ‘protest fatigue’

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Protesters before the White House during the Women's March on Washington. (Photo file by Brandon Hankey)

Protesters gather at the White House during the Women’s March on Washington. (File photo by Brandon Hankey)

Nearly four weeks into the presidency of Donald Trump and the resistance is still going strong. The day after the inauguration, women and men wearing pink pussy hats filled the streets in Washington, D.C. and nationwide for the women’s march. The next weekend, protesters crammed airports in protest of Trump’s Muslim travel ban as travelers were detained. Around the country, demonstrators are taking a page from the Tea Party and shouting down Republican members of Congress for threatening to repeal Obamacare.

It’s just the start of what may be a long four years — or eight — of the Trump administration, but there’s every indication this outcry from progressives, which includes voices from the LGBT movement, will continue over the long haul.

Firas Nasr, a queer activist who has organized dance protests in D.C. on behalf of WERK for Peace, said the activism will sustain itself through “a combination of creativity and persistence.”

“One thing that we’re really trying to bring into the resistance here is creativity, is love and connection,” Nasr said. “Those are things that people are seeking from the start. That’s the reason why we go out to resist in the first place, so hearing that be the end and creating or facilitating a space where that can be expressed I think is the work that we do.”

John Becker, a gay D.C. progressive activist and blogger, said Trump is “counting on protest fatigue” and initiating multiple controversial policies — such as plans to build a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border and a travel ban on seven Muslim-majority countries — in hopes people will forget as time goes on.

“I think that’s part of their strategy is to just throw as much awful, deplorable, difficult things at us right away and overwhelm people like a Blitzkrieg,” Becker said. “I think they’re counting on dulling our senses and our sense of outrage and getting us exhausted.”

Anger with the Trump White House continues to grow not just over policy, but over the scandalous revelations about Trump’s ties to Russia. Just this week, National Security Adviser Michael Flynn resigned after revelations he spoke with Russian officials about Obama-era sanctions and media reports revealed Trump aides were in contact with Russian intelligence officials during the campaign.

If poll numbers are any indication, the demonstrations are working and likely won’t let up soon. A Gallup poll released on Sunday found just 40 percent of Americans approve of Trump compared to 55 percent who disapprove of him. That low popularity is atypical for a new president. Last week, a Public Policy Polling poll found Americans are now evenly split 47-47 on support for impeaching Trump and support for removing him from office continues.

Igor Volsky, a gay D.C.-based progressive activist and deputy director of the Center for American Progress Fund, said he doesn’t spend “much time worrying that somehow all of a sudden he’s going to get his act together and people aren’t going to be outraged” with controversial policies continuing to come from the White House.

“I think people are outraged because he does very outrageous things and if that continues, I think we’ll see people in the street, we’ll see people online be very, very upset,” Volsky said. “And they’ll create for those people the political space and the political pressure for members of Congress to break with Trump, to disagree with Trump to undermine the kind of agenda he’s pursuing.”

Tea for progressives, too?

Observers are already making comparisons of progressive activism to the Tea Party under President Obama, which urged “no” votes from Republicans at every possible moment on his agenda even at the expense of government operations. But don’t tell that to progressive activists who see a clear distinction between themselves and conservative activists.

Volsky said he wouldn’t a make a comparison between the Tea Party and progressive activism over Trump because the latter has already enjoyed much more sustainability early on in a new administration.

“In many respects, I think, Americans today are far ahead of where the Tea Party was,” Volsky said. I mean, we’re weeks into the administration and you’re seeing three weekends in a row of tremendous protests.”

But like the Tea Party with Republicans, Volsky said Democrats may feel the fire of the progressive movement if they don’t listen to its demands and face ousters in mid-term season.

“You saw a lot of Republicans lose their seats to challenges from the right because the Tea Party created this sense that conservatives, who nobody thought would be in trouble from the right wing of their base, got in a lot of trouble, and lost their seats,” Volsky said. “People like Eric Cantor, so whether or not that’s going to happen in this case, we’ll have to wait and see.”

There’s also a difference in support for both movements. As Becker pointed out, a Washington Post poll found only 27 of Americans supported the Tea Party at the height of the movement in 2010, but 60 percent now support the nationwide women’s marches.

“I think that there are similarities, but the critical distinction rests in the genesis of it because the Tea Party in Barack Obama…there was no question about the legitimacy of his election,” Becker said. “He won the popular vote, he won the electoral vote, there was no foreign interference, there was no FBI meddling. There wasn’t the same kind of foundational questions about the legitimacy of his mandate in a way that there is for Trump.”

In terms of whether the progressive movement like the Tea Party should encourage Democrats to vote “no” arbitrarily on everything in the congressional agenda under Trump, views are nuanced.

Volsky expressed caution when asked if Democrats should vote “no” on everything that comes up during the Trump administration, saying the approach should be more selective.

Progressives are seeking to derail the confirmation of Trump’s pick for labor secretary, Andrew Puzder, who may be the nominee most in danger of rejection in the Senate. A coalition of LGBT groups including the Equality Federation and the LGBT labor group Pride at Work have expressed opposition to Puzder, saying his employment practices and opposition to raising the minimum wage make him a bad choice for LGBT workers. [UPDATE: After the publication of this article, NBC News reported Puzder would withdraw his name from consideration.]

Becker said one aspect in which Democrats should emulate Republicans emboldened by the Tea Party is by blocking the confirmation of Neil Gorsuch to the U.S. Supreme Court, citing GOP refusal to consider Merrick Garland and the Trump nominee’s record.

“They set that precedent last year when they — for no reason at all other than partisan spite — denied Merrick Garland a hearing and refused to confirm him,” Becker said. “In terms of the Supreme Court, I do think the Democrats should follow precedent set by the Republicans. As far I’m concerned, that was a stolen seat, stolen from Merrick Garland and Barack Obama and I support any and all efforts to block and obstruct Gorsuch from being seated on the court.”

One aspect of the Tea Party for which it won notoriety was engineering a shutdown of the federal government in 2013 over the implementation of Obamacare. With current funding for the government set to expire in March, the progressive activists may take up the mantle of stopping the government by ceasing operations, such as the increased immigration raids under the Trump administration.

Asserting a federal government shutdown “would sort of have to be a bridge to be crossed if we come to it,” Becker said at this time he couldn’t bring himself to support such action because of the negative impacts of the 2013 shutdown.

“The shutting down of the federal government is something that was such a drastic and reckless step that the Republicans took,” Becker said. “I can’t say that is something I would support at this moment.”

An LGBT pièce de résistance

A cornerstone of the progressive resistance is the LGBT community, which has largely remained steadfast in its opposition to Trump and has continued to speak out against his policies despite the assertion from the White House he’s “respectful and supportive” of LGBT rights. A national LGBT march is planned for Washington during Pride weekend June 11; other cities are looking to schedule similar marches that day in solidarity as was seen during the recent women’s march.

Volsky said Trump’s declared support for LGBT rights falls away after “peeling back” those stated words and looking at the anti-LGBT people advising him.

“If I’m looking at the LGBT movement, it’s to protect progress on a federal level, to continue pushing for progress on the state and local level and to really be involved in the fight against Trump because LGBT Americans are a great part of the progressive coalition and frankly have shown over the last couple of years how to organize and how to get things done, so I think they’re a great asset to advocacy and the movement in general,” Volsky said.

The LGBT movement, Nasr said, has a creativity and unique intersectionality different from other groups that will continue to energize the progressive resistance to Trump.

“At least as a person of color personally, I’ve seen the LGBTQ community be a center for intersectionality at least in the circles that I run in, so an additional thing that we’re bringing is we’re bringing everyone,” Nasr said. “We’re not leaving anyone behind. This is not white feminism. This is not prim-and-proper LGBT corporate funded work. This is grassroots, everyone’s involved, intersectionality-centered, queer-centered resistance.”

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Miscellaneous

Stephen Miller’s legal group sues Fairfax County schools

Lawsuit challenges policies for transgender, nonbinary students

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(Bigstock photo)

Former Trump administration official Stephen Miller’s legal group on Tuesday filed a lawsuit against the Fairfax County School District over its policies for transgender and nonbinary students.

America First Legal in a press release notes it filed the lawsuit against the school district on behalf of a female, “practicing Roman Catholic” student “for allowing teenage boys to use the female restrooms and for forcing a radical, government-sponsored gender indoctrination and approved-speech scheme that discriminates against students on the basis of sex and religion and violates their free speech rights under the Virginia Constitution.”

The lawsuit was filed in Fairfax County Circuit Court.

The Virginia Department of Education last July announced new guidelines for trans and nonbinary students for which Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin asked. Equality Virginia and other advocacy groups claim they, among other things, would forcibly out trans and nonbinary students. 

Fairfax County schools are among the school districts that have refused to implement the guidelines. 

“Fairfax County Public Schools appears to believe that its policies and regulations can override the Virginia Constitution’s protections for religious beliefs, speech and from government discrimination on the basis of sex and religious beliefs,” said America First legal Senior Advisor Ian Prior in a press release. “It is well past time for FCPS to stop sacrificing the constitutional rights of its students so that it can implement a state-sanctioned ideology that demands compliance in speech, beliefs and conduct.” 

FCPS Pride, a group that represents the Fairfax County School District’s LGBTQ employees, described the lawsuit as “abhorrent.”

“We are confident that the school board and the superintendent will strongly and firmly oppose this specious suit and continue to support all students, including transgender and gender expansive students,” said the group in a press list.

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More than a dozen LGBTQ candidates on the ballot in Va.

Control of the state Senate hangs in the balance

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Virginia state Del. Danica Roem (D-Manassas) speaks at the LGBTQ+ Victory Fund National Champagne Brunch in D.C. on April 23, 2023. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

More than a dozen openly LGBTQ candidates are on the ballot in Virginia on Nov. 7.

State Del. Danica Roem (D-Manassas) is running against Republican Bill Woolf in the newly redistricted Senate District 30 that includes western Prince William County and the cities of Manassas and Manassas Park.

Roem in 2018 became the first openly transgender person seated in a state legislature in the U.S. after she defeated then-state Del. Bob Marshall, a prominent LGBTQ rights opponent who co-wrote Virginia’s constitutional amendment defining marriage as between a man and a woman. Roem would become Virginia’s first out trans state senator if she defeats Woolf.

Woolf supports a bill that would require school personnel to out trans students to their parents. The Republican Party of Virginia has highlighted this position in ads in support of Woolf.

“Thank you for reminding me why I won three elections in this district in Prince William County, which is the most diverse county in all of Virginia and the 10th most nationally where we welcome everyone because of who they are, not despite it, no matter what you look like, where you come from, how you worship, if you do, or who you love because you should be able to thrive here because of who you are, never despite it,” said Roem on Sept. 28 in response to a woman who heckled her during a debate with Woolf that took place at Metz Middle School in Manassas.

Gay state Sen. Adam Ebbin (D-Alexandria) is running for re-election in Senate District 39. State Del. Mark Sickles (D-Fairfax County), who is also gay, is running for re-election in House District 43.

Former state Del. Joshua Cole, who identifies as bisexual, is running against Republican Lee Peters in House District 65. State Del. Kelly Convirs-Fowler (D-Virginia Beach), who came out as bisexual last year at Hampton Roads Pride, will face Republican Mike Karslake and independent Nicholas Olenik.

State Del. Marcia “Cia” Price (D-Newport News), a Black woman who identifies as pansexual, is running for re-election in House District 85. 

Adele McClure, a queer Democrat, is running to represent House District 2 that includes portions of Arlington County. Laura Jane Cohen, a bisexual woman who is a member of the Fairfax County School Board, is a House of Delegates candidate in House District 15.

Rozia Henson, a gay federal contractor who works for the Department of Homeland Security, is running in House District 19. Zach Coltrain, a gay Gen Zer, is running against state Del. Barry Knight (R-Virginia Beach) in House District 98. 

LPAC has endorsed Jade Harris, a Rockbridge County Democrat who is running to represent Senate District 3. Harris’ website notes trans rights are part of their platform.

“Protecting trans rights, repealing right to work, strengthening unions and supporting our farmers are just a few of my legislative priorities,” reads the website. “I am dedicated to addressing the revitalization of our state’s infrastructure, fostering a favorable environment for job creation, and supporting our public education system.”

Republicans currently control the House by a 51-46 margin, while Democrats have a 21-19 majority in the state Senate.

Senate Democrats have successfully blocked anti-LGBTQ bills that Republicans have introduced since Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin took office in January 2022. 

The Virginia Department of Education in July released new guidelines for trans and nonbinary students that activists and their supporters have sharply criticized. They fear that Republicans will curtail LGBTQ rights in the state if they regain control of both houses of the General Assembly on Nov. 7.

“Time and time again, anti-equality lawmakers and the Youngkin administration have made it clear that they will continue to disrespect and disregard the lives and lived experience of LGBTQ+ people within Virginia,” said Equality Virginia PAC Executive Director Narissa Rahaman in August when her organization and the Human Rights Campaign endorsed Roem, Ebbin and other “pro-equality champions.”

“We must elect pro-equality champions who will secure and strengthen our freedoms,” added Rahaman. “We have that chance as the eyes of the nation are on us this November.”

The LGBTQ+ Victory Fund has endorsed Fairfax County School Board Vice Chair Karl Frisch and Fairfax County School Board candidates Robyn Lady and Kyle McDaniel, who identify as lesbian and bisexual respectively. 

Michael Pruitt would become the first openly bisexual man elected to the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors if he were to win on Nov. 7. Blacksburg Town Councilman Michael Sutphin and Big Stone Gay Town Councilman Tyler Hughes, who are both gay, are running for re-election.

“Tyler will be a critical voice for equality as the only out LGBTQ+ person on the Big Stone Gap Town Council,” says the Victory Fund on its website.

Cal Benn contributed to this article.

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Miscellaneous

What it means to be an active ally to your LGBTQ+ co-workers TEST

Five easy tips to help you avoid common risks

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Be sure to install baby gates if you have stairs in your home with young children. (Photo by Kasia Bialasiewicz/Bigstock)

Your home is more than just a place to eat and sleep; it’s your safe haven. As much as you might cherish your home, you should probably also recognize the potential hazards within its familiar walls. Accidents can happen in an instant, yet with a little foresight and some simple adjustments, you can transform your house into a safer haven. 

Accidents can happen anywhere, and with a few simple tweaks, you can lower risks in your space. Below you’ll find five tips for each room in your home to help prevent injuries, falls, and other mishaps. In short, home safety. 

This article was inspired by a shower in a rental we managed that began leaking through the kitchen ceiling below. If only the landlord had installed grab bars, right!? Below, we’ll guide you through the steps to fortify your bathroom, making it a place of relaxation without the fear of slips and falls. Then, we’ll venture into the room where the magic happens, where proper planning can ensure great nights and peaceful mornings. We’ll show you how to prevent accidents while you experiment becoming the next Gordon Ramsey. And we’ll include a few surprising solutions for those other rooms that hold their own unique hazards, offering solutions to safeguard against unexpected mishaps.

Bathroom Safety

Install Grab Bars: Adding grab bars near the shower and toilet can provide essential support for family members of all ages. Not only can they help with getting in and out, but they can help provide stability when washing. Make sure they are securely anchored to the wall.

Non-Slip Mats: Place non-slip mats inside the shower and bathtub to prevent slips. They’re a small investment that can save you from falls and head injuries.

Adjust Water Temperature:  Ensure your hot water is set to a safe temperature to avoid scalding. The hot water heater should be set to around 120°F (49°C)l, the middle setting on many water heater settings. 

Medicine Cabinet Locks: If you have young children, use childproof locks on your medicine cabinet to keep harmful substances out of reach.

Proper Lighting: Ensure there’s adequate lighting in the bathroom to avoid trips and falls during nighttime visits. Nightlights can be a simple and effective solution. 

Bedroom Safety

Clear Pathways: Keep pathways in the bedroom clutter free to prevent tripping. Ensure there’s enough space to move around comfortably, particularly getting around the bed.  Be aware where all furniture is when walking around to avoid stubbed toes, particularly at night.

Secure Rugs: If you have throw rugs, use rug grippers or double-sided tape to keep them from slipping. Loose rugs are a common trip hazard. 

Bed Rails: For anyone at risk of falling out of bed, consider installing bed rails to provide extra support and prevent falls.

Nightstands with Drawers: Opt for nightstands with drawers to keep essential items.  This reduces the need to get out of bed at night, minimizing the risk of falls, as you race to grab what you need and not lose a moment’s rest.

Fire Safety: Install battery-operated smoke detectors in the bedrooms if there are none. Make sure to install them 36 inches away from an air vent or the edge of a ceiling fan.  Also six inches away from the joint between the wall and ceiling.  And test smoke detectors regularly.

Kitchen Safety

Non-Slip Flooring: Choose slip-resistant rugs in the kitchen, especially in areas where spills are common. Mats near the sink and stove can also help and you can often buy them fairly cheaply at Costco.

Childproof Cabinets: If you have little ones, use childproof latches on cabinets and drawers to prevent them from accessing potentially hazardous items.

Anti-tip brackets: Install an anti-tip bracket behind the range. These are often used when children are in the home. Although they are less likely to open the oven door and use it as a step stool to get to the stove-top, adults can also benefit from installing these. 

Adequate Lighting: Proper lighting is crucial in the kitchen to avoid accidents. Under-cabinet lighting can illuminate work areas effectively.

Secure Heavy Items: Ensure heavy pots and pans are stored at waist level to prevent straining or dropping them from high shelves.

Sharp Object Storage: Keep knives and other sharp objects in a secure drawer or block. And handle all sharp items with extreme care, even when washing and drying. These steps reduce the risk of accidental cuts.  

Other Safety Tips

Furniture Anchors: Secure heavy furniture, like bookshelves and dressers, to the wall to prevent tip-overs, especially if you have young children.

Adequate Outlets: Check for damaged outlets and replace them promptly. Avoid overloading circuits with too many devices. Install placeholder plugs in outlets to prevent young curious fingers (or tongues?) from going inside an electrical outlet.

Stair Gates: If your home has stairs, install safety gates at the top and bottom to prevent falls, especially if you have toddlers or pets to keep them off of the stairs when you cannot monitor them.

Emergency Escape Plan: Develop and practice an emergency escape plan with your family, including a designated meeting place outside.

Carbon Monoxide Detector:  If your home burns any fossil fuels for heating or appliances, install carbon monoxide detectors in common areas of your home to detect this odorless gas. The D.C. building codes require this if you use a fireplace or if you have an attached garage. In essence, if there is any potential source of carbon monoxide in the home, be sure to install these detectors.

Remember, a safer home not only prevents accidents but also provides peace of mind for you and your family. Implement these simple tips to create a secure environment in every room of your house.

With these practical tips and a few adjustments, you can significantly reduce the risk of injuries and falls in your home. Enjoy peace of mind in your now much safer haven.

Scott Bloom is owner and senior property manager of Columbia Property Management.

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