I grew up in an upper-income household, in an accepting environment, and with incredible educational opportunities.
— Sarah McBride
Trump's campaign is not a collection of ignorant statements. It is a candidacy of hate and fear that poses serious risks to people of color, women, people with disabilities, immigrants, and LGBTQ people.
Trump's appointed extremist judges to the federal bench, including U.S. Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch, whose decisions demonstrate a judicial philosophy far more concerned with the rights of corporations than marginalized Americans.
Despite saying the letters 'LGBTQ' at the RNC, Donald Trump consistently endorsed anti-equality positions.
When the boys and girls would line up separately in kindergarten, I'd find myself longing to be in the other line.
Put simply, barring transgender people from restrooms consistent with their gender identity doesn't help anyone, and continuing to allow transgender people to access those restrooms doesn't hurt anyone.
I've always been Sarah. My gender identity has always existed. I've always been a woman. Gay people aren't straight before they come out as gay, and transgender people are who they are before they come out and transition.
There's no question that the best way to get people to care about an issue is to humanize it.
My name is Sarah McBride, and I am a proud transgender American.
For my entire life, I've wrestled with my gender identity.
Donald Trump, Mike Pence, and Jeff Sessions are using their powers and offices to make life as difficult as possible for everyone from the transgender worker to the gay widower to the queer undocumented immigrant. These efforts are not about bathrooms or religious freedom; they're about driving LGBTQ people out of public life.
Days after being sworn in as the nation's top law enforcement officer, Trump's attorney general, the virulently anti-LGBTQ Jeff Sessions, revoked lifesaving guidance promoting the protection and dignity of transgender students.
I would take issue with the assertion that President Trump has reached out to a diverse group for his cabinet secretaries. In fact, his cabinet is one of the least diverse in modern history.
Instead of moving backward, we should expand opportunity and protections by repealing hateful laws and passing comprehensive LGBT nondiscrimination laws at the local, state, and federal level.
When you know someone's story, it becomes much harder to hate them.
When gay, lesbian and bisexual individuals come out, their friends and families, for the most part, understand what it feels like to love and to lust. Cisgender people have more of a challenge when it comes to transgender identities. I discovered that analogy of homesickness in conversations with my parents, in trying to bridge that empathy divide.
Will we be a nation where there's only one way to love, one way to look, one way to live? Or will we be a nation where everyone has the freedom to live openly and equally?
For me, having a gender identity that was different from my sex assigned at birth and that wasn't seen by society felt like a constant feeling of homesickness - that unwavering ache in the pit of my stomach.
While Donald Trump claimed during the campaign that he would be a 'friend' to the LGBTQ community, we knew it was likely one more 'alternative fact' spouted by the President and his team.
Gorsuch showed his true colors to the LGBTQ community when, in one of his first dissenting opinions on the high court, he advocated limiting the reach of the landmark 2015 marriage equality ruling by denying certain parenting rights to same-sex couples.
While I don't think President Trump is going to round LGBTQ people up, I do think the concerns from the community about his vision are not only understandable but warranted.
We certainly hope that Secretary DeVos will work on behalf of every student and ensure equal access to a safe and quality education for LGBTQ young people.
Efforts to bar transgender people from restrooms are nothing more than an attempt to codify discrimination before our country advances any further on transgender equality.
The Trump-Pence administration has truly become one of the most explicitly anti-LGBTQ administrations in history.
It was easier to forget, or be dismissive about, transgender issues when there weren't transgender staffers or interns walking the halls of the White House.
When I came out, I wondered whether I had a future not just professionally but romantically. Would I be able to find someone who loved me?
No one should be forced to not dream anymore.
