There are myriad reasons to despise and detest dirty Don Trump. There are just as many reasons to fear for the fate of the nation with a fascist imposing theocratic rule on the nation – not because Trump is religious, but because he would not be in a place he has no right visiting, much less occupying, without the religious right’s support. Up to this point, Trump has been religious in rewarding the extremist Christian cult and it appears that he was just getting started.
As he has done since his poorly-attended inauguration, Trump is being a dutiful tyrant on behalf of the religious right and is poised to “effectively erase transgender people out of existence.” It is no question that Trump is acting, in part, to protect religious right Republicans in 16 states who claimed they have suffered greatly from “transgender tyranny” and appealed to the High Court for redress. Instead, Trump will just make transgenders disappear — the extremist Christians’ problem solved without the High Court and Trump remains the extremist cult’s hero.
Transgender tyranny, according to religious Republicans, is allowing that transgender people are living American citizens worthy of protections against discrimination by federal laws as well as the Constitution’s 14th Amendment. Trump is changing that with a singularly tyrannical move typical of Adolf Hitler.
In service to the religious extremists co-running the government, Trump will use the Departments of Justice and Health and Human Services (HHS) to “narrowly define gender as a biological, immutable condition determined by genitalia at birth.” As noted over at HuffPo, this plan is a gift to the religious right; erasing transgender as an identity is tantamount to an official government edict “declaring there’s no such thing as transgender.” Science, of course, disagrees.
The plan, as deliberately devised, “effectively excludes transgender and nonbinary people from basic civil rights protections currently guaranteed by federal law and the United States Constitution.” And it is worth reiterating ad nauseam that this plan was specifically created for the extremist Christian fundamentalists who will take this victory as a significant step in their crusade to erase LGB people out of existence and therefore wipe out their protections from discrimination currently guaranteed by federal law and the U.S. Constitution.
If the Trump administration continues as expected, after gays, women will be the next group to lose their protections from discrimination under federal law and the U.S. Constitution. The highly unqualified, and highly extremist Christian Education Secretary DeVos has been methodical in setting the stage for that specific atrocity targeting women – no doubt as part of her goal of using the federal government to “advance the kingdom of god.”
However, the current move is setting up the extremist Christian assault on gays and it is not just this author’s opinion. Chad Griffin is president of the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) and he said:
“Setting a destructive precedent, the Trump-Pence administration intends to erase LGBTQ people from federal civil rights protections and eviscerate enforcement of non-discrimination laws. Defining ‘sex’ in this narrow language tailored to the talking points of anti-equality [Christian] extremists is part of a deliberate strategy to eliminate federal protections for LGBTQ people.”
In case any American doubts this “elimination” of transgender from America was driven by extremist Christians, consider the history of one of the edict’s proponents “of eradicating federal recognition of an estimated 1.4 million Americans.”
The cretin running the HHS Civil Right’s division, Roger Severino, was formerly the head of the DeVos Center for Religion and Civil Society at the extremist religious right Heritage Foundation. Severino is said to be among the extremist Christian conservatives who “blanched” at the idea of expanding gender identity to protect transgender people from discrimination and persecution – something Severino said was “radical gender ideology.”
Biological, social, and psychological scientists would say that Severino disputing scientific studies is “radical;” unless they are aware he is an evangelical malcontent and dyed-in-the-wool religious Republican. For dog’s sake, there are between seven and ten members of the animal kingdom that are transgender or multi-gender. Despite what Trump or his nasty evangelical masters claim, transgender is a real and natural “thing” and cannot be “eradicated” because of religion – but that is precisely what Trump’s evangelical plan entails.
The Department of HHS has argued over the past year, albeit quietly, that protecting transgender people, like protecting LGB people, “wrongfully extends civil rights protections to people who should not have them;” even if they are American citizens.
Think about that statement and recall that the religious right and their Republican facilitators have asserted for years that only white Christians are protected by the Constitution. It is precisely why anything contrary to that sentiment, whether it entails transgender rights, minority rights, marriage equality, LGBQ rights, or women’s rights is regarded by extremist Christians and religious Republicans as tyranny against them. Unfortunately for anyone not in the white Christian fundamentalist club, Trump will use the Federal government to “erase from existence” whatever group the Christian extremists and religious Republicans claim are being “tyrannical” because they exist and are protected by the Constitution and federal laws.
This act should terrify every American alive, including “the wrong kind of Christian.” Remember that earlier in the year, Speaker of the House Paul Ryan attempted to dislodge the House of Representatives (Christian) Chaplain because several evangelical Republicans claimed he was not the right kind of Christian.
A poem by German Lutheran pastor Martin Niemöller is apropos to America today; especially with hardly a whimper from the public in general that the fascist Trump intends on erasing from existence transgender as an identity - to make transgender people defenseless targets for the extremist Christian sect. The poem is particularly prescient to today because Trump has been keen on “coming for” and shutting down two of the groups in the original version of the poem.
“First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.”
Trump keeps a seemingly unending list of “enemies” he will “erase from existence” to abolish their basic civil, and human, rights if he is able; and if he can unilaterally erase transgender people from existence in one fell swoop, then no group is safe. Remember, this assault on transgender people has been planned for at least a year, more likely nearer to two years. The point is that given time, there are very few Americans who will not be targeted by Trump; including the Republicans Trump brags to his acolytes he destroys for not supporting him.
Hitler went after the media, gays, unions, Gypsies and non-Aryans, as well as anyone who dared to contradict him. Substitute Hispanics for Gypsies and include transgenders with “homosexuals” and Trump is the 21st Century’s Adolf Hitler (sod off Godwin). Also consider that Trump has recently elevated another demographic, women, to the top of his “hit list” and like his assault on LGBTQ people, Trump’s assault on women is borne of his remuneration for the nasty religious right’s electoral support, coupled with his endemic hatred for women he cannot dominate and abuse.
It is true that this abominable religious act, and that is all it is, is not going to entail Trump rounding up 1.4 million transgender people and sending them to internment camps; that is reserved at present for young immigrant children. However, it is abominable all the same and it is no wonder transgender people, and the LGBQ community are terrified. When the edict goes into effect, transgender people will not have any civil rights and indeed, they will have fewer rights than extremist Christians intend bestowing on a single-cell organism. And although this action might provoke a lawsuit, it will go to a very religious right High Court which is something the religious right and the dirty deviants a the DeVos Center for Religion and Civil Society at the Heritage Foundation cannot wait to happen; particularly after installing their deciding Christian vote on the Court.
There is not much any American can do to stop this atrocity from going into effect; even a Democratic majority Congress will be hard-pressed to stop it with an extreme pack of religious conservatives sitting on the High Court. These are dark days for Americans and if the population was as historically informed as they are mesmerized by Trump and the Kardashians, the nation would not be on pace to repeat the atrocity that was Nazi Germany and various groups would not find themselves on the receiving end of a criminal tyrant intent on eradicating basic human and civil rights – all to sate the extremist Christian cult’s lust for power and domination.