President Donald Trump at CPAC 2017, Photo: Gage Skidmore / Flickr
On Monday, President Donald Trump issued an executive order allowing companies that do business with the federal government to avoid disclosing past instances of discrimination or violating labor laws.
Trump’s order rescinds an Obama-era executive order that required companies with federal contracts to report whether they have been found liable for violations of any labor laws or executive orders, including those that prohibit discrimination against protected classes of people, including LGBTQ individuals. The executive order also instructed federal officials to consider those violations when awarding contracts.
LGBTQ legal advocacy organization Lambda Legal slammed Trump for rescinding Obama’s executive order. The group’s CEO, Rachel Tiven, called the now-rescinded regulations in the order a valuable enforcement tool intended to hold employers responsible for violations of nondiscrimination laws. She also encouraged LGBTQ employees of federal contractors, and those with HIV, to contact the organization if they believe their rights have been discriminated against because of their sexual orientation or HIV status.
“This sends a message that the government condones discrimination,” Tiven said of Trump’s actions. “Scrapping an order like this one is different than not adopting one. It’s not surprising given Donald Trump’s sordid history with women that this administration is allowing companies to hide sex discrimination — including sexual harassment.
“Furthermore,” Tiven added, “this administration is inviting businesses to the table that violate equal pay and fair wage laws, ignore laws requiring family medical leave, or target employees for discrimination based on race, sex, gender identity, gender non-conformity (including being gay or lesbian), disability (including HIV), and numerous other grounds. All of these things violate the law. Companies that flout the law should be sued — not invited to win our tax dollars.”
President Donald Trump used his address to Congress on Tuesday, March 4, to attack transgender individuals, calling transgender identity a "lie" and railing against transgender athletes, gender-affirming care, and trans visibility in the military and more broadly within society.
At one point during the speech, Trump switched from speaking about a child who was diagnosed with cancer to claim his administration was protecting children from "toxic ideologies" in schools.
He brought up the story of January Littlejohn, a Florida anti-transgender activist who sued the Leon County School District in Tallahassee, Flordia, in 2021, alleging that her child's school had discussed restrooms and name change requests with the child, assisting her in "socially transitioning" without informing Littlejohn or her husband of their efforts.
A California appeals court has ruled in favor of a lesbian couple, finding that a baker discriminated against them when she refused to sell them a generic wedding cake.
The case deals with an exception to a loophole that many conservatives believe they had carved out, enabling them to openly discriminate against LGBTQ people in the provision of public goods or services.
In 2018, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of a Colorado baker who objected to creating a custom-made wedding cake for a gay couple's wedding, finding that the Colorado Civil Rights Commission had been unfairly prejudiced against the baker's religious beliefs.
"This is about coming back home for me," Evan Low says of his new role as president and CEO of the LGBTQ+ Victory Fund and LGBTQ+ Victory Institute.
"Victory endorsed me as a candidate when I was 20 years old for City Council, back in 2004," the former California State Assemblymember says.
"I lost that first election, but Victory was there for me to help pick me up, catch me, and push me right along. I ran the next cycle, and I was successful at 23 years old. Victory helped invest in me to make me become the youngest openly LGBT Mayor at that time back in 2009."
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