2020 Wins for the LGBTQ+ Community
Tags: LGBTQ, 2020, LGBT, Queer

Needless to say 2020 has been ripe with bad news, misfortune, and tomfoolery from the U.S. government. World wide, millions of people are predicted to die from coronavirus, Donald Trump is embarrassing America more every day with his lame attempts to steal the election, and RBG was replaced by someone who couldn’t recite the first amendment. Our postal service has been openly attacked by our federal government and the economy is declining. It seems like nothing good has happened in 2020, and everyday it will only get worse. But that’s not entirely true. This year has been awful for billions of people, but there are some moments worth celebrating, especially for the LGBTQ+ community.

At the state level several laws were passed that aid in protecting the LGBTQ+ community from violence and work towards a greater societal acceptance of the LGBTQ+ community. In January, New Hampshire passed a law that allowed for a third gender option on driver’s license. This legal recognition of the transgender community is a hopeful move in the direction of wider acceptance and understanding of non binary genders. In Virginia, the governor signed a bill making conversion therapy for any minors illegal. This is a huge victory in the battle to ban conversion therapy. As of right now there are only 24 states and 1 territory that restrict conversion therapy, 20 of which ban it completely. In Washington, the governor also signed off on a bill that removed the “gay panic” defense. This is a legal term used by a defendant, mostly of the time in murder cases, which makes discovering someone’s gender or sexuality a valid legal defense for committing a crime. Before Washington joined this list, only ten states banned this defense. Although Washington marks the eleventh state to ban the “gay panic” defense, there is still a long way to go to rid ourselves of this blatantly homophobic and violent legal defence.

Federally, the LGBTQ+ community made a huge step forward, and backward, in June. Many of us will remember the Trump administration rolling back on a law protecting transgender people from discrimination in health care services. But the supreme court also extended federal job protections to the LGBTQ+ community. This was decided in a 6–3 ruling under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act.

We also saw a huge rainbow wave in this year’s election. During the high tension Presidential race it was hard to focus on the positives. But, a record of almost 600 openly LGBTQ+ candidates makes it a little easier to see the good in this election. Some of the highlights of the rainbow wave are the election of Sarah McBride (the first openly transgender State Senator), Mondaire Jones (one of the first Black LGBTQ+ members of congress), and Mauree Turner (first Muslim and first out non-binary person to serve in Oklahoma House of Representatives).

In addition, Elliot Page, star of “Juno” and “The Umbrella Academy” publicly came out as transgender on Twitter. He wrote,

“Hi friends, I want to share with you that I am trans, my pronouns are he/they and my name is Elliot. I feel lucky to be writing this. To be here. To have arrived at this place in my life. I feel overwhelming gratitude for the incredible people who have supported me along this journey. I can’t begin to express how remarkable it feels to finally love who I am enough to pursue my authentic self. I’ve been endlessly inspired by so many in the trans community. Thank you for your courage, your generosity and ceaselessly working to make this world a more inclusive and compassionate place. I will offer whatever support I can and continue to strive for a more loving and equal society.”

Elliot Page marks history as one of the first truly famous out transgender actors. The work they have already done for the transgender community combined with the representation he will now bring millions of transgender people will make them an icon for generations to come.

Lastly, in 2020 we voted, volunteered, and worked endlessly to ensure that Trump was a one term President, and it worked. The Democratic Party and millions of other American’s ensured that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris would end the Trump’s terrible, disorganized, trainwreck of a presidency.