One week after America elected Donald Trump as the next president, many in the LGBTQ+ community remain disappointed. NBC News exit polls showed that nearly 90% of LGBTQ voters voted for Kamala Harris.
Ashlee Marie Preston is an LGBTQ+ activist and community leader. She’s balancing her disappointment with motivation to create a better future.
“In this moment, we just continue moving forward,“’ Preston said. “I wanted to raise people from the depths of despair that they found themselves in, but the truth is that that’s part of how we build revolution.”
Preston is also a trans woman. Transgender people were among the groups often targeted by the Trump campaign. At one point on the campaign trail, Trump said, “we won’t be changing your children’s gender with their transgender craziness.”
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“They’re clearly coming after trans people,” Preston said. “They have to find the scapegoat, that one community that is so small, a blip that they don’t have the power, capacity and resource to advocate for themselves and they use it as a distraction.”
Since Trump’s win, LGBT organizations said they’ve been flooded with calls to their crisis hotlines. The Trevor Project, a suicide prevention organization, reported a 700% increase in calls to their crisis services the day after the election.
The LA LGBT Center shared similar news.
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“We have seen an increase in demand for services here at the Los Angeles LGBT Center and the service that is in the most demand is mental health support,” LA LGBT Center CEO Joe Hollendoner said. “I think people are rightfully fearful for what the future will create for our community.”
Hollendoner has this message for the people they serve:
“Here at the LA LGBT Center, we have been fighting for the rights and freedoms of our community for the last 55 years and we are going to continue to do that even in the face of attacks that President Trump might try to wield onto our community,” he said.
But not everyone in the community is disappointed with Trump’s win.
“We’re basically thrilled for the next four years,” Jake Iorio said.
Iorio is the LA Chapter President for the Log Cabin Republicans, the nation’s largest LGBT conservative organization.
“Basically, we have the most inclusive president in Donald Trump,” Iorio said. “He was able to remove opposition to same-sex marriage from the RNC Platform, despite objections from social conservatives and also he’s included LGBTQ people in his past administration and he’s also going to include them in the current administration.”
As for Preston even though her candidate lost, she doesn’t feel defeated.
“Yes we can be upset, we can be frustrated, we can be afraid, we can be anxious and we can still think about what our next steps are going to be,” Preston said. “I think that we really have an opportunity to see this as a layover to a much more desirable destination that’s going to truly center the dignity, safety, and access of all Americans.”
