Instigator / Pro
28
1499
rating
4
debates
37.5%
won
Topic
#2022
Trump has done more harm than good for LGBTQ+ Americans.
Status
Finished
The debate is finished. The distribution of the voting points and the winner are presented below.
Winner & statistics
After 4 votes and with 28 points ahead, the winner is...
Pendragon524
Parameters
- Publication date
- Last updated date
- Type
- Standard
- Number of rounds
- 4
- Time for argument
- One week
- Max argument characters
- 15,000
- Voting period
- Two weeks
- Point system
- Multiple criterions
- Voting system
- Open
Contender / Con
0
1468
rating
2
debates
0.0%
won
Description
Trump has on occasion attempted to appease both the anti-LGBTQ sentiments of the religious right and the more progressive and inclusive vision of mainstream America. However, on balance, President Trump has undermined efforts to afford equal rights to LGBTQ Americans. He has harmed far more than he has helped. Whether these actions have been justified (morally or legally) is a separate question that will not be pursued here. In this debate, we are essentially concerned with a morally neutral evaluation of Trump’s track record on LGBTQ rights. If someone disagrees with my judgement on that score, take up the debate!
Round 1
President Trump's track-record on LGBTQ rights is not
one of progress and good-will. Instead, the President has done more harm than
good for the lives of LGBTQ Americans over his time in office. I agree with Michelangelo Signorile who writes in the Washington
Post that “[t]he Trump administration’s
continued assaults on LGBTQ rights are nothing short of breathtaking,” [1]
But first, two preliminary issues. First, I define "actions
of the President" under the resolution to include, not only direct
decisions made by Trump, but also any actions taken by his administration. I
have two reasons for this stipulation. (i) Trump appointed the members of his
cabinet and other heads of various federal departments, thereby making him implicitly
responsible for their actions. (ii) The President is the one to whom these men
and women are accountable, so his refraining from correcting an action by a
segment of his administration is implicit approval of that action. The Trump
administration and the federal government more generally includes the “[f]ifteen executive departments — each
led by an appointed member of the President’s Cabinet — [that] carry out the
day-to-day administration of the federal government” and “other executive
agencies such as the CIA and Environmental Protection Agency, the heads of
which are not part of the Cabinet, but who are under the full authority of the
President” [2]. Second, as said in the overview of this debate, I am not
concerned to defend the morality or legality of the President’s stance towards
LGBTQ individuals. Instead, I will argue only that his decisions during his
time in office have harmed queer Americans.
I.
Health care
A final example stems from
the HHS declining proposals that would have required hospitals to enforce
policies prohibiting discrimination based on gender identity or sexual
orientation as a requirement to take part in Medicare and Medicaid. On its
face, this action implies that hospitals can discriminate on this basis and
still take part in these government-funded programs. On that note, it is
important realize that discrimination against LGBTQ people in healthcare is not
a mere theoretical possibility. The evidence bears out that being gay, bi,
lesbian, or transgender increases one’s risk of facing discrimination when
seeking medical attention or advice. NBC News reports that “[a] 2017 report by the liberal Center for American
Progress found 8 percent of lesbian, gay and bisexual people, and 29 percent of
trans people reported that a provider had refused to see them because of their
sexual orientation or gender identity in the previous year.” [6] It is even
more troubling that the Trump administration would add fuel to that fire.
II. Education
III. Employment
In a sense, I
have saved the most damning evidence for last. When it comes to employment
guidelines and regulations, the Trump Administration has failed the LGBTQ
constituents of America. The most obvious example is Trump’s move to ban transgender
people from the military. While transgender people who were members of the military
before the ban went into place can apply for a waiver, no new transgender
individuals may enlist. The harm to transgender individuals here is two-fold.
First, they suffer the harm of decreased employment opportunities. The ban bars
them from serving their country, no matter the strength of their conviction or
the fire of their patriotism. Second, they suffer the psychological harm that
comes from belonging to a banned minority.
Or again,
former attorney general Jeff Sessions issued a memo that changed the Justice
Department’s stance towards discrimination in the workplace. Heretofore, discrimination
based on considerations of gender identity or sexual orientation was illegal.
With the decision of Sessions, the Department reversed itself and such discrimination
was now perfectly legal. Following this move, various branches of the
Department have filed legal briefs before federal courts defending discrimination
in the workplace. Some of these briefs currently stand before the Supreme
Court. For instance, when “a Michigan funeral home director…was fired after she
announced she was transitioning to a woman,” [7] the DoJ filed briefs in
defense of the funeral home’s right to fire her. That women suffered the harm
of lost employment and income, and examples can only go up if the Supreme Court
allows those guidelines to go through.
IV. Conclusion
Notes
[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/trump-may-want-you-to-think-hes-lgbtq-friendly-dont-be-fooled/2019/08/20/c2b7a7be-c36b-11e9-b72f-b31dfaa77212_story.html
I will organize the evidence for that contention under
three headings: (i) health care, (ii) education, and (iii) employment. Under
each heading, my argument will be that first, the federal government action implicates
LGBTQ people, and second, that implication is harmful. That two-step structure
makes clear that I realize gesturing towards a potentially harmful policy is
not enough to demonstrate actual harm, so I will connect theoretical
considerations to empirical evidence of harm as tightly as possible.
The primary way that the
Trump administration has undermined LGBTQ Americans in health care is by
removing protections against discrimination based on gender identity and sexual
orientation. The main affront to queer Americans came when the Department of
Health and Human Services (HHS) tried to institute a rule known as “Protecting
Statutory Conscience Claims in Healthcare.” This rule would have allowed hospitals
and other healthcare facilities to turn patients away and deny care to them based
on the former’s religious conscience. Services affected by this ruling would
have included “abortion, ectopic pregnancy care, contraception,
gender dysphoria treatment, vaccine administration, physician aid in dying and
other services” and the people who would be empowered to discriminate included “ancillary
personnel such as clerks, technicians, medical assistants, ambulance drivers
and other nonprofessional staffers, as well as physicians, nurses and other
medical professionals” [3]. Fortunately, a federal judge struck down the
ruling. However, even though the rule never went into effect, it increases the
plausibility of the contention that the Trump administration has harmed LGBTQ people.
This first consideration is a contextual consideration, to be sure, but a
powerful one.
Another example comes again from the HHS: they have proposed a rule modification that allows
agencies to accept grants from the federal government, without requiring
them to refrain from discrimination against LGBTQ individuals. [4] The organizations
include “those related to HIV and STD prevention, substance abuse treatment,
youth homelessness, elder care and other areas of public health and education.”
[5] It is difficult to see who one could argue that this rule would not harm LGBTQ individuals. Regardless of the stated or actual motivation behind
this policy, it has obvious negative implications for the health and welfare of
gay, lesbian, and transgender Americans.
The current
administration’s track-record of LGBTQ rights and public education is no
better. According to a report published by the Center for American Progress, “complaints
students filed alleging sexual orientation- and gender identity-based
discrimination were nine times less likely to result in corrective action under
the Trump administration than under the Obama administration.” These students
are left defenseless and alone in getting the legal tools to fight back against
discrimination and mistreatment. Moreover, the Department of Education has
confirmed that it will not follow-up with complaints filed by transgender
individuals who have been denied access to the gendered bathroom with which
they identify. Again, one needs to keep in mind that the question here is not, “Are
these actions justified?”, but simply, “What is their impact on LGBTQ Americans?”
They have obviously had a negative and harmful impact, regardless of their
justification.
Harm related
to education stems from the Department of Agriculture requiring 4-H – a character-building organization that touches the lives of over seven million
young people worldwide – to remove guidelines from its website about how to
welcome young LGBTQ people into the program. Unless Con has some compelling
evidence to the contrary, the face-value interpretation of the Department’s decision
on this score is that LGBTQ people are not worth having even guidelines about their
inclusion. Psychological harm, I think, is the obvious implication of a
move like that.
Moreover, the Department
of Labor issued a statement that “exempt[ed] contractors from compliance with
federal nondiscrimination rules that cover employment if they conflict with a
contractor’s religious beliefs” [8]. Noami Goldberg has stated that “[e]xamples
of the type of discrimination this action condones include firing unmarried
pregnant workers, workers who may not be coreligionists or who can’t sign a
statement of faith, unmarried cohabiting workers and L.G.B.T. workers.” [9]
Whether it comes to employment, education, or health care, there can be little doubt that LGBTQ Americans
have not done well under the Presidency of Donald Trump. I await Con’s argument
to the contrary.
[4] https://www.hhs.gov/about/news/2019/11/01/hhs-issues-proposed-rule-to-align-grants-regulation.html
Forfeited
Round 2
I extend all arguments. Hopefully Con will post next round and we’ll get some interaction with what I’ve had to say.
Forfeited
Round 3
Arguments extended.
Forfeited
Round 4
One more time! Arguments extended.
Forfeited
transgenders are a different "breed" of people than gays
if it not a mental illness, please explain why half of them unfortunetaly take their life?
That’s a nice bit of rhetoric and flourish, Fauxlaw, but you’ve misunderstood my stipulation on several counts. For one thing, it is not “essentially [my] argument that Trump's motives have not been justified.” I have deliberately not made that claim and will not do so in this debate. Moreover, adopting a morally neutral stance when outlining Trump’s impact on the LGBTQ community is not to remove “the very core issue” or the “turning point” of the debate. It is to focus our analysis on one set of issues in a much broader debate. Before one can determine if a President’s policies were morally reprehensible or praiseworthy, one must determine what, exactly, those policies were in the first place. Deciding whether Trump’s actions are justified (legally or morally) would involve complicated questions of constitutional interpretation, subtle issues of religious freedom versus a religious license to discriminate, and so on, and my mind is not made up on many of those questions. So, I reject your request to remove the relevant restriction.
Your statement, "Whether these actions have been justified (morally or legally) is a separate question that will not be pursued here" is completely counterproductive to debating the issue since it is essentially your argument that Trump's motives have not been justified, morally or legally. Isn't that really the turning point of your proposed debate? To declare that it is not relevant, and will not be part of the debate takes the very core issue out of it. Nice surgery, Doctor, but the patient was not declared a surgical candidate in the first place. Remove that declarative statement in total, I'll be more inclined to debate.
Further, effectively opposing a "morally neutral" position, as Trump is accused of taking, will be an interesting justification for arguing that Trump has done more harm than good. Good luck.