Culture

What the Trump Impeachment Inquiry Means for LGBTQ+ Americans


 

On Tuesday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced that Congress will begin a formal impeachment inquiry against President Trump. Pelosi cited Trump’s admission that he asked the Ukraine to investigate rival Presidential candidate Joe Biden just days after freezing military aid to the country, in what many have interpreted as an effort to use extortion to pressure a foreign country to interfere in the 2020 elections. The incident came to light because of a whistleblower complaint filed by an intelligence official to Intelligence Community Inspector General Michael Atkinson, a complaint the White House has yet to release publicly.

“The president must be held accountable. No one is above the law,” said Pelosi at a Tuesday press conference. “The actions of the Trump presidency revealed the dishonorable fact of the president’s betrayal of his oath of office, betrayal of our national security, and betrayal of the integrity of our elections.”

For an already-chaotic presidency mired in near-constant allegations of misconduct on Trump’s behalf, Tuesday’s events represented a new high mark — one that finally brought Congress to the brink. While a sizable portion of Democrats have been calling for impeachment since the start of the two-year Special Counsel investigation into Trump’s collusion with Russia during the 2016 campaign, evidence that a sitting president is actively trying to pressure a nation to interfere in the next election is the straw that broke the camel’s back. And not just any nation; Ukraine is a battleground for democracy, having been invaded by Russia under Vladimir Putin’s effort to dominate the small country despite its repeated efforts to Westernize and join the European Union. With Trump appearing to do Putin’s dirty work on a global scale, using America as a bargaining chip, the stakes are higher than ever. And a president who seems to be in bed with Putin is a scary thing for LGBTQ+ Americans; Putin passed a law in 2013 banning LGBTQ+ “propaganda” that intensified harassment, violence, and arrests of queer Russians, and Putin-controlled Chechnya is the site of a notoriously violent “purge” of gay and bisexual men that caused international outcry and sanctions.

But what does the specter of impeachment mean to LGBTQ+ Americans, especially in an election year? We know what most queer and trans people are thinking: if Trump is impeached, doesn’t that leave us with President Pence? LGBTQ+ advocates have become well-acquainted with constant underlying stress since the onset of the Trump era, and this moment is no different. In order to contextualize the magnitude of impeachment, we have to start with what the Trump presidency has meant for LGBTQ+ rights so far.





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