Merkley leads bill protecting LGBTQ from 'hateful' Trump policies

PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) – In an effort to protect the LGBTQ+ community from "hateful" policies under the Trump administration, Senator Jeff Merkley (D-OR) is leading a bill, that he says, will counter anti-LGBTQ+ executive orders.

The No Place for LGBTQ+ Hate Act, which Merkley introduced alongside Congresswoman Becca Balint (D-VT), would ensure that executive orders targeting lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, and other Americans have no effect while also ensuring no federal funds are used to carry out those orders.

The lawmakers said the bill takes aim at several executive orders issued by President Donald Trump, including an order signed on Trump's first day back in office that calls for the federal government to define sex as male or female -- and for those sexes to be reflected on official documents such as passports.

As reported by the Associated Press, the order rejects the idea that someone could transition to another gender or could identify as something other than male or female.

The executive order states "Across the country, ideologues who deny the biological reality of sex have increasingly used legal and other socially coercive means to permit men to self-identify as women and gain access to intimate single-sex spaces and activities designed for women, from women's domestic abuse shelters to women's workplace showers."

However, CBS News reports that the order is at odds with statements from transgender Americans who say they try to use those spaces to align with their identity and not to "'gain access to intimate single-sex spaces and activities designed for women.'"

Merkley and Balint said their bill also takes aim at an executive order to reinstate a ban on transgender people entering the military, an order to prevent transgender youth from receiving gender-affirming health care along with an order banning transgender students from participating in school sports.

“Freedom is the right to safely live as your authentic self without fear of harassment, discrimination, or violence,” Sen. Merkley said in a press release announcing the bill. “President Trump and Republicans are attacking our LGBTQ+ neighbors, friends, and family members by rubberstamping discrimination in every aspect of daily life. As we mark Pride Month this year, we say ‘hell no’ to this hate and honor those who have fought for LGBTQ+ equality by never giving up on the vision of America as a land of freedom for all.”

“Trump cannot take away our rights or our health care just with the stroke of a pen. I’m standing with Senator Merkley and my colleagues to show the Trump administration that their hate and dehumanizing rhetoric targeting queer Americans doesn't intimidate us. We won’t back down when it comes to protecting our rights. No matter how much they try to erase us and our history, LGBTQI+ people are valued members of every community across this country,” Rep. Balint added.

The bill is co-sponsored by several lawmakers including Senators Ron Wyden (D-OR), Cory Booker (D-NJ), Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) along with Representatives Maxine Dexter (D-OR-03), Jasmine Crockett (D-TX-30) and Jamie Raskin (D-MD-06).