Olympic champion Caitlyn Jenner says she was wrong about Donald Trump on trans issues
Former Olympic champion Caitlyn Jenner endorsed President Donald Trump in 2016 with a belief that he would be an advocate for the LGBTQ community in the White House.
On Thursday, Jenner said she was wrong to have done so.
Jenner pens column furious with Trump
“Despite the criticism I received from segments of the LGBTQ community for engaging with this administration, I remained hopeful for positive change,” Jenner wrote in a Washington Post column on Thursday.
“Sadly, I was wrong. The reality is that the trans community is being relentlessly attacked by this president.”
The 1976 Olympics decathlon gold medalist as Bruce Jenner came out as a trans woman in 2015 and was honored with ESPN’s Arthur Ashe Courage Award that same year.
Jenner backed Trump in 2016
A prominent LGBTQ advocate, Jenner backed Trump after he promised to protect the community at the 2016 Republican National Convention.
“I will do everything in my power to protect our LGBTQ citizens from the violence and depression of a hateful foreign ideology,” Trump said. “Believe me.”
Since taking office, Trump has pushed to ban trans people from the military and is seeking to legally define gender as “a biological, immutable condition determined by genitalia at birth,” according to a leaked memo reported by the New York Times.
Jenner: Trump ‘has insulted our dignity’
Jenner wrote in no uncertain terms that she felt betrayed and is angry with Trump.
“He has insulted our dignity,” Jenner said. “He has made trans people into political pawns as he whips up animus against us in an attempt to energize the most right-wing segment of his party, claiming his anti-transgender policies are meant to ‘protect the country.’ This is politics at its worst. It is unacceptable, it is upsetting, and it has deeply, personally hurt me.”
Jenner is a lifelong Republican whose support of Trump was criticized by her community.
The leaked memo about defining gender appears to be what pushed Jenner over the edge in regards to Trump.
“Believing that I could work with Trump and his administration to support our community was a mistake,” she wrote. “The recently leaked Department of Health and Human Services memo that suggests — preposterously and unscientifically — that the government ought to link gender to one’s genitalia at birth is just one more example in a pattern of political attacks.”
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