The White House bathed in rainbow lights symbolic of LGBTQ pride after the Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage.

Ted Eytan/Flickr (CC-BY-SA)

Trump administration falls silent on Pride Month—again

Remember when Trump's campaign promised LGBTQ protections?

Photo of Samantha Grasso 

Samantha Grasso

Layer 8

Posted on Jun 8, 2018   Updated on May 21, 2021, 1:57 pm CDT

For the second year in a row, President Donald Trump has failed to recognize the month of June as LGBTQ Pride Month. And though his critics are unsurprised, they’re none too pleased with his silence, either.

https://twitter.com/jpbrammer/status/1003351456924291073

Last year, BuzzFeed News attempted to get comment from Trump’s office each day of June to explain why the administration failed to recognize the month as Pride Month. All the while, the administration celebrated Great Outdoors Month, National Ocean Month, National Homeownership Month, National Caribbean-American Heritage Month, and African-American Music Appreciation Month, instead.

This year has been no different, as Insider has pointed out. For the second year in a row, the White House has refused to make a declaration.

This isn’t the first time a president has refused to recognize Pride Month while in office. While former President Bill Clinton first recognized the designation in 2000, President George W. Bush did not designate the month during his presidency. The Obama administration reimplemented the designation during both terms.

Throughout this first week of June, Trump’s critics have celebrated Pride Month themselves by calling out his failure to the LGBTQ community he so brazenly paraded the support of during his presidential campaign.

https://twitter.com/L8NiteWithTony/status/1004409098551595008

Some have gone a step further, pointing out how Trump has failed the LGBTQ community so far during his first term, despite promising, verbatim, to protect those constituents in exchange for their support during the 2016 presidential campaign.

Since then, his administration has done anything but make good on the protections they insured. Instead, Trump has rescinded Title IX anti-discrimination protections for transgender students, made the decision to exclude LGBTQ identity from questions on the 2020 census, attempted to ban transgender people from serving in the military, spoken at a summit for an anti-LGBTQ organization, appointed anti-LGBTQ judges, and reportedly “joked” that Vice President Mike Pence wants to “hang” anyone who identifies with the LGBTQ community.

READ MORE:

Of course, the “upside” of Trump not speaking up about Pride month for the second year in a row—if any silver lining could be considered—is that he’s not attempting to mask his homophobic supporters and transphobic policies with an empty sign of support.

https://twitter.com/Lauren_Stimola/status/1003808987496828929

Without a doubt, after this first year and a half of his administration’s attacks on the LGBTQ community, anyone would call out any vague display of “support” as a hypocritical appeal to the left.

Yes, there are still just over three weeks left of June for the administration to pivot and suddenly show hallow support. But precedent shows chances of this happening are slim to none.

The White House did not immediately respond to the Daily Dot’s request for comment. We’ll update this article if we hear back.

Share this article
*First Published: Jun 8, 2018, 6:44 pm CDT

Samantha Grasso

Samantha Grasso is a former IRL staff writer for the Daily Dot with a reporting emphasis on immigration. Her work has appeared on AJ+, Vox, Splinter, Los Angeles Magazine, and Austin Monthly.

Samantha Grasso