Friends,
These past few days have been deeply painful. So painful that I hadn’t until now found the words to capture the feelings of disgust, anger, and yes, fear, that President Trump and his administration have unleashed through their multiple attacks upon LGBTQ communities in the United States.
Recent years saw the unprecedented expansion of rights and freedoms for LGBTQ Americans. These were hard-won, and came at the expense of many tragically unfulfilled dreams, and even many lives. To threaten to take them away is unconscionable, and un-American.
As an adult, I can manage my emotions and employ reason and perspective to respond in, hopefully, productive and effective ways: speak up, protest, lobby against any impending actual legislation, and even exercise my right to relocate should I feel unsafe or unhappy.
What is unforgivable, and irreversible, is how the Administration’s actions have affected the lives of children — innocent youth, LGBTQ as well as heterosexual children. As my colleague Rabbi Jesse Olitzky powerfully expressed a few days ago in a Facebook post I shared, President Trump has imperiled the lives of millions of children who now feel unsafe and unwanted in their country, and who likely question their place in society as a whole. We know only too well the high rates of anxiety, depression and suicide in the LGBTQ teen and young adult world. Our own community of Sha’ar was profoundly impacted by the death of Sam Price, z”l, a transgender student at Oberlin who interned for me while she dreamed of being a rabbi and building inclusive Jewish communities. She did just that by launching with me our Purim Unmasquerade Ball for LGBTQ Jewish teens, but tragically took her own life last year.
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Shame on this Administration for playing so carelessly with the lives of these children, not only by threatening to reverse the moral and social progress we achieved as a country when we enlarged our embrace of sexual and gender diversity and ensured that this diversity would be protected and defended, but by risking their health and wellbeing, and even their lives.
We must all find ways to respond and protest these despicable developments. But whatever you do, keep your eyes and hearts open to the LGBTQ kids all around you. Make sure to tell them how deeply they are loved and appreciated along with all other children. Help them see their beauty, feel their power, and use their agency. And, with your words and deeds, teach all other children to treat their peers of all kinds with the same respect and honor they desire for themselves, that this country is home to all of us, and that we are all images of the Divine.
I can’t help but feel the frightening resurgence of hatred and bigotry which we’re told caused the Temple to fall. The only tikkun, the only repair and antidote to that kind of social violence, taught Rav Kook, is unbridled love. Let this Shabbat be one of love and dignity, let it renew us for the battle ahead to ensure not only the continued presence of transgender soldiers in our military, the civil rights of LGBTQ in the workplace, and the right of Andi and I, and couples like us, to live our lives as married partners, but to ensure that our children — all our children — grow up knowing they are loved, respected, appreciated, and beautiful.
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Photo credit: Getty Images
This country has a long, sad, history of playing with kids’ lives. Look at how long it took to outlaw child labor and now some politicians want to bring it back. Look at how we have been cutting back on kids education for nearly 40 years.
I did post a comment. Should learn to copy and paste because when it says in moderation it’s the kiss of the blue screen of death here. Generally.
And exactly how did he do this, and specifically what did he say that now imperils the lives of all the lgbtq kids? Your article says nothing but really hyperbole and disparaging remarks against the president. He said, on the advice of his generals, that transgender people will not be able to serve in the military. It is clear many weren’t going there to actually want to fulfill a desire to be a soldier, but to have someone else pay for their reassignment surgeries. I support transform to serge, but I don’t think we should pay gor their reassignment. Dont… Read more »