First of two parts
ALLENTOWN, Pa. — During President-elect Donald Trump's rally in Allentown in the waning days of the campaign, he invoked a divisive line increasingly featured in his and other Republicans' 2024 campaign.
"Who the hell can win an election with open borders, transgender everybody, men playing women's sports?" Trump said, prompting loud boos in support from the crowd.
Later, Trump said, "We will get critical race theory and transgender insanity the hell out of our schools, and we will keep men out of women's sports."
Now, after Trump's victory in the Nov. 5 election, activists and support workers in the Lehigh Valley's LGBTQ community say its members are scared that rhetoric could turn into harm.
Local organizations such as the Eastern Pennsylvania Transgender Equity Project and the Bradbury-Sullivan LGBT Community Center have posted messages to the community encouraging them to check in on and care for each other.
They're also offering support sessions in the wake of the election results, while also echoing concerns.
The results of the "election have left many members of our community feeling vulnerable, disheartened, and fearful," a post by the Bradbury-Sullivan center says.
"For those of us who have fought for years to secure basic rights, this outcome can feel like a step backward, especially when we see attacks threatening to undo hard-earned progress.
"The fear and uncertainty are palpable, as many worry about the potential erosion of protections and the rise of harmful policies that could impact our lives in deeply personal ways."
But Lehigh Valley's LGBTQ community also is looking for ways to move forward in the current atmosphere, leaders say.
'President Trump is for you'
Trump, who in 2016 made statements against bathroom restrictions for transgender people passed that year in North Carolina, shifted his rhetoric in the 2024 campaign's rallies and in ads.
His remarks often centered on transgender women competing as athletes in women's events or public funds going to transgender medical support for hormones or surgeries.
"Kamala is for They/Them," said a series advertisements seen on TV and on websites, seeming to disparage and distance people using gender-neutral pronouns. "President Trump is for you."
The ads used footage and photos of drag performers and former Pennsylvania Health Secretary and current U.S. Assistant Health Secretary Dr. Rachel Levine. Levine is the first openly transgender government official to hold an office that required Senate confirmation, and was appointed by the Biden administration.
The ads centered on Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris' support for providing access to gender-affirming support and medical treatment for transgender people who are incarcerated, contrasted with Trump's goals, such as for lower taxes.
The U.S. Bureau of Prisons had provided some transgender medical support during Trump's first term.
According to NPR, the ads aired more than 30,000 times in swing states.
Fear of policy shifts
Lehigh Valley LGBTQ activists and support workers say access to bathrooms where they can feel safe, health care, access to education and participation in public life could be under threat if the legal landscape around discrimination changes.
Corinne Goodwin, president of the Eastern Pennsylvania Transgender Equity Project, a group that provides legal guidance and resources to transgender people, said many in the LGBTQ community are worried about possible changes to the legal landscape, as well as fear about how the ads and messages might encourage others to treat them.
"People in the trans community in particular, I think the broader LGBTQ community as a whole, are really operating right now out of a place of fear and concern," Goodwin said.
"People are very, very worried about what could happen with their ability to operate just day to day in society.
"So are they going to be able to go to school? Are they going to be able to buy their groceries? Are they going to be able to be employed? Are they going to face housing discrimination?
"So all the kind of, you know, undercurrent of concerns that trans people have had historically, they have all been elevated, frankly, to crisis levels talking to people."
Goodwin said calls to her organization have increased dramatically in recent days from people seeking support, including requested legal support.
She said there always has been an undercurrent of such rhetoric, be it anti-gay activists such as Anita Byant or the anti-LGBTQ legal work by groups such as the Alliance Defending Freedom.
But in more recent times, Goodwin said, rhetoric against LGBTQ people often has been amplified in social media circles, in addition to the Trump campaign.
'Stoking fear around trans youth'
Goodwin said the messaging is a distraction from more pressing issues, and an attempt to activate a niche set of voters at the expense of attacking a group of vulnerable people.
"They have been stoking fear around trans youth, trans athletes and trans people in bathrooms at an escalating rate, really, since 2014," Goodwin said.
"And I don't see that being discontinued anytime soon.
"The real concern is that historically, while people, politicians on the right have pandered to these evangelical voters, now they've gotten so beholden into that constituency that they are actually trying to take substantive action against our community."
She said there was concern that Trump would pull federal funding from schools supporting transgender students, a goal stated during his campaign.
The 2024 Republican Party Platform approved this year states that the party seeks to "cut federal funding for any school pushing critical race theory, radical gender ideology and other inappropriate racial, sexual or political content on our children."
It also seeks to "keep men out of women's sports," directed at policies letting transgender women to compete in women's sports.
The platform also calls for a ban to "taxpayer funding for sex change surgeries" and to reverse a Biden administration directive for Title IX to protect trans students that has been blocked by courts in many states.
Republicans' response
The campaign of U.S. Rep.-elect Ryan Mackenzie, a Republican who defeated incumbent Democrat Susan Wild, responded to a request for comment on his stance related to LGBTQ+ issues by saying, "Ryan supports the rights of adults to live their lives freely."
"Ryan's common-sense views recently earned him the endorsement of the Log Cabin GOP," Mackenzie Deputy Campaign Manager Arnaud Armstrong said.
"He also promotes merit and fairness as core American values, which includes protecting women in sports."
Wild's "voting records make it clear: Ryan Mackenzie voted to protect women and girls in sports while Susan Wild voted against protecting women's sports," Armstrong said.
Republican U.S. Sen.-elect Dave McCormick, who defeated Democrat incumbent Bob Casey, echoed Trump's comments about transgender athletes.
McCormick has said "woke" ideology was persistent in schools.
Local and state Republican Committee officials did not immediately respond to requests for comment related to planned policies related to LGBTQ issues for the upcoming term.
Rhetoric called 'Un-American'
Liz Bradbury is chairwoman of the LGBTQ+ political action organization Keystone Equality and co-founder of the Bradbury-Sullivan LGBT Community Center in Allentown.
She's also chairwoman of the newly formed Lehigh County Human Relations Commission.
"I think people are very concerned about their fundamental rights in the United States and their fundamental rights in the state of Pennsylvania," Bradbury said.
"And they don't see that this soon-to-be administration offers them those rights. So they're very concerned about it."
A decades-long advocate in the region, Bradbury said the Trump campaign's rhetoric against transgender people is "so blatantly divisive as we have ever seen in my lifetime, and I'm 67 years old."
She said the divisiveness and vilification of minority groups such as transgender people is "un-American."
"To use this rhetoric to attack children in schools, what's the point of that?" Bradbury said. "How many people does that affect in a negative way?
"They get to blow up this and create fear-mongering by making absurd comments and then and then just repeat it over and over again until either people believe it or they just begin to believe that everybody is lying at them at all times."
Bradbury said that by using such rhetoric, the Republican campaign seeks to turn Americans against each other.
"It's the same with every other Republican candidate that are running from that point of view," she said. "I'm going to save America from 'them' — and they're talking about Americans.
"These are people who live in your neighborhood. These are people who live in my neighborhood."
Bradbury said many in the community are processing the result of the elections, and reorganizing to support each other.
"People have to go on and do the right thing and fix things that are bad," Bradbury said. "It's the deal, you know — endure, resist, organize.
"It's our heritage and our legacy for the LGBT community."
Tomorrow in Part 2; How Lehigh Valley LGBTQ leaders and activists see the community moving forward
