[Special Feature: America "After Trump"] American Society Seen Through Gender and Sexuality

2021/02/05

On January 21, 2017, the day after Donald Trump was inaugurated as the 45th president, Washington, D.C. was filled with crowds of people wearing pink hats with cat ears known as "pussyhats." This massive demonstration, called the Women's March, spread across the United States and even outside the country. Those who gathered for this protest felt a sense of crisis regarding President Trump's numerous misogynistic attitudes and sought to advocate for various issues, including LGBTQ rights, race, immigration, freedom of religion, and the healthcare system.

The march was sparked by former lawyer Teresa Shook, who posted an event page on Facebook to organize a protest in Washington after Hillary Clinton lost to Trump in the November 2016 presidential election. Shares spread in an instant, participants joined one after another, and it eventually became a historic movement with speakers such as Gloria Steinem, Scarlett Johansson, Michael Moore, and Kamala Harris. The platform published on the demonstration's website stated: "The Women's March on Washington will send a bold message to our new government on their first day in office, and to the world, that women's rights are human rights."

This platform, which recalls the phrase "human rights are women's rights and women's rights are human rights" from the speech Hillary Clinton gave at the 1995 World Conference on Women in Beijing, also happens to resonate with the words in her concession speech after the presidential election: "we have not yet shattered that highest and hardest glass ceiling." This means that there is still a long road ahead before issues concerning women are resolved. The people gathered at the Women's March were concerned about being forced backward under the Trump administration.

One basis for that concern was a video that arrived as an "October Surprise" in October 2016, as the presidential election reached its climax. It was the so-called "Access Hollywood tape" released by the Washington Post. This revealed that when Trump appeared on the American entertainment news program "Access Hollywood" in 2005, he made comments to host Billy Bush (a cousin of former President George W. Bush) and other staff inside a trailer bus about hitting on a married woman and how, if you're a star, you can do anything, including grabbing women by their genitals. Although it was more than ten years prior to the election campaign, Bush, who did not object to Trump's comments treating women like objects and instead went along with them, also faced significant criticism and was forced to step down as a morning television host.

After the leak of this tape, women condemning Trump appeared one after another (some women had been making such claims even before the leak). They alleged that they had been subjected to some form of sexual misconduct by Trump since the 1970s, but Trump has maintained his claim that their allegations are false.

While this reputation for misogyny seemed like it would work against Trump, the result was that Trump won the 2016 presidential election. For example, The Guardian reported that it was white women who supported his victory: "The image of the Trump supporter was the angry white man, but it was white women who propelled him to victory" (November 10, 2016). The same article reported that 53 percent of white women supported Trump based on CNN exit polls. However, Time magazine later reported the view that 47 percent of white women supported Trump and 45 percent supported Clinton (October 18, 2018); in any case, it is clear that Trump led in support among white women.

According to Time, among women as a whole, support for Clinton was 54 percent compared to 39 percent for Trump, indicating that many of the votes from non-white women of color were directed toward Clinton. This could be said to show that women are not a monolith, and it vividly illustrates that the world one sees differs depending on one's position. According to the aforementioned Guardian article, one white woman said she did not think racial issues were a major problem, and another white woman said that while she did not agree with Trump's misogynistic words and actions, she believed they would not affect his work as president. Additionally, 26 percent of Hispanic women voted for Trump, with opinions introduced that praised Trump's skills as a businessman.

Journalist Susan Chira pointed out in her essay that women who support Trump understand the comments on "Access Hollywood" as mere locker-room banter between men. Chira also states that there are various claims depending on how women define themselves—by gender, as a wife, race, class, political beliefs, religion, etc.—and that this has not changed since the era of the women's suffrage movement in the late 19th century. What one places importance on, of course, changes depending on one's position. The important thing will be whether an environment can be established where women can raise their respective voices.

Under the Trump administration, the rights of LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer) individuals tended to be less recognized than during the Obama era. In particular, policies that could be described as a crackdown on transgender people are prominent. For example, in 2016 under the Obama administration, based on Title IX which prohibits sex discrimination in education, guidance was issued asking for consideration so that transgender students could be called by names consistent with their gender identity and use locker rooms and restrooms of their choice. However, immediately after Trump took office, that policy was rescinded.

Furthermore, the Trump administration introduced a policy to exclude transgender people from the definition of "sex" in the sex discrimination prohibitions of the healthcare system that had been established under the Obama administration. As a result, people whose gender identity differs from their sex at birth were excluded from medical protections. The Trump administration also announced a policy requiring military service to be based on sex at birth, effectively excluding transgender people from military service.

On the other hand, there are also LGBTQ Trump supporters, such as the Log Cabin Republicans, a Republican group that supports LGBTQ rights. NBC News has reported the voices of LGBTQ people who "100 percent support" Trump rather than the Democratic Party, which they see as trying to fixate identity politics. These people value the Trump administration's proactive stance on HIV/AIDS treatment and the appointment of Richard Grenell—who is openly gay and has evaluated Trump as "the most pro-gay president in American history"—as Acting Director of National Intelligence.

What did Trump bring to America? Was it an overt misogynistic attitude, or transgender discrimination? In fact, the title of the aforementioned essay by Chira was "Trump’s Gift to Feminism: Resistance." As the subtitle suggests, what Trump gave to women and LGBTQ people was the stance of "resistance," which is also evident in the Women's March mentioned at the beginning. Furthermore, Chira points out that this stance of resistance bore fruit in the 2018 midterm elections. Similarly, journalists Barry Levine and Monique El-Faizy, who interviewed women condemning Trump's sexual misconduct, wrote in "All the President's Women" (2019) that women who felt a sense of crisis due to the birth of the Trump presidency stood up.

Women who had never imagined being involved in politics announced their candidacy, and as a result of the 2018 midterm elections, the number of women in the 116th Congress reached 127, the highest number in history. This included Ilhan Omar, the first Muslim congresswoman; Deb Haaland, the first Native American congresswoman (nominated as Secretary of the Interior in the new Biden administration); Sharice Davids; and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who became the youngest woman ever elected to Congress at age 29. This number increased further in the 2020 election. It is also fresh in our memory that in January 2019, a legislature where women hold the majority in both the upper and lower houses was born in Nevada.

What Trump brought, in addition to the stance of showing resistance, is perhaps the opportunity to learn what kind of experiences people other than oneself have had and to consider that diversity. As Levine and Faizy state, "White women and women of color in America have gone through completely divergent experiences and therefore see the Trump administration through entirely different lenses." Whether we view that difference in lenses as division or as a way to know differences and recognize diversity—it seems the path America takes from here depends on that.

Hillary Clinton, mentioned earlier, followed her statement about not being able to shatter the glass ceiling in her concession speech with this: "But some day someone will—and hopefully sooner than we might think right now." Clinton spoke to "all the little girls who are watching this," telling them to believe in their own value and pursue their dreams. As if responding to that, four years later, Kamala Harris, in her victory speech as Vice President, told "children of our country, regardless of your gender" to dream with ambition. How will American society change under the new Biden administration? We will continue to watch closely.