Washington, Democratic presidential candidate and former US Vice President Joe Biden has accused President Donald Trump’s administration of endangering the LGBTQ community by failing to defend their rights and safety.
In a speech on Saturday to the Human Rights Campaign on the first day of Pride Month, Biden described the difficulties still faced by many transgender people, including lack of access to health care and social services, as well as transphobic violence that he said was enabled by the Trump administration, reports CNN.
“We’ve already had five, just this year, five black transgender women killed violently in 2019 — that’s outrageous. It must, it must, it must end,” Biden said as the supportive crowd broke into applause.
“And the fastest way to end it is, end the Trump administration,” he said, before referencing Trump’s transgender military ban and move to withdraw protections for transgender students.
Biden argued that the Trump administration was at odds with the notion of America as a beacon of decency and stood “on the wrong side of history”.
He also went after Vice President Mike Pence’s stance on LGBTQ issues as “wrong” and “immoral”.
“The current Vice President uses religious freedom as an excuse to license discrimination,” he continued. “It’s wrong and it is immoral what they’re doing.”
