14% of LGBT Americans voted for Donald Trump
Despite his proposing a number of anti-LGBT policies, a surprising number of LGBT Americans voted to elect Donald Trump as president.
According to exit poll results published by The New York Times, 14% of those who identified as gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender said they’d cast their vote for the controversial candidate.
This compares to 8% of black Americans and 29% of Hispanic/Latino Americans who voted for Trump.
Astonishingly 42% of (overwhelmingly white) women also backed the businessman and reality TV star, even though he had been shown to be deeply sexist.
Eight percent of LGBT people chose to support independent candidates while 78% voted for Hillary Clinton.
There are now genuine fears that Trump’s unexpected victory will erode the rights of women and LGBTI Americans and other minorities, despite his claim that he is “the friend of women and the LGBT community”.
Based on other statements made during the election campaign, Trump may work to reverse marriage equality in the US and could support efforts to block LGBT people’s rights from being protected.
Mike Pence, his running mate, who will now become vice president, is known to be a virulently anti-LGBT evangelical Christian.
Concerns that there could be a spike in violence against LGBT people, as happened after the Brexit vote in the UK, were bolstered after a gay man was attacked by Trump supporters.
Metro reports that film producer Chris Ball was verbally abused in a Santa Monica bar while watching the election results.
Trump supporters told him: “We got a new president you f–king faggots.” Later, when leaving the bar, he was ambushed by a group of men, who hit him over the head with a bottle. He collapsed and further injured his head on the concrete floor.
Ball was rushed to hospital where he received five staples to close the gash in his head.
Gay Republicans – plenty of those !