Bothered by cartoon

Worried about Trump’s sexual identity politics

Bothered by cartoon

I was very concerned to view the disturbing political cartoon in The Daily World on Nov. 9 showing a freshly dug U.S. military field latrine with a sign announcing that it is for straight, lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people.

My initial response as I read it is that it was sending a negative message about the LGBTQ community. After further thought I realized that by including “straight” people, it was a commentary about transgender individuals’ rights to use the bathroom that most closely aligns with their new identified gender.

I believe that having this cartoon message appearing in our community paper at this time was insensitive, particularly because it was done on the same day that our new President-elect was announced. His vicious campaign rhetoric has been particularly harsh in its hate filled speech directed at gay, lesbian and transgender people. His election has created fear in their hearts and the hearts of their friends and families who love them.

I spoke with a friend in the community who has a transgender child. She was in tears and expressed fear that when her child comes to visit here there might be some individuals who would be encouraged by these opinion pieces to harm her child.

The opinion piece by Jim Demint is another piece of hate-filled rhetoric, in which the former senator says that extending basic human rights to transgender individuals is a radical social experiment that must be stopped.

My fear is that these statements on the Opinion Page of this paper have the potential to create a backlash against LGBTQ community members by those who support the views of Donald Trump.

Becky Walsh

Aberdeen

Editor’s Note: The Daily World’s opinion page is meant to reflect a range of viewpoints. Regarding the cartoon, we may have to agree to disagree. I didn’t read it like you did. As opposed to it being a commentary on transgender individuals’ rights to use a particular bathroom, it looks to me like when a soldier is out in the field, bathroom policy is the least of their worries. As for ex-senator DeMint’s column, I disagree with him, but he state’s his case in a rational manner and I’m not so afraid of his ideas that I would prevent him from stating them.