Trump’s ‘banned words’ projected onto the front of his Washington DC hotel
The Human Rights Campaign has protested the Trump administration’s alleged ‘ban on words’ by projecting them onto the front of one of Trump’s hotels.
Last week the Trump administration allegedly banned a number of government agencies from using seven words including “transgender”, “diversity” and “science-based” in their reports.
In response to this, LGBT+ rights group the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) protested the ban outside of the Trump International Hotel in Washington DC by projecting the words over the main entrance.
The projections, which were streamed for over an hour on the Human Rights Campaign’s Facebook page, included each of the banned words in turn.
It then finished with a ‘declaration from the LGBTQ community’ which said: “we will not be erased.”
.@HRC protested tonight in a display projected on @realDonaldTrump’s DC Hotel. The projection rotated words Trump-Pence administration has reportedly banned at the CDC and ended with a declaration from the #LGBTQ community.
: Liz Gorman/Bellvisuals.comhttps://t.co/ewUWZbcxuW pic.twitter.com/3HHIXN0Fgn
— HumanRightsCampaign (@HRC) December 20, 2017
The alleged ban originally started with the Centres of Disease Control (CDC), preventing the health body from using any of the words in official documents for the 2019 budget which will be released in February.
As well as the word transgender, other banned words include “vulnerable”, “entitlement”, and “foetus”.
Instead of terms such as “science-based” or “evidence-based”, the CDC has been told to use phrases like: “CDC bases its recommendations on science in consideration with community standards and wishes”.
As well as the visual protest on Tuesday night, the HRC has filed a request for information with the Department of Health and Human Services, the government agency the CDC is part of.
The HRC says this is in order to see the communications between the two departments and to what extent the Trump Administration has affected the CDC’s capacity to research.
HRC’s Director of Government affairs David Stacey introduced the protest last night by highlighting the importance of politically neutral health research and the inclusion of the LGBT community.
He said: “Our message for the Trump-Pence Administration is this: you cannot erase us. We will meet attacks on our community with a resolve to be louder and more visible than ever before.
“Furthermore, the American public deserves to know the degree to which the Trump-Pence Administration has interfered with the life-saving work of the CDC.”
He continued: “It was not long ago that the government tried to ignore the reality of the HIV and AIDS crisis to the detriment of millions.
“This kind of erasure has potentially catastrophic consequences beyond the words used by the CDC — it could impact the very programs most vital to the health of transgender people, women, youth and others.”
The more Trump & Pence try to erase us, the more determined we become. Tonight, @HRC took the words this administration wants to censor and projected them larger than life on @realDonaldTrump’s DC hotel. #CDC7words pic.twitter.com/rXwJ27KDl4
— Chad Griffin (@ChadHGriffin) December 20, 2017
Anti-LGBT groups have greeted the news of the banned words, particularly praising the alleged ban of the word transgender.
Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council, a listed anti-LGBT hate group, praised the Trump Administration’s actions in a newsletter last week.
He said: “This is the return to normalcy Americans voted for — a change in how we view the world that’s in line with most people’s core values. If the Left doesn’t like it, it’s up to them to persuade the country otherwise!”
CDC director Dr Brenda Fitzgerald has refuted allegations of banned words insisting that “there are no banned, prohibited or forbidden words at the CDC,” however she failed to deny that officials were advised to stop using the word transgender.
Matt Lloyd, a spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services called the alleged ban a ‘mischaracterisation’ last week.
Lloyd said: “The assertion that HHS has ‘banned words’ is a complete mischaracterization of discussions regarding the budget formulation process.”
