As anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric and policies escalate under the newly reinstalled Trump administration, New Jersey Democratic U.S. Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman is making it clear that queer and trans people will not be erased.
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Recently, Watson Coleman introduced a congressional resolution recognizing the crucial work of LGBTQ+ advocacy organizations in the fight for equality. The Bayard Rustin Center for Social Justice in Princeton will host a press conference on Wednesday, where the congresswoman will also unveil a newly formed LGBTQ+ Advisory Board to guide her policy work.
“I think it’s important that we remind people of a couple of things: that we’re all equal in the eyes of God, that we deserve the same protection and the opportunity to pursue life, liberty, and happiness,” Watson Coleman told The Advocate in an interview Tuesday.
“At a time when people think that we can be characterized as less than important simply because of who we love or how we see ourselves or what color we are, it is very dangerous, it is very un-American,” she added.
Honoring the legacy of LGBTQ+ activism
The resolution calls attention to the vital role LGBTQ+ organizations have played in shaping civil rights and community support systems, highlighting groups like ACT UP, GLAAD, Garden State Equality, HiTOPS, and the Bayard Rustin Center for Social Justice—all of which continue to provide advocacy, education, and safe spaces for LGBTQ+ people nationwide.
“These organizations are about creating safe spaces—spaces to uplift and affirm our value, irrespective of who we are,” Watson Coleman said. “They provide comfort, affirmation, protection if necessary, and educate people on their rights—vitally important things in this very toxic environment.”
The resolution also acknowledges the erasure of LGBTQ+ community spaces, including the 37 percent decline in LGBTQ+ bars and nightclubs over the past decade, the rise in hate violence against transgender and nonbinary people, and the ongoing threats to LGBTQ+ youth and families.
Fighting back against Trump’s anti-LGBTQ_agenda
The timing of the resolution is no coincidence. Since returning to the White House, Trump has issued a series of executive orders gutting diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts—policies Watson Coleman described as part of a broader attempt to erase marginalized communities.
“The executive orders that he signed, they’re all about wiping out any kind of diversity, inclusion, equity on any level—whether it’s because you’re Black or because you’re part of the LGBTQA+ community,” she said. “It matters not to him. If you’re not white and male and rich, you don’t matter to him.”
Included in some of Trump’s first executive orders were widespread revocation of DEI programs, moving to ban transgender people from the armed services, limiting federal support for all gender-affirming care for minors and some adults, and a universal erasure of the government’s acknowledgment that transgender and nonbinary people exist. Instead, Trump ordered that the U.S. government only accept that people are male or female based on their gender assigned at birth.
Despite the GOP’s firm grip on Congress and the White House, Watson Coleman said his agenda cannot and will not be accepted as the new normal.
“There is nothing normal about this hate that is spewing—about this denigration of a whole race of people, and the gender of people,” she said. “There’s no normalcy in that hate. And we have to remind people: Don’t sit back and say, ‘Oh well, it’s Donald Trump. What more should we expect?’ That’s dangerous.”
Watson Coleman also condemned Republican-led efforts to target LGBTQ+ people in Congress, explicitly calling out the relentless attacks against Rep. Sarah McBride of Delaware, the first out transgender member of the U.S. House.
“Sarah McBride is definitely value added to our caucus,” Watson Coleman said. “She reminds people that she came to Congress to work on lowering costs of living for those who are part of the working families in this country and part of the families that aren’t able to work for one reason or another.”
But instead of focusing on those pressing issues, House Republicans—including Reps. Nancy Mace of South Carolina and Colorado’s Lauren Boebert—have fixated on policing McBride’s very existence. After Mace demanded that transgender people be barred from bathrooms that align with their gender identity, House Speaker Mike Johnson implemented a new rule at the start of the 119th Congress, limiting spaces like restrooms and changing rooms on Capitol grounds to those of the same gender assigned at birth. Last week, Boebert and Mace followed a cisgender woman into a Capitol Hill bathroom, thinking it was McBride, only to have to apologize later.
“The attacks that she has been the brunt of from two of the most ignorant, uneducated—in terms of the world—un-American, and un-Christian members of Congress is just an illustration of who’s over there in the Republican aisle right now,” Watson Coleman said.
She also called out silent Republicans who, despite disagreeing with these attacks, refuse to speak up.
A call to mobilize and organize
Watson Coleman firmly believes that while the current political climate is grim, there is still time to fight back.
“We’ve been through tough times, and we’ll get through this together,” she said. “We have two years to turn a lot of this around.”
That fight, she said, starts with organizing, mobilizing, registering voters, and educating people on the real-life consequences of political decisions—not through abstract discussions about democracy, but through issues that affect people’s daily lives.
“We need to be educating them—not on this threat to democracy, not that kind of esoteric conversation, but what it means at the kitchen table,” she said. “What it means about having a roof over your head, what it means about safety and security in your community, what it means about being respected for the human being that you are.”
Watson Coleman’s new LGBTQ+ Advisory Board will play a key role in shaping her office’s response to the ongoing attacks against queer and trans people.
“We have an advisory committee on the LGBTQA+ issues. We have an advisory committee on immigration. We have a working group on the whole issue of civil rights,” she said. “We’re trying to stay connected to our constituents. We want them to know their rights. We want them to know the resources that are there for them.”
And most of all, she wants them to hold onto hope.
“This degree of hatefulness is not sustainable,” she said. “I believe it. And I believe that this country is going to reject it.”