Donald Trump inauguration singer urges US president to meet her transgender sister
The protections were passed during the administration of Barack Obama
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Your support makes all the difference.A young woman who sang the national anthem at Donald Trump’s inauguration, said she wants to enlighten the president and have him meet her transgender sister, after his admininstration removed protections for transgender children in state schools.
The Trump administration has rolled back the federal guidelines put in place by Barack Obama that had permitted students to use the toilets and bathrooms in state schools that matched their gender identity. The new government believes the issue should be decided at a state level.
The move sparked immediate criticism from campaigners, who said the move was a regression for LGBT rights - something that Mr Trump had previously vowed to uphold.
Among those to speak out, was 16-year-old Jackie Evancho, who performed The Star Spangled Banner at Mr Trump’s inauguration on January 20.
In a tweet, she invited the president to meet her and her transgender sister.
“@realdDonaldTrump u gave me the honor 2 sing at your inauguration. Pls give me & my sis the honor 2 meet with u 2 talk #transgender rghts,” said the teenager.
The singer’s elder sister, Juliet, is a transgender woman.
In 2015, she let the world know she was transgender when she posed on the red carpet with her sister, People reported.
She had been among students who sued Pennsylvania’s Pine Richland School District over its policy in regard to the use of bathrooms.
The teenager told KDKA-TV: “When I heard the news that Trump was pulling back on transgender guidelines, I was thinking about my sister, and all the things she’s gone through, and me watching her suffer like that was really hard.”
She said she would live to “enlighten the president on her family’s personal experiences, and what we had to see and hear, and open his eyes to see some things he may or may not already know”.
Her sister said she was disappointed Mr Trump’s moves on transgender rights.
“In order to make a huge decision like that, you need to have lived it every day, and I think there was never a lot of planning that went into it,” Juliet Evancho said.
She said she feared Mr Trump’s decision could be viewed by some as an open invitation to discriminate against transgender people and other members of the LGBT community.
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