Since the 2024 presidential election, a debate pitting trans-inclusion against bread-and-butter issues has been ongoing. This debate has generally ignored the reality that trans issues are working-class issues as reflected in the recent rollback of federal support for food assistance and health care. On July 4th, President Trump signed into law the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (the “Act”). The Act eliminates health care and food assistance for millions of people — all to fund tax cuts for rich people and corporations, increase military spending, and mass deportations. The Act authorizes the most substantial cuts to Medicaid we’ve ever seen, a program that provides essential health care for low-income people and families, and to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), the country’s largest anti-hunger initiative, in addition to other provisions attacking the poor, working-class and immigrants.
While the cuts will have devastating effects for all enrollees, the fallout for LGBTQ+ communities cannot be overstated. An estimated 1.8 million LGBTQ+ individuals — including 1.2 million lesbian and bisexual women and one in four transgender adults — are on Medicaid, and the program is the primary provider of health care for people with HIV. Additionally, LGBTQ+ adults experience food insecurity and participate in SNAP at higher rates than non-LGBTQ+ adults.
This Act hurts LGBTQ+ people and people living with HIV who are among this country’s poor and working-class communities. The draconian cuts will exacerbate the rising costs of health care, groceries, rent, transportation, and utilities. Rather than address this crisis, the Congressional Republican Majority and President Trump decided to take food from kitchen tables and eliminate health care, while blaming immigrants and trans people for this country’s woes.
The current economic reality contributes to an anti-LGBTQ+ and anti-immigrant sentiment. US-based blue-collar jobs are lost to “free trade” and automation. This has led to many struggling to provide for themselves and their families. The federal cuts are likely to lead to more feelings of abandonment, anger, and resentment as the wealth gap between the rich and poor widens, and corporations continue to receive big handouts from the government.
Not only are these cuts bad for individuals, but they will also devastate state governments, which will be forced to cut programs and services to cover enormous losses in federal funding. With fewer federal dollars overall, states will have to choose to continue funding food assistance and health care programs, cutting funds to other essential programs like schools, parks, libraries, transit, and other critical services, or raising taxes to balance their budgets. The cuts also threaten clinics and rural hospitals that depend on Medicaid funding to stay open.
Now is the time for more LGBTQ+ people and organizations to get involved in broader economic justice issues. There is much work to be done to ensure that LGBTQ+ and people living with HIV stay fed, housed, and healthy. We must commit to a movement that puts human needs over profit and stops the rich from getting richer on the backs of the working-class. We must also work to end government spending on companies that profit off the war machine and those that exploit workers, including immigrants, and the environment.
While the Act’s gutting of SNAP and Medicaid is devastating and dangerous, it has highlighted a need to re-focus our priorities. By leading an economic justice movement for all, LGBTQ+ people can build transformative alliances and address bias. A strategy shift of building diverse coalitions focused on economic issues would mean LGBTQ+ advocates and groups becoming more responsive to the needs of poor and working-class LGBTQ+ individuals and families. It would also mean forging connections with those who may otherwise overlook LGBTQ+-specific concerns due to perceived irrelevance or differing political views.
In addition to the potential for larger coalitions, addressing structural economic justice issues that impact a broad range of communities would enable LGBTQ+ advocates to build positive relationships with individuals who currently hold anti-LGBTQ+ biases and provide opportunities for personal and collective growth and healing. Working towards common goals can help break down barriers created by left-versus-right politics. These new connections would subvert politicians who exploit LGBTQ+ and other marginalized groups as political scapegoats. It’s harder to dehumanize groups of people when we have personal connections to people in those groups. Furthermore, focusing more on systemic issues than their symptoms would allow communities to direct increased energy and resources toward upstream solutions that benefit more people, including low-income and working-class LGBTQ+ individuals and families.
We can build on the beautiful examples of groups like Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners that stood in solidarity with the UK mineworkers’ strike in the 1980s and the more recent work of Queers for Economic Justice and The National LGBTQ Anti-Poverty Action Network in the US. By working together to mitigate the impact of the Act and engaging with our local communities to create new alliances, we can cultivate a better and more abundant world for all.
