Did Ivanka and Jared Block Anti-LGBT Executive Order?

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By Josefin Dolsten February 3, 2017

(JTA) — Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner reportedly helped push President Donald Trump to uphold a 2014 executive order protecting LGBT people from workplace discrimination.

President Trump’s daughter and her husband, who serves as the president’s senior adviser, worked to nix a draft executive order outlining how to roll back some of the protections granted by former president Barack Obama’s 2014 executive order, Politico reported Friday, citing “multiple sources with knowledge of the situation.”

The White House said on Tuesday that President Trump was “determined to protect the rights of all Americans, including the LGBTQ community.”

“The executive order signed in 2014, which protects employees from anti-LGBTQ workplace discrimination while working for federal contractors, will remain intact at the direction of President Donald J. Trump,” the White House said in a statement.

Progressive groups have expressed concern that Trump could overturn protections and rights gained by the LGBT community under the Obama administration. Vice President Mike Pence has a long history of opposing gay rights, and as governor of Indiana he opposed legalizing gay marriage.

Josefin Dolsten is a New York-based writer who has reported for the Forward, Jewish Telegraphic Agency, The Times of Israel and other Jewish publications. She currently works as an account director at Fenton Communications, supporting organizations that work to advance racial justice, LGBTQ+ equality, reproductive rights and more. Dolsten earned her B.A. in government from Cornell University and her M.A. in comparative religion and Jewish studies from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

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