LGBTQ community pushes for further civil rights victories,

Activists say Clinton will curb violence.

The LGBTQ community vowed further civil rights advancements Wednesday at the Democratic National Convention, but only if Donald Trump is defeated in November.

Sarah McBride embodied the social changes sweeping the nation as the first transgender person to address a major political party’s national convention.

“Hillary Clinton understands the urgency of our fight, and she will work with us to pass the Equality Act, combat violence against transgender women of color and the AIDS epidemic once and for all,” said McBride, national press secretary for the Human Rights Campaign. “Today, in America, LGBTQ people are still targeted by hate . ... But I believe tomorrow can be different. Tomorrow we can be respected and protected, especially if Hillary Clinton is president.”

Earlier, Chad Griffin, the campaign’s president, described Trump as a mean-spirited self-aggrandizer with little interest in LGBTQ issues.

“Last month our nation was rocked to its core by the senseless and hate-filled attack that claimed the lives of 49 LGBTQ people,” Griffin told conventiongoers, referring to the attack on an Orlando, Fla., nightclub. “Yet while the nation mourned, Donald Trump strutted before the cameras and exploited our national tragedy. He had the audacity to tell the American public that he was the true champion for LGBTQ people in this race and that our community would be better off with him in the White House.”

Griffin spoke hours after 10 states filed a brief in federal court supporting the federal government’s lawsuit against North Carolina’s anti-LGBTQ law requiring people to use bathrooms reserved for the gender listed on their birth certificate. The states claim the North Carolina law will cause “irreparable harm to transgender individuals.” A trial is set for Nov. 14.

“It matters who’s leading the country and it matters if they care,” said U.S. Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney, D-N.Y., co-chairman of the Congressional LGBT Equality Caucus. Clinton, he said, “cares about our family, your family and all families and that’s why we must care about this election.”