Caitlyn Jenner gives GOP advice on how to treat LGBT community
Caitlyn Jenner, former Olympian celebrity turned LGBT activist, attempted to broaden Cleveland's Republican big-tent party on Wednesday at a speaker's event hosted by the American Unity Fund just outside the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
"It was easy to come out as trans, it was harder to come out as a Republican," Jenner said bluntly to an audience supporting the gay rights conservative non-profit.
During the Q&A session, Jenner was asked whether she had any advice for Donald Trump and the Republican Party on how to approach the topic of transgender rights.
"I would tell Donald that these people have been marginalized for so many years," Jenner said. "They're a small voting community but they're out there....We need to provide a safe environment for them."
Later, Jenner opened up on the debate surrounding public bathrooms and the transgender community right as well as the Obama administration's executive authorities on the issue.
She denounced HB2 in North Carolina, also known as the "bathroom bill," which derails special protections for the transgender community in the state and bars cities and counties from allowing the transgender community from using the public restrooms they self identify their gender with.
"Bullying is the biggest problem, not fitting in, suffering from tremendous depression," Jenner said. "Now you're telling me that the state of North Carolina is going to come in and bully [them] too?"
Jenner expressed her concern over Republican support of anti-gay laws throughout the country, and she denounced a conservative argument used in the "bathroom bill" debate that says allowing transgender people community bathroom autonomy endangers children.
She noted there were male Republican lawmakers -- former U.S. Sen. Larry Craig, for one -- have run into legal trouble for what Jenner described "lewd behavior in a men's bathroom."
"...Maybe what we should do is ban Republican representatives at a state level from being in bathrooms, if we're trying to protect people," she said.