Election News

Trump campaign makes bizarre pitch to LGBTQ+ voters

Former President Donald Trump makes an appearance at a town hall meeting hosted by the conservative group Turning Point Action at Dream City Church in Phoenix on June 6, 2024.
Former President Donald Trump makes an appearance at a town hall meeting hosted by the conservative group Turning Point Action at Dream City Church in Phoenix on June 6, 2024. Photo: Rob Schumacher/The Republic / USA TODAY NETWORK via IMAGN

Former President Donald Trump is asking LGBTQ+ voters worried about an expansion of his anti-LGBTQ+ agenda in a second term to see the forest for the trees — and to ignore everything they’re seeing on the ground.

“President Trump’s second term agenda will create a safer and more prosperous America for ALL Americans, regardless of gender, sexual orientation, race, religion, or creed!” 26-year-old campaign spokesperson Karoline Leavitt told The Hill about her boss’s LGBTQ+ policies if he wins a second term.

The Trump campaign is otherwise avoiding the issue of LGBTQ+ rights, as are Trump campaign surrogates, like the self-loathing Log Cabin Republicans, who are selling out LGBTQ+ voters in their quest for proximity to power.

“The economy and malaise Joe Biden and Democrats have brought are affecting gay families as bad as Latino families, as Asian families, as everybody else in this country,” said Charles Moran, president of the group. “So it’s not like we have to have this policy portfolio that we have to present to these different communities.

“Under Donald Trump, your life was better,” Moran claimed, “and it doesn’t matter what your skin color was, or your gender or your sexual identity.”

For the record, the grasping gay GOP organization is serially shunned by the ex-president’s own MAGA faithful.

The facts undercut Trump’s “rising tide” pitch to queer voters

As president, Trump barred transgender people from serving in the military, eviscerated Obama-era LGBTQ+ nondiscrimination protections, eliminated public displays of support LGBTQ+ people, and banned US embassies from flying the rainbow flag.

Not long before his loss to President Joe Biden in the 2020 election, Trump proclaimed June “National Homeownership Month” and “Great Outdoors Month,” skipping any acknowledgment of Pride Month.

Plans for his expansion of anti-LGBTQ+ policies in a second term — outlined by the Heritage Foundation and embraced by Trump — include enacting at least a dozen initiatives targeting transgender rights, among them a nationwide ban on trans student-athletes and a federal law that recognizes only two genders. 

Trump has also vowed to outlaw gender-affirming care for trans youth, with prison time for anyone complicit in the act, and has said he’ll roll back all Biden administration policy protecting trans students “on day one” of a second term.

By contrast, Biden has been a vocal LGBTQ+ ally, expanded federal nondiscrimination protections for LGBTQ+ people, condemned violence and threats made against the community, signed legislation safeguarding marriage equality, spoken out against the tsunami of anti-LGBTQ+ legislation introduced in red states over the last several years, and denounced Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis‘s discriminatory and craven appeal for far-right conservatives support in the form of the state’s Don’t Say Gay laws.

A recent survey of 600 LGBTQ+ Americans by the Independent Center, a centrist think tank, found 56% said they would definitely vote for President Biden or lean toward Biden, compared to 28& who said they would definitely support or lean toward supporting Trump — 16% remained undecided.

Don't forget to share:


Support vital LGBTQ+ journalism

Reader contributions help keep LGBTQ Nation free, so that queer people get the news they need, with stories that mainstream media often leaves out. Can you contribute today?

Cancel anytime · Proudly LGBTQ+ owned and operated

Comedian Matteo Lane joined a gay volleyball team. It turns out everyone else took it seriously.

Previous article

Over 150 pride flags vandalized outside Stonewall Monument

Next article