A majority of Americans favor protecting transgender people from discrimination, but a rising share say a person’s gender is determined by their sex assigned at birth, and most support trans sports bans, a new poll from the Pew Research Center found.
The survey of more than 10,000 adults, which was conducted May 16-22 and published Tuesday, found that 60% say a person’s gender is determined at birth, up from 56% in 2021 and 54% in 2017.
Views on gender identity differ by age groups and even more sharply by political affiliation. Half of adults ages 18 to 29 say someone can be a different gender than the one assigned to them at birth, compared with about 4 in 10 of those ages 30 to 49 and about a third of those 50 and older, the report found. Democrats and those who lean toward the Democratic Party were four times more likely than Republicans and conservative-leaning people to say that someone’s gender can be different than the one assigned to them at birth.
The new poll also shed light on how people in the United States feel about one of the most politically debated issues regarding trans people — whether they should be allowed to compete on sports teams that correspond with their gender identity. Nearly 6 in 10 (58%) support policies that would require transgender athletes to compete on sports teams that match the sex they were assigned at birth, the survey found.
Of the hundreds of anti-LGBTQ bills filed in recent years — over 670 since 2018, according to an NBC News analysis — measures that would limit trans people’s participation in sports have been among the most popular and politically contentious in the nation’s state legislatures. Eighteen states have enacted the bills into law within recent years, with Louisiana doing so earlier this month.
Proponents of transgender sports bans say they are protecting fairness in women’s sports, arguing that trans girls and women have inherent advantages over cisgender girls and women.
Critics say the measures are less about protecting women’s sports and more about discriminating against trans people.
Kentucky’s 2022 Teacher of the Year, who is gay, says he is leaving the K-12 classroom “to make the most difference, and the discrimination and lack of support prevent me from making that difference.”
After 17 years being a public school teacher, Willie Carver Jr. said he decided to leave the classroom and take a position at the University of Kentucky in student support services.
Carver, who had been teaching high school in Montgomery County, told the Herald-Leader that “vocal anti-LGBTQ extremists at school board meetings (and on social media) have been personally attacking me and my former students.” Carver said he had been unable to find support from his school administration.
As voters head to the polls today for primaries in 5 states and the District of Columbia, a record number of LGBTQ candidates for federal office are bringing the prospect of equal representation in Washington ever closer to reality.
A record 104 LGBTQ candidates have mounted campaigns for House or Senate seats this year, with 57 candidates still in the running.
Currently, 11 out LGBTQ lawmakers serve in Congress, including Sens. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ), plus nine members of the House, all running for reelection.
Nine more LGBTQ candidates for House seats are in competitive races. Wins in their states would bring total LGBTQ representation in the House to 4%, or about half of the estimated population of LGBTQ people in the US.
Those nine include 4 women, 2 Latinx candidates, and an LGBTQ immigrant.
Here’s a breakdown:
In Vermont, state senator Becca Balint is facing off against three other Democrats in the August 9 primary for a shot at an open seat representing Vermont’s At-Large Congressional District. Balint is the first woman and first out gay person to serve as the Vermont Senate President Pro Tempore, and would be the first out LGBTQ person and the first woman elected to Congress from Vermont.
In North Carolina, County Commissioner Jasmine Beach-Ferrara, won the Democratic primary handily and faces off against Republican Chuck Edwards for a seat currently occupied by primary loser Madison Cawthorn.
Beach-Ferrara is an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ and the founding Executive Director of the Campaign for Southern Equality (CSE) and would be the first out LGBTQ person elected to any federal position from North Carolina.
In Arizona, state representative Daniel Hernandez faces off against two other candidates in the Democratic primary in August for an open seat in Arizona’s 6th congressional district.
Hernandez attended the University of Arizona and interned for then-Congresswoman Gabby Giffords, whom he was with the day she was shot; he was the first to administer first aid to the Congresswoman before the EMTs arrived. He was named a national hero by President Obama.
Hernandez would be the second Latinx out LGBTQ member of Congress.
In New York, former Congressional aide and businessman Robert Zimmerman will face off against five other Democrats for an open seat in the August 23 primary in Long Island’s 3rd congressional district.
Zimmerman has been honored by the LGBTQ Network of Long Island and Queens and the Long Island Progressive Coalition, in addition to serving as President of Great Neck B’nai B’rith and the American Jewish Congress Long Island Division.
The Empire State’s congressional delegation currently includes three LGBTQ members: Ritchie Torres, the first out LGBTQ Afro-Latinx person elected to the U.S. Congress; Mondaire Jones, one of the first two Black gay men, along with Torres, elected to Congress; and Sean Patrick Maloney.
Zimmerman would be the first out LGBTQ member of Congress from Long Island.
In California, two-term Long Beach mayor Robert Garcia is running for an open seat to represent the city in Congress from California’s 42nd district. Garcia was re-elected to a second term as mayor by almost 80% of the vote in 2018.
Garcia immigrated to the United States at age 5 and holds an M.A. from the University of Southern California and an Ed.D. in Higher Education from Cal State Long Beach, where he also earned his B.A. in Communications. He won an open primary in June with 46% of the vote, 20 points higher than his general election opponent for the seat, Republican John Briscoe.
Garcia would be the first out LGBTQ immigrant elected to Congress.
Also in California, former federal prosecutor Will Rollins is running to represent Riverside County in the state’s 41st district against Republican Congressman Ken Calvert in the 42nd district. Rollins won the Democratic primary June 7.
Rollins earned a bachelor’s degree from Dartmouth in 2007 and a law degree from Columbia Law School in 2012. As an Assistant U.S. Attorney, he helped prosecute some of the insurrectionists who attacked the U.S. Capitol on January 6th.
Rollins’ election would make him the second out gay man from California to serve in congress, after incumbent Mark Takano, from the same district; Takano is running in 2022 for a seat in the state’s 39th following re-districting.
In Oregon, Jamie McLeod-Skinner is running as the Democratic nominee for an open seat representing the state’s 5th district, after winning a primary in May 15 points ahead of her opponent. She faces Republican Lori Chavez-DeRemer in the general.
McLeod-Skinner currently serves as an elected board member of the Jefferson County Education Service District. This is her second run at Congress, after a change-making grassroots campaign for Oregon’s second district in 2018, resulting in the largest voter swing (+26) of all congressional races that year.
McLeod-Skinner would be Oregon’s first out LGBTQ member of Congress.
In Maryland, former Assembly member Heather Mizeur is running to represent the state’s 1st Congressional District. Mizeur faces one other opponent in Maryland’s July primary to face off against Republican incumbent Andrew Harris in the general.
In the Maryland Assembly, Mizeur took a leading role in passing marriage equality, banning fracking, enacting criminal justice reforms, and expanding health insurance for children, women, and families.
Mizeur would be the first out LGBTQ member of Congress from the state.
In Illinois, popular TV meteorologist Eric Sorensen is running against five opponents in the Democratic primary for an open seat to represent the state’s 17th congressional district.
Sorenson says he was pushed out of his first television gig in Texas, with a copy of his contract sitting on his boss’s desk and the “morals clause” highlighted.
Sorenson would be the first out LGBTQ person elected to Congress from Illinois.
Thomas wrote that, even though the Constitution doesn’t explicitly mention abortion rights, the Supreme Court “erroneously” decided in the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision to treat abortion as a fundamental right that should be free from government interference, something known in legal terms as “substantive due process.”
Thomas wrote, “We should reconsider all of this Court’s substantive due process precedents. We have a duty to ‘correct the error’ established in those precedents… For that reason, in future cases, we should reconsider all of this Court’s substantive due process precedents, including Griswold [the case that granted the right to contraception] Lawrence[the case that struck down anti-sodomy laws], and Obergefell [the case that legalized marriage equality].”
In response, Obergefell made a statement, saying, “Clarence Thomas is a Supreme Court justice appointed by humans, he is not the Supreme Deity. The millions of loving couples who have the right to marriage equality to form their own families do not need Clarence Thomas imposing his individual twisted morality upon them. If you want to see an error in judgment, Clarence Thomas, look in the mirror.”
Now that Roe v. Wade has been overturned, 17 states have “trigger laws” that could immediately outlaw abortion. Some of those states will do that by defining life as beginning at fertilization. This re-definition is likely to impact the ability of infertile and LGBTQ people to have children via in vitro fertilization (IVF), the fertility treatment that implants eggs with sperm for implantation in a gestational parent.
IVF usually involves fertilizing multiple eggs to increase the likelihood of the treatment being successful. Once the gestational parent becomes pregnant through IVF, medical professionals discard any extra fertilized eggs.
“Without the protections of Roe v Wade, it is possible that state lawmakers may feel empowered to create barriers for people to access medical procedures like IVF – which is deeply troubling for LGBTQ+ people and anyone who needs access to IVF to expand their family,” Shelbi Day, Chief Policy Officer at the nonprofit organization Family Equality, told LGBTQ Nation.
Hate crimes driven by homophobia and racism resulted in a 33% surge in reported incidents in California last year, following a similar spike in hate-driven attacks the year prior and confirming what officials have been hearing anecdotally since the pandemic began, the state’s attorney general said Tuesday.
Attorney General Rob Bonta said that crimes against Black people were again the most prevalent in 2021, climbing 13% from 2020 to 513 reported incidents. Hate crimes motivated by sexual orientation bias increased nearly 50% to 303 incidents while crimes against Asian Americans were up 178% to 247 incidents.
“One hard truth in our state, just as we see across the nation, is that the epidemic of hate we saw spurred on during the pandemic remains a clear and present threat,” said Bonta, a Democrat, at a news conference. “Each of these incidents represents an attack on a person, a neighbor, a family member, a fellow Californian.”
The 1,763 hate crimes reported in 2021 was the sixth highest tally since the department began collecting and reporting data statewide in 1995. It is also the highest since 2001, when 2,261 hate crimes fueled by the 9/11 terrorist attacks were reported in California.
Last year’s annual report showed a similarly high increase — 31% — with anti-Black bias making up the bulk of incidents in a state where African Americans are 6% of the population. The 2020 report also showed a startling increase in bias crimes against Asian Americans following the emergence of the coronavirus in China.
Video of assaults on Asian Americans, particularly seniors, went viral last year with San Francisco police in January reporting an astonishing 567% increase in reported crimes from the previous year. The initial count showed 60 victims in 2021, up from nine in 2020. Half of last year’s victims were allegedly targeted by one man.
Still, not all criminal attacks carry a hate crime charge since prosecutors need to prove the suspect was motivated by bias. In San Francisco, for example, the 2021 death of an 84-year-old Thai grandfather is headed to trial although the district attorney’s office has not filed hate crime charges in that case.
Officials say reported hate crime statistics may be far lower than actual numbers, but add they’ve taken steps to encourage reporting by victims. Nationally, hate crimes rose to the highest level in more than a decade in 2019, according to an FBI report.
Community leaders who joined Bonta at Tuesday’s press conference urged people to report crimes and to seek resources such as mental health services. Cirian Villavicencio, commissioner with the California Commission on Asian and Pacific Islander American Affairs, said hateful attacks against the Asian American and Pacific Islander community are not new.
Would it be Pride without a truly fabulous playlist? While there are some great Pride anthems out there that we all know and love (“I’m Coming Out” by Diana Ross or “Born This Way” by Lady Gaga), you can never have enough queer goodness on your playlist.
One wonderful thing about Pride is it allows us the opportunity to celebrate artists from the community itself, so let’s shout about seven queer artists you need to be searching for and adding to your playlists. Because whether you want a timeless bop that will have you singing hairbrush karaoke or a power ballad that’ll get you in your feelings, they’ve got you covered.
Fletcher
Known mononymously by her last name, Cari Elise Fletcher is an American singer-songwriter who makes bops for the girls and the gays. You might know her from her breakthrough single “Undrunk,” which was a hit in 2019.
The singer, who identifies as queer, makes no secret of her love for women, both online and in her music, previously stating that she is “attracted to strong feminine energy which just so happens to more likely than not be women.”
If you want to start off with a bop, listen to “Cherry,” a seductive pop banger in collaboration with the lesbian Jesus herself, Hayley Kiyoko.
The Aces consists of guitarist Katie Henderson, bassist McKenna Petty, and sisters Alisa Ramirez and Cristal Ramirez. Three out of four members of the alternative band are lesbians, and they make beautiful and authentic queer bops.
The band has two albums to their name: their debut When My Heart Felt Volcanic and their latest Under My Influence. However, it’s taken them a while to get to a place of releasing unapologetic women-loving anthems, after initially avoiding pronouns in their music after being told their songs “wouldn’t sell.”
Thankfully, that changed, and now we have them to thank for bangers like “Bad Love,” “Don’t Freak” (which tackles the issue of anxiety and panic attacks), “Kelly,” and more.
If you don’t know Years & Years, get to know them! Now the solo project of British singer Olly Alexander, the band originally formed in 2010. Alexander makes electropop, mixing R&B and 1990s house elements to create anthems that will have you sprinting to the dance floor.
Alexander has collaborated with gay icons like Elton John and Kylie Minogue, to name just two, and his music is a breath of fresh air for the queer community. It’s unabashedly him and what shines through is the care he has for others and the responsibility he feels to be a voice for his community. If you want to start off with a timeless bop, listen to “Starstruck” or “All For You.”
Kehlani garnered a legion of fans following the release of their debut record, SweetSexySavage, in 2017. They’ve been making open and honest music ever since, documenting the ups and downs of their life, from sexuality to pregnancy and depression, offering visibility and representation for non-binary people in the process.
After updating their pronouns on Twitter to she/they, the singer shared with Byrdie Magazine in 2021 that they prefer “they” because “something feels really affirming when people say they” and that “it feels like you really see me.”
Kehlani has become a staple in R&B music for LGBTQ people and it’s easy to understand why.
Baby Queen—real name Arabella Latham—is a South African singer whose work was taken into the hearts of millions after she wrote her hit “Colours of You” for Netflix’s coming-of-age series, Heartstopper. But she’s no one-trick pony. Baby Queen’s discography is bursting with fun, thrills, emotion, and pride. She’s got songs about unrequited love, the angst of being in your early twenties, and just stumbling through life. She even penned a track about Killing Eve star Jodie Comer (“Want Me”).
Latham has said she wants her music to be “uncomfortably honest,” and that’s certainly what it is. If you want a starting point, try “Dover Beach.”
When Muna members Katie Gavin, Josette Maskin, and Naomi McPherson first started their band in 2014, they carefully considered whether they wanted to be an “out” band or not. Fortunately for their queer fans, they chose to be loud and proud, with all members being queer and McPherson non-binary.
Muna said “gay rights” when they collaborated with Phoebe Bridgers for “Silk Chiffon,” which is basically a sweet and tender love song about how soft girls are. They also offered a safe space for their community with “I Know A Place,” which has become something of an LGBTQ anthem.
All of their songs are so carefully crafted with such heart and feeling, whether they’re singing about how the world could be ending and all you’d be thinking about is that one person (“Everything”) or tackling dark matters like sexual assault (“Loudspeaker”), listening to their tunes offers communion and catharsis.
Clela Rorex, a former Colorado county clerk considered a pioneer in the gay rights movement for being the first public official to issue a same-sex marriage license in 1975, has died. She was 78.
Rorex died Sunday of complications from recent surgery at a hospice care facility in Longmont, the Daily Camera reported.
Rorex was a newly elected Boulder County clerk when a gay couple denied a marriage license elsewhere sought her help in March 1975. She told The Associated Press in 2014 that she saw a parallel with the women’s movement and found nothing in state law preventing it.
The then-31-year-old agreed and, in the end, issued a total of six licenses to gay couples before Colorado’s attorney general at the time ordered her to stop.
State and federal law didn’t recognize gay marriage at the time. Rorex recalled that she had little public support and didn’t challenge the attorney general.
A recall effort was launched against Rorex, a single mother and University of Colorado graduate student. Suffering from chronic migraines and dealing with hate mail, she resigned halfway through her term.
Colorado legalized gay marriage in 2014 after a state court and a Denver federal court struck down a 2006 ban enacted by state voters. A 2015 U.S. Supreme Court decision recognized the fundamental right nationwide.
Jared Polis, Colorado’s first openly gay governor, paid tribute to Rorex upon learning of her passing.
“Her certification of same-sex marriages (until the Attorney General shut her down) was a pivotal moment in the long struggle for marriage equality that led to Obergefell v. Hodges in 2015, which legalized marriage equality nationally,” Polis wrote on Facebook. “So many families, including First Gentleman Marlon Reis and I, are grateful for the visionary leadership of Clela Rorex, a woman ahead of her time.”
Glenda Russell, a retired writer and LGTBQ community historian, told the Camera that Rorex faced significant backlash after issuing the first license.
“Nationally at the time, most people didn’t take it too seriously because they didn’t worry about it happening again, but in Boulder, the reaction was forceful and mean spirited. She got hit with all the homophobia and heterosexism that the LGBTQ community was facing,” Russell said.
In later years, Rorex advocated for gay and lesbian rights, speaking in schools and expressing exasperation with the slow pace of change.
According to Out Boulder County, an LGTBQ advocacy organization, Rorex was born in Denver on July 23, 1943. She earned a Bachelor of Arts degree at the University of Colorado before running for county clerk and recorder. After resigning as clerk in 1977 she obtained post-graduate degrees and served a legal administrator for the Native American Rights Fund.
A celebration of life was planned for July 23, Out Boulder County said.
The county courthouse in Boulder where she issued the licenses has been added to the National Register of Historic Places.
Members of the Cape Fear Proud Boys staged a demonstration outside a local library in Wilmington, N.C., on Tuesday where a Pride-themed storytime event was being held. The 15 masked men wearing the violent far-right group’s trademark black and yellow shirts were allowed into the library during the event by New Hanover County Sheriff’s Office deputies.
“I certainly felt like I was in danger when they entered the building,” Emily Jones, a parent who attended the event with her 17-month-old daughter, told Wilmington’s Star News Online.
According to a statement from the sheriff’s office, a deputy positioned himself between the demonstrators and the private room where four parents and six children under the age of seven had gathered for the event.
“The supervisor instructed the demonstrators that they were not allowed to enter the room,” the statement said. “At no time did Sheriff Deputies witness nor did any library staff report any of the demonstrators causing a disturbance within the library or try to enter the private room that was holding the reading. After the reading, all the participants left the library with no incident.”
New Hanover County’s chief diversity and equity officer Linda Thompson claims that the protesters did not enter the building until the Pride event had ended.
“Anyone from the public is permitted inside the building as long as they are not actively protesting or disturbing other patrons, based on the library’s code of conduct,” she said.
But witnesses dispute this account of the event. Several of the parents who attended have taken to Facebook, describing taunts and threats from demonstrators as deputies stood by. The deputies were overly friendly with the masked vigilantes, witnesses say, going so far as to fist bump the hate group members.
Jones reports seeing protesters in plain clothes holding signs that read “LGBT is grooming our kids” and “the library is responsible for child abuse” when she arrived. Once the Proud Boys members were allowed into the library, they reportedly stationed themselves outside the locked room where the event was taking place and shouted “Bring out the drag queens! Bring out the drag queens!”
“They yelled at me, they yelled at my kids. They told my kids they were going to hell,” another parent who wished to remain anonymous told Wilmington’s WWAY 3. “They told me I was a child abuser, they quoted scripture. We were escorted inside by a library employee”
In a Facebook post, Angie Smith Kahney writes that she saw officers “escort the Proud Boys and their klan into the building straight to the room where children as young as 1 were with their parents, while they shouted obscenities and threats.”
Another witness, Sandra Dawn writes that she “watched these protestors SCREAM at young children and their families as they exited the building. The sheriffs allowed these people to stand within feet of young children and SCREAM at them.”
Earlier this month, the Anti-Defamation League linked the recent spate of far-right extremist groups targeting Pride events to both racist and anti-LGBTQ rhetoric that has proliferated online. The ADL Center on Extremism reported seven incidents of far-right groups targeting the LGBTQ community during the weekend of June 11–12 alone. The demonstrations and disruptions are “fueled in part by the claim that members of the LGBTQ+ community are pedophiles who are “grooming” children.”
“Some white supremacists, meanwhile, associate antisemitic and racist conspiracy theories like the Great Replacement with the LGBTQ+ community,” the report continues, “alleging that LGBTQ+ culture and pedophilia are promoted by elites to encourage lower white birthrates in order to ‘replace’ the white population with Black and Brown people.”
A Japanese court ruled on Monday that a ban on same-sex marriage was not unconstitutional, dealing a setback to LGBTQ rights activists in the only Group of Seven nation that does not allow people of the same gender to marry.
The ruling dashes activists’ hopes of raising pressure on the central government to address the issue after a court in the city of Sapporo in March 2021 decided in favor of a claim that not allowing same-sex marriage was unconstitutional.
Three same-sex couples — two male, one female — had filed the case in a district court in Osaka, only the second to be heard on the issue in Japan.
In addition to rejecting their claim that being unable to marry was unconstitutional, the court threw out their demand for 1 million yen ($7,400) in damages for each couple.
“I actually wonder if the legal system in this country is really working,” said plaintiff Machi Sakata, who married her U.S.-citizen partner in the United States. The two are expecting a baby in August.
“I think there’s the possibility this ruling may really corner us,” Sakata said.
Japan’s constitution defines marriage as being based on “the mutual consent of both sexes.” But the introduction of partnership rights for same-sex couples in Tokyo last week, along with rising support in opinion polls, had raised the hopes of activists and lawyers for the Osaka case.
The Osaka court said that marriage was defined as being only between opposite genders and not enough debate on same-sex marriage had taken place in Japanese society.
“We emphasized in this case that we wanted same-sex couples to have access to the same things as regular couples,” said lawyer Akiyoshi Miwa, adding that they would appeal.
Economic implications
Japanese law is considered relatively liberal in some areas by Asian standards, but across the continent only Taiwan has legalized same-sex marriage.
Under current rules in Japan, members of same-sex couples are not allowed to legally marry, cannot inherit each other’s assets — such as a house they may have shared — and also have no parental rights over each other’s children.
Though partnership certificates issued by some municipalities help same-sex couples rent property together and have hospital visitation rights, they do not give them the full legal rights enjoyed by heterosexual couples.
Last week, the Tokyo prefectural government passed a bill to recognize same-sex partnership agreements, meaning local governments covering more than half of Japan’s population now offer such recognition.
While Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has said the issue needs to be carefully considered, his ruling Liberal Democratic Party has disclosed no plans to review the matter or propose legislation, though some senior party members favor reform.
An upcoming case in Tokyo will keep alive public debate on the issue, particularly in the capital, where an opinion poll by the local government late last year found some 70 percent of people were in favor of same-sex marriage.
Legalizing same-sex marriage would have far-reaching implications both socially and economically, activists say, and would help attract foreign firms to the world’s third-biggest economy.
“International firms are reviewing their Asian strategy and LGBTQ inclusivity is becoming a topic,” said Masa Yanagisawa, head of prime services at Goldman Sachs and a board member of the activist group Marriage for all Japan, speaking before the verdict.
“International businesses don’t want to invest in a location that isn’t LGBTQ-friendly.”
The Texas Republican Party unveiled its official position on LGBTQ issues over the weekend, defining homosexuality as an “abnormal lifestyle choice” and also opposing “all efforts to validate transgender identity.”
Thousands of Republican activists met at the party’s biennial convention in Houston on Saturday to agree to the party’s platformon a range of issues, including the rejection of the 2020 election results and a call to repeal of the 1965 Voting Right Act, which was enacted to prevent discrimination against Black voters.
In a section titled “Homosexuality and gender issues,” the party suggested that LGBTQ people should not be legally protected from discrimination and that being gay or trans is a choice.
“Homosexuality is an abnormal lifestyle choice,” the 40-page resolution reads. “We believe there should be no granting of special legal entitlements or creation of special status for homosexual behavior, regardless of state of origin, and we oppose any criminal or civil penalties against those who oppose homosexuality out of faith, conviction, or belief in traditional values.”
In addition, Texas Republicans called for the ban of gender-affirming care — including the distribution of puberty blockers or hormone-suppressing therapies, and the performance of gender-affirming surgeries — for anyone under the age of 21.
The party’s new official stance on LGBTQ issues was unveiled during Pride Month, and as advocates fight against a record number of anti-LGBTQ bills introduced in states across the country this year — more than 340, according to the Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest LGBTQ advocacy group.
LGBTQ+ advocates rally at the Texas State Capitol in Austin, Texas on May 4, 2021.Erich Schlegel / AP Images for Human Rights Campaign file
Texas lawmakers have not enacted anti-LGBTQ legislation into law this year but have pushed headline-generating anti-LGBTQ policies in other ways.
In February, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott ordered the state’s child welfare agency to investigate child abuse claims filed against parents who might be providing their trans children with gender-affirming medical care. And earlier this month, a Texas lawmaker announced that he would introduce novel legislation to ban minors from attending drag shows in the state.
Ricardo Martinez, the CEO of Equality Texas, a statewide LGBTQ advocacy group, called the platform “extreme, but not necessarily new.”
“I’m glad that they’re being really explicit in their words because these words now match their actions,” Martinez said. “This is not surprising, but it certainly is painful for LGBTQ people who live here in Texas.”
The Texas Republican Party blocked the Log Cabin Republicans, a longstanding group of gay conservatives — which also supports many of the party’s anti-LGBTQ policies — from having a booth at Saturday’s convention. The group rebuked the party’s decision to bar it from participating, calling on the state’s GOP to “expand the tent.”
“President Trump, who historically expanded the GOP’s coalition, made clear that LGBT conservatives are welcome in the America First movement and the Republican Party,” the organization said in a statement last week. “It’s shameful that the Texas GOP leadership is choosing to not follow his lead.”
The party’s new official stance on sexual orientation and gender identity also coincides with a recent nationwide surge in charged rhetoric from media pundits and politicians about LGBTQ issues.
In recent months, conservative lawmakers, television pundits and other public figures have accused opponents of a newly enacted Florida education legislation — which critics have dubbed the “Don’t Say Gay” law — of trying to “groom” or “indoctrinate” children. The word “grooming” has long been associated with mischaracterizing LGBTQ people, particularly gay men and transgender women, as child sex abusers.
Advocates have been urging public officials against using the charged rhetoric, warning that it could cause violence directed at LGBTQ Americans.
At least three LGBTQ events were targeted by white nationalist groups this month, with police arresting 31 people at an annual Pride in the Park event in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, on charges of suspicion of conspiracy to riot. Those arrested came to the event with gas masks and shields.
The Texas Republican Party’s new platform also counters President Joe Biden’s recent efforts to expand LGBTQ rights through the executive branch.
Last week, the president signed an executive order that will direct federal health and education agencies to expand access to gender-affirming care and advance LGBTQ-inclusive learning environments at American schools. It will also curb federal funding for the debunked practice of “conversion therapy,” which nearly every leading U.S. medical association has condemned, and ask the Federal Trade Commission to consider whether the practice constitutes an unfair or deceptive act.
The Texas GOP’s stance on same-sex marriage aligns with the national party. The most recent Republican National Committee platform — which was enacted in 2016 and renewed in 2020 — includes at least five references to marriage as exclusively between a man and a woman.
