The U.S. Census Bureau, after nearly a year of pushing the Biden administration, will begin testing questions pertaining to LGBTQ+ identity on its American Community Survey (ACS). These questions would ask people about their sexual orientation and gender identity.
The Bureau put out a Federal Register notice signifying that this is the last chance for the public to give comment on all pending ACS questions, including those pertaining to LGBTQ+ individuals. The deadline given for comment is May 30, with an online form provided for any feedback on these questions.
The wording for these questions can be found on the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs website.
After the Bureau’s deadline, it will be submitting the questions to the Office of Management and Budget, where they will await approval for testing in the summer.
The ACS asks questions about demographic, socioeconomic, and housing-related topics annually. New questions must undergo a rigorous approval and testing process that can take months or years.
The only LGBTQ+ question it currently asks is whether the participant is married to someone of the same sex.
This current process was initiated back in September 2023, when the Census Bureau asked the Biden administration for permission to begin the testing phase of these questions. The public comment period was initiated in February of this year, with mostly positive responses.
“The currently too-limited data resources stand in stark contrast to the numerous policy debates and legislative efforts focused on these populations,” said Gary Gates, a retired demographer, to the Associated Press.
However, like several others, Gates also had critiques of things like the wording of some of the possible responses to questions, including “Straight, that is not gay” as a response to the question about sexual orientation.
“The phrase is patently offensive,” Gates said. “Not being gay is hardly an accurate definition of a straight identity…. Why emphasize that they specifically are not gay? It is simply not an adequate description of straight identity.”
Others critiqued the requirement of people to answer their assigned sex at birth or the separation of “transgender” from “male” and “female” on the gender identity question. Additionally, there were criticisms given for the lack of inclusion of intersex, asexual, and pansexual individuals within any of the questions.
Conservatives have taken issue with the inclusion of LGBTQ+ individuals on these questions at all. Sens. Marco Rubio (R-FL) and J.D. Vance (R-OH) wrote a letter to the director of the Census Bureau opposing the specific inclusion of “gender identity.”
Nancy Bates, lesbian and a sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI) data collection expert who was named a member of the 2030 Census Advisory Committee, told Bay Area Reporter that she was satisfied with the ACS questions.
“This test is extremely critical and will move the needle forward on our understanding of SOGI reporting using a single household proxy to report for all members.”
Larry Walraven, a 75-year-old Las Vegas man, allegedly pointed a gun at his gay male neighbors and said, “I hope you f**gots die.” He then allegedly said, “I’m going to kill you f**king f**gots,” and fired the weapon four times — none of the shots hit the men.
One of the men called 911 to report the alleged assault. When police questioned Walraven, he said “he had no clue what happened” and claimed that he spent the entire night taking care of his mother inside his home, KLAS-TV reported.
Police identified the weapon as a BB gun — BB guns kill an average of four people a year. Police arrested Walraven and charged him with assault with a deadly weapon with a hate crime enhancement. The charge carries a sentence of up to six years in prison and up to $5,000 in fines. The hate crime enhancement can add up to 20 years in prison. Because Walraven was already on parole as a repeat offender, a judge decided to keep him in police custody without bail.
While Walraven’s sexual identification is unclear, heterosexual people are more likely to have guns in the home than gay and bisexual people, according to the Williams Institute. While 19% of LGB adults have a gun at home, 35% of heterosexuals have a gun at home.
Guns are used in nearly 60% of bias-motivated homicides against LGBTQ+ people, according to the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Projects. LGBTQ+ people are more than twice as likely to be victims of gun violence than their cisgender and straight peers, according to the National Archive of Criminal Justice Data. LGBTQ+ people also experience person-based violence at higher rates than victims of religiously or racially motivated crimes, according to the Williams Institute.
The number of hate crimes against sexual orientation in Nevada has fluctuated over the last three years for which data is available, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. While 14 anti-LGB hate crimes were reported in 2020, 30 were reported in 2021, and 18 were reported in 2022.
A drag queen has been announced as one of the people who will carry the Olympic flame in the opening ceremony of the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris. She has been targeted for hatred by the right since she was announced as one of the people who will participate in the Olympic torch relay, but the city of Paris is standing up for her.
“I know that visibility is still one of the pillars of acceptance of our LGBTQIA+ community,” 33-year-old Parisian drag queen Minima Gesté said in a video announcing her participation. “So having a drag queen carry the flame—and who might fall flat on her face with it, wait and see—it’s an enormous source of pride.”
The video was posted online on Wednesday, and many people in the comments responded by attacking Minima. “Decadence of civilization brought on by the left,” one person commented. “Can I get a Russian passport?” another person wrote, calling Minima’s participation a “fiasco” and “ridiculous.”
Far-right politician and niece of proto-fascist politician Marine Le Pen, Marion Maréchal, attacked Minima in an interview on the channel TF1. “This person performs in a way that is particularly vulgar, hypersexualized,” she said. “I don’t think it’s a good way to represent France in the eyes of the world.”
But Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo stood up for Minima.
“I reaffirm my full support for her,” Hidalgo said in a statement on Friday. “I’ll say it again: I am proud and, yes, Paris is proud that a drag queen will carry the torch and the values of peace and humanity.”
The city’s X account said that the original video was “the target of numerous homophobic and transphobic statements.”
“Public insults, particularly of a homophobic and transphobic nature, are an unlawful act,” the account said, referring to France’s hate speech laws. “The Mayor of Paris will be passing statements that she believes potentially rise to the level of a violation of the law against public insult of a homophobic or transphobic nature to the Paris prosecutor’s office.”
“I really don’t care if Marion Maréchal Le Pen doesn’t agree that I should carry the Olympic flame,” Minima said in an Instagram story. “I’ll say it again: yes, I’m proud, and yes, Paris is proud that a drag queen will carry this flame and, therefore, the values of peace and of humanity.”
Minima will be one of several people who will carry the torch when the relay gets to Paris on July 14 and 15.
Maréchal has previously criticized the government based on rumors that French pop star Aya Nakamura, who is Black, was asked to perform at the opening ceremony. Nakamura was born in the West African nation of Mali and immigrated with her family when she was young to a working-class suburb of Paris, becoming a French citizen in 2021. Popular in France, her music is influenced by her African roots.
“The French don’t want to be represented in the eyes of the world by a singer whose style is influenced by the hood and Africa,” Maréchal said, according to an NPR translation. “This is a political move by [French President] Emmanuel Macron, who wants to tell the world that the face of France is multicultural, and we’re no longer a nation with Christian roots and European culture.”
The Biden administration announced a new rule to protect LGBTQ+ youth in foster care, creating a system of designated placements for LGBTQ+ children as well as taking steps to address harassment and abuse against LGBTQ+ foster kids no matter where they’re placed.
To become a designated placement for LGBTQ+ youth, a care provider would have to receive training on the needs of LGBTQ+ youth, help the children get access to age-appropriate resources for their health, and “commit to establishing an environment that supports the child’s LGBTQI+ status or identity,” according to a Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) release.
“Every child deserves a safe and loving home,” said HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra. “When any child comes into government care, they should have supports and services that meet their specific needs. By addressing the needs of LGBTQI+ children, this rule brings us one step closer to ensuring that all children have the opportunity to thrive.”
The rule doesn’t require any placement agency or caregiver to become a designated placement for LGBTQ+ youth. Instead, it requires all state and tribal governments to offer designated placement status for caregivers and to make sure that there are enough to handle LGBTQ+ children in their foster care systems who request such a placement.
The rule also includes language protecting foster agencies and caregivers who don’t want to get designated placement status, saying that nothing in the rule should be interpreted as authorizing a state or tribal government to penalize someone who doesn’t seek such designation. It also has language about “religious freedom.”
HHS said that LGBTQ+ kids are overrepresented in the foster care system, and those who are in the system face more bullying and harassment than cisgender/heterosexual kids do, leading to higher rates of mental health hospitalizations and homelessness.
The rule was proposed last year by the HHS Administration for Children and Families.
More states have announced lawsuits against the Biden administration over its new Title IX rules mandating anti-discrimination protections for LGBTQ+ students, bringing the total number of states suing the administration to 14.
Last week, Alabama, South Carolina, Florida, and Georgia filed a joint lawsuit against the administration, along with the Independent Women’s Network, Parents Defending Education, Speech First, and the Independent Women’s Law Center. In a separate lawsuit, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) also announced a challenge to the new rules.
Now the state of Tennessee is leading a lawsuit against the new rules and is joined by Kentucky, Indiana, Ohio, West Virginia, and Virginia in its complaint. A separate lawsuit has also been filed by the attorneys general of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Idaho.
The new rules interpret Title IX, which bans discrimination on the basis of sex in education, as a legal protection against anti-LGBTQ+ school policies. The idea is that it’s impossible to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity without taking sex into account, a legal argument that the Supreme Court has already used in its 2020 Bostock v. Clayton Co. ruling with respect to job discrimination.
With these rules, any school that receives federal funding will no longer be able to discriminate against LGBTQ+ students. This could affect states and school districts with policies to out LGBTQ+ students to their parents or ban trans students from using bathrooms that correspond with their gender. The new rules could also give students who face discrimination recourse in federal courts.
In a press conference, Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti (R) invoked the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg as justification for his fight to discriminate against trans youth.
“Title IX has protected women for 50 years,” Skrmetti said, as reported by The Tennessean. “It is a law… built around the idea of men and women, sex binary. As Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg noted, enduring differences between the sexes necessitate things like separate bathrooms, separate locker rooms, separate living facilities, separate sports teams. This is something that our law has recognized for decades.”
The rules, however, do not suggest that schools eliminate single-gender spaces. Rather, they simply require schools to include everyone who identifies as a boy in boys’ spaces and everyone who identifies as a girl in girls’ spaces.
While GOP attorneys general are up in arms about the effect the rules will have on athletics, they do not actually discuss transgender student-athletes and which teams they can play on. The DOE is reportedly planning to issue a separate rule regarding what Title IX means for sports participation.
Skrmetti, however, claimed that with the rules, “a boy can walk into a girl’s locker room at a school and if the girl complains that his presence makes her uncomfortable, she can be brought up for investigation and potential penalties for violating civil rights. The new rules is entirely inconsistent with the text of Title IX and its adoption violates the United States Constitution.”
Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen (R) claimed in a press release that the rules will “ultimately prohibit schools from distinguishing between males and females in athletic and educational opportunities” as well as “put women at an unfair disadvantage” and “force boys and girls to share bathrooms, locker rooms, dorms, and even overnight lodging while on a school trip.”
He also said it is designed to “federally coerce schools into indoctrinating students in gender identity theories popular among progressive parents but that ignore science.”
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) wrote on X that President Joe Biden is “abusing his constitutional authority to push an ideological agenda that harms women and girls and conflicts with the truth.”
“We will not comply,” DeSantis continued, “and we will fight back against Biden’s harmful agenda.”
Conservative parent organizations have also spoken out against the new rules. Fifty-three groups signed a letter led by Parents Defending Education (PDE) claiming trans inclusivity “poses a grave threat to the safety and opportunities of women and girls and thwarts students’ First Amendment rights” by forcing them to use accurate pronouns for trans and nonbinary students even if they don’t want to.
The letter also accused the Biden administration of pandering to “a small yet vocal group of extreme activists.”
On Monday, out White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said she could not speak about the new rule too much due to the all the litigation. “So I’ll just say every student has the right to feel safe in school,” she said.
The new rules are set to take effect on August 1 and invalidate numerous anti-transgender policies developed under former President Donald Trump. The Trump administration spent four years fighting against the legal argument that laws that ban discrimination “based on sex” ban anti-LGBTQ+ discrimination, particularly in schools. In 2017, then-Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos issued guidance to schools saying that Title IX did not protect LGBTQ+ students, shortly after she and Attorney General Jeff Sessions revoked a guidance from the administration of former President Barack Obama that said the opposite.
The Biden administration had promised to present the newly unveiled rules by January, but the DOE said its release was delayed due to an unprecedented number of over 240,000 comments submitted during the new rules’ 30-day public response period.
In contrast to the conservative backlash, LGBTQ+ organizations have celebrated the announcement, though they also say more is needed.
In a statement both celebrating and criticizing the newly unveiled rules, the National Women’s Law Center wrote, “As we celebrate this milestone, we recognize that this regulation does not go far enough in making the law’s protections clear for all student-athletes.” The statement was signed by 22 other organizations, including LGBTQ+ advocacy groups like GLSEN, the Human Rights Campaign, PFLAG National, and the National Center for Transgender Equality.
Out gay Rep. Mark Takano (D-CA) wrote, “The Education Department and Biden Administration showed real courage today, delivering on a long-held promise to ensure that the federal government does more to protect all Americans—especially LGBTQ Americans—from discrimination. This groundbreaking rule is a major victory, but we still have much to do. We need to enshrine and expand its protections by passing the Equality Act because for too many Americans, their rights and protections depend on the zip code they live in.”
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) said that his state wouldn’t comply with new rules intended to prevent discrimination against LGBTQ+ students.
“Florida rejects Joe Biden’s attempt to rewrite Title IX,” he said in a video posted to social media. “We will not comply, and we will fight back.”
At issue are Title IX rules released by the Department of Education earlier this month that forbid discriminatory and harassing behavior against LGBTQ+ students. Title IX bans discrimination on the basis of sex, and the Biden administration based the rules on the legal argument that it is impossible to discriminate against LGBTQ+ people without taking sex into account, making anti-LGBTQ+ discrimination a form of sex-based discrimination. The Supreme Court’s 2020 Bostock v. Clayton Co. decision relied on the same reasoning, but that case only applied to workplace discrimination.
The new Title IX rules do not address the issue of transgender student-athletes and what teams they can play on, with two unnamed sources telling the Washington Post that President Joe Biden wanted to avoid the issue during an election year. Still, DeSantis brought the issue up in his video anyway.
“We are not gonna let Joe Biden try to inject men into women’s activities,” DeSantis said. “We are not gonna let Joe Biden undermine the rights of parents, and we are not gonna let Joe Biden abuse his constitutional authority to try to impose these policies on us here in Florida.”
DeSantis isn’t the first state elected official to call on schools to defy the federal guidelines. Louisiana’s Superintendent of Education Cade Brumley told schools to ignore the federal government. He said that the rules would “likely conflict” with two bills in the legislature: one allowing teachers to misgender and deadname trans students and a second forbidding discussion of LGBTQ+ issues in all grade levels.
Republican officials in South Carolina and Oklahoma have also spoken out against the rules. South Carolina Schools Superintendent Ellen Weaver wrote a letter to school districts this week that banning anti-LGBTQ+ discrimination in schools “would rescind 50 years of progress & equality of opportunity by putting girls and women at a disadvantage in the educational arena.”
DeSantis has supported and implemented numerous laws attacking the rights of LGBTQ+ youth, including banning discussions of their identities in schools, banning gender-affirming health care for trans youth, and banning trans youth from participating in school sports.
While the ad is comical, online dating apps continue to provide an uneven experience for trans, nonbinary, and genderfluid users. Most dating websites and smartphone apps didn’t initially offer gender descriptions for these users to authentically present themselves to others. Even with expanded gender presentation options, non-cisgender users say that ignorance and transphobia continue to make online dating feel unsafe.
A brief (incomplete) history of LGBTQ+ online dating
The earliest days of LGBTQ+ online dating harken back to the late 80s and early 90s, when gay men used dial-up modems to connect through bulletin board systems (BBSs) like Backroom and Gay.net. Back then, some lesbians also used an e-mail listserv called Sappho and, later, the website lesbian.org, which contained personals, discussion forums, web links for lesbian-oriented non-profits, and even a lesbian literary journal called Sapphic Ink.
In the early to late 90s, web services like Compuserve and America Online (AOL) provided real-time M4M, W4W, and “transexual” chatrooms where queer love-seekers could connect, talk dirty, and spend hours uploading and downloading pixelated photographs of themselves via very-slow internet connections.
“I think LGBTQ+ people were always really early adopters to online dating,” Michael Kaye, the one-time director of brand marketing and communications for OkCupid told QSaltLake. “Speaking from experience, we are limited to the safe spaces that we have available.”
In the 2000s, some popular heterosexual dating sites like eHarmony didn’t allow gay and lesbian profiles, leaving queer users to look elsewhere like OkCupid, a personal ad site for gay, lesbian, bisexual, and cis-het people that appeared in 2004. OkCupid helped facilitate LGB dating by including a unique feature: It let users choose only to be visible to other queer folks, reducing the likelihood that gay men or lesbian women would receive messages from a bunch of eager and unwitting heterosexuals.
However, the biggest revolution in online dating occurred in 2009 with the advent of Grindr, one of the first third-party apps for Apple’s iPhone. While the app — and similar ones — facilitated countless quick hook-ups and longer-term relationships, the apps weren’t initially inclusive of trans, nonbinary, and gender-fluid users because they offered a limited range of self-identifying gender options and transphobic responses from other cisgender users.
Over time, trans-inclusive apps like Tser appeared. Tser specifically marketed itself as a place where trans people could find community and support, but trans users found that the app still contained transphobia: It categorized cis individuals as “men” and “women,” invalidating trans women and trans men as not “real” women and men. It also used the outdated term “transsexual.”
Expanding gender options is a good start, but not enough
In 2016, Tindr offered users the option of entering any term that best describes their gender identity for display on their profiles. Grindr and Hinge took similar paths by offering more gender description options — like “trans man,” “trans woman,” “non-binary,” “non-conforming” and “queer” — in 2017.
In 2023, eHarmony also began offering an expanded list of genders — including options like “agender,” “bigender,” “genderqueer,” “pangender,” “questioning,” “trans masculine/feminine nonbinary,” and “Two-Spirit.”
The app Bumble also expanded its options to be more inclusive of nonbinary users in 2022, but the app’s “women make the first move” feature — which was created to reduce creepy unwanted advances from men — didn’t allow nonbinary people to message others who identified as women.
“I applaud them for trying to be inclusive, but they’re just completely missing the point,” one user named Kay told NBC News. “I get that their whole shtick is women message first. But if that’s the case, don’t add the gender-inclusive options if you’re going to make nonbinary people feel like they are being squished into a woman or man category.”
Non-cisgender users of Tinder and Hinge also had another issue: after self-identifying as their preferred gender description, the sites would then reductively ask if they’d like to be paired with people who were looking for “men” or women,” the independent cultural site The Skinny reported.
Other users expressed frustration that dating sites often group people by gender rather than by sexuality, making it impossible for searchers to filter out heterosexual users. Others found that, even when apps and sites had inclusive gender options, they had very few non-cisgender users, making the dating “community” feel isolating.
Taking a stand against transphobia
In 2015, when the women’s dating app HER launched, founder Robyn Exton said, “All of the online platforms for women [before 2015] were just reskins of sites built for gay men but turned pink, asking you how much body hair you had, or straight sites that were filled with guys asking you [to have a three-way]. It felt crazy to me, at the time, that no one had truly made a dating product for women.”
HER eventually branded itself as a community and dating app for the FLINTA [female, lesbian, intersex, trans, and agender] community. In 2023, it used Lesbian Visibility Day to send out an announcement to all users reiterating its “no TERFs” policy against transphobes, something it felt was particularly important considering the rise of right-wing anti-trans laws and rhetoric.
“[Trans-exclusionary radical feminists’] harmful and transphobic mentality negates the experiences and identities of our trans and gender non-conforming community, fosters their marginalization, and contributes to discrimination and [harm],” the announcement declared. “Besides being sad, hateful clowns who spew out a lot of misinformation, TERFs are also a genuine threat to the LGBTQIA+ community. And that’s just not going to fly here.”
Despite the announcement, HER still found that its trans, nonbinary, and genderfluid users still faced challenges when using the app, including people expressing trans-exclusionary preferences, misgendering, invasive questions, different forms of fetishization, ignorance about the trans experience, and even other users maliciously reporting their profiles as somehow violating the app’s user policies.
Apps like Grindr, Scruff, and OkCupid have since expanded by allowing users to express the range of genders they’re attracted to, making their profiles easier for non-cis users to find.
Two other platforms, Taimi and Lex, take different approaches by centering non-cis users and not focusing solely on gender as a way of matching users. Taimi lets users say whether they’re looking for trans, intersex, or nonbinary users. Lex is a text-based app that’s primarily for “womxn, trans, genderqueer, intersex, two-spirit and non-binary ppl” where users can describe what kind of people and social interactions they’re craving.
As HER and other dating website and apps figure out how to be more welcoming for non-cis users, HER’s non-cis users said the app would feel safer if it provided more education about trans experiences, better profile filtering, more ways to self-identify one’s gender, better account verification methods, and better safety protocols to prevent and penalize transphobia.
“Even in spaces built for all queer folks, there is much work to be done,” Exton wrote.
It joins Kentucky, Georgia, and West Virginia in the cohort of states failing to pass a single bill. Florida passed only one.
Iowa Republicans saw bill after bill fall this session despite prioritizing them. A last-minute effort to push one through as an amendment to another bill also collapsed.
More than 20 bills were introduced during this session. Some were introduced by the governor herself.
One bill tried to remove trans people from the state’s civil rights laws and declare them “disabled” instead. Another would have redefined the word “equal” in state law to specifically exclude trans people from the standard definition of “same” or “identical.”
A third bill would have banned transgender from bathrooms that match their gender identity. One of the worst, known as the “pink triangle law,” would have required special markers on trans people’s birth certificates and driver’s licenses.
The proposed change to Iowa’s civil rights law was so drastic and loathsome that even Republicans refused to entertain the idea.
A crowd of hundreds erupted into cheers when the members of a subcommittee who had heard an hour of testimony against the bill announced they would not advance it any further. The committee was composed of two Republicans and a single Democrat. The vote was unanimous.
In Kentucky, all ten bills that targeted LGBTQ+ residents failed. Republicans overwhelmingly dominate the legislature.
Some of Kentucky’s most atrocious bills would have weakened local nondiscrimination ordinances, restricted drag performances, and allowed doctors to deny care to LGBTQ+ individuals by citing a “moral objection.”
The High Court of Dominica has overturned a colonial-era law banning same-sex relations between consenting adults after a gay man filed a lawsuit claiming the ban was unconstitutional.
The complainant, who remained anonymous, claimed the law led him “to live in constant fear of criminal sanction for engaging in consensual sexual activity” and caused “hateful and violent conduct towards him and other LGBT persons” that stopped him “from living and expressing himself freely and in dignity,” according to BBC.
The ruling stated that the constitution guarantees that “a person shall not be hundred in the enjoyment of his right to assemble and freely associate with other persons” and that this “must necessarily include the freedom to enter into and maintain intimate relationships without undue intrusion by the State.”
Written by High Court Judge Kimberly Cenac-Phulgence, it also said that the current law causes “widespread hostility towards persons perceived to be LGBT both in public and private settings” and “cannot be justified as necessary to respect the rights and freedoms of others or the public interest.”
Activist Daryl Phillip celebrated the ruling, telling BBC it has set the country – which should not be confused with the Dominican Republic – “on a promising path toward restoring people’s dignity and safeguarding LGBTQ people’s rights to privacy, health, and freedom from torture and ill-treatment, aligning with international human rights obligations.” He also acknowledged that the ruling will not make homophobia “stop tomorrow” and that it is “a process.”
Maria Sjödin, executive director of LGBTQ+ organization Outright International, explained that “Decriminalisation helps create an environment where LGBTQ individuals can live openly without fear of persecution, enabling them to access health care, education, and employment without facing discrimination.”
“The repeal of these discriminatory laws is a testament to the tireless efforts of activists, advocates, and allies who have long fought for justice and equality,” Sjödin continued. “It is a victory for human rights and a significant milestone in the ongoing struggle for LGBTQ rights in the Caribbean.”
The anonymous complainant has spent five years battling for the law to be overturned. Originally established during the British colonial era, the Associated Press says it was strengthened in 1998 and carried a potential ten-year prison sentence.
LGBTQ+ adults overwhelmingly favor President Joe Biden – and Democrats generally – over former President Donald Trump and Republicans, a new survey has found. But while queer respondents also said the Democratic Party should be doing more to fight anti-LGBTQ+ legislation, the survey also revealed that LGBTQ+ issues aren’t the most important thing on queer voters’ minds leading into the November general elections.
A survey of 873 LGBTQ+ adults conducted by Data for Progress found that 57% of respondents had a favorable view of the Democratic Party and 51% had a favorable view of Biden. Comparatively, only 20% of respondents had a favorable view of the Republican Party and only 22% had a favorable view of Trump.
Generally, Black respondents and women have higher rates of unfavorable views toward Trump and Republicans.
Trans respondents were more likely than cisgender ones to say that the Biden Administration is doing worse than they expected. While 46% of cis respondents said the Biden administration is doing worse than expected, that percentage was 52% for trans respondents.
Approximately 70% percent of LGBTQ+ people who identify as a Democrat, including 81% of Democratic transgender adults, also say the Democratic Party should be doing more to protect queer Americans from anti-LGBTQ+ legislation. The younger the respondent, the more likely they were to feel this way.
However, when asked about the top issues they consider when deciding who to vote for, queer adults ranked LGBTQ+ issues third behind “the economy, jobs, and inflation” and “other.” The response suggests that a majority of LGBTQ+ voters are not “single-issue voters” and may be especially focused on economic issues since LGBTQ+ workers continue to earn about 90 cents for every dollar that cisgender and heterosexual workers earn, according to the Human Rights Campaign.
Trans respondents, however, ranked LGBTQ+ issues as the top issue they consider when voting. Approximately 50% ranked queer issues as their top consideration, compared to just 11% of cisgender respondents who did the same. Generally speaking, younger respondents said they consider LGBTQ+ issues more often when voting than older respondents.
Interesting, majorities of LGBTQ+ voters, regardless of age, said they believe that neither the Republican nor the Democratic parties care much about people like them. Despite this, majorities of LGBTQ+ voters also said they felt enthusiastic about voting in the 2024 election. Approximately 61% percent of all respondents expressed such enthusiasm, though that enthusiasm was generally lower among younger voters.
The survey’s findings align with a March 2023 survey that found that LGBTQ+ voters overwhelmingly support Biden. That same survey found that a majority of LGBTQ+ voters said they plan to vote in the 2024 elections and that both LGBTQ+ and non-LGBTQ+ voters oppose Republicans’ relentless anti-trans campaign.
“Overall, the reason that LGBTQ people seem to vote in large numbers for Democrats is because, unfortunately, today’s Republican Party has made LGBTQ equality a partisan issue,” Zeke Stokes, a GLAAD consultant, told ABC. “There are LGBTQ people on all places of the ideological perspective when it comes to what we would traditionally consider conservative to liberal in this country. But we’ve got one party, unfortunately, who’s put a target on our backs, in order to appeal to a minority of their base.”
