In a state like Georgia that has a Republican trifecta — a Republican governor and a party majority in both chambers of the state legislature — queer community leaders and political strategists are working diligently to prove Atlanta isn’t the state’s only allegedly progressive community.
Georgia has roughly 8 million registered (active and inactive) voters. Georgia’s Secretary of State online data hub indicates there have been 121,898 more active voters since the December 2022 runoff election, and each one will count in a battleground state that could determine the nation’s future.
In September, the Georgia State Election Board voted to have all cast ballots counted by hand. Many consider this rule change an ongoing effort to undermine or at least delay election results. Democrats, who were once pushing Gov. Brian Kemp (R) to hold an ethics hearing, filed a lawsuit to have a judge push Kemp to remove some of the members of the elections board believed to be former President Donald Trump loyalists. While one judge dismissed the case in early October, a Fulton County Superior Court Judge issued an injunction blocking the hand count rule on the first day of early voting in the state. The judge felt the new rule was approved too close to Election Day and would create “administrative chaos.”
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Georgia’s narrative as a battleground state has been a major talking point in recent years. According to some reports, Stacey Abrams’ 2018 gubernatorial campaign was a test case to prove if the Democratic party mounted a “sustained voter outreach campaign,” the state could flip from red to blue. In Georgia, Joe Biden narrowly beat Trump by 11,779 votes during the 2020 election, garnering him the Electoral College votes needed to become the 46th president of the United States and strengthening the argument that Georgia could be a viable player on the national stage. Two years later, Sen. Raphael Warnock’s runoff win over Republican challenger Herschel Walker solidified the state’s status as a bonafide swing state.
How has this happened? An increasing number of LGBTQ+ community leaders and political strategists have worked tirelessly to galvanize voters of all ages, backgrounds, and identities to build a coalition beyond the state’s capital, Atlanta. They have also proven, to some extent, that they carry political power in the state and have built effective grassroots efforts in their local communities.
Georgians are fighting for people over politics
FTR Political Strategies co-founder Mo Pippin.
At 28, Mo Pippin (they/them) is one Georgian hoping to turn the state from purple to blue. In 2023, they co-founded FTR Political Strategies out of a need for greater engagement in local elections and voter education.
“Here in Roswell — which is just a hop, skip, and a jump away from Athens — we’re doing the work to boil down these large, sometimes scary federal issues to local and state issues that are digestible, recognizable, and salient to people; and trying to connect them with better representatives,” Pippin told LGBTQ Nation. “I believe fully that young people have been primed to have conversations with people who are different from us. One of the primary things that we do to engage voters is we canvas; we knock on doors.”
Pippin said voters have warned them to be careful in their neighborhood whenever they canvass in traditionally conservative areas of Roswell. They believe the warning is rooted in an assumption that other residents in the region will not be welcoming and potentially combative.
“If I’m looking at our state government and I don’t see people who look like me or who act like me or who share the same values as I do, it’s an easy assumption that, because of what we’re told about democracy, these people who got into office through the means of popular vote naturally represent our entire population,” they said. “But that’s not the case. Our voter turnout in the state is incredibly low. The system is made that way. There are all of these structural reasons – getting their children to school, getting to work themselves, making sure their families are fed, and their health needs are met – why people are not able to engage in the [political process] in our state. People are too tired and too busy to vote.”
Organizations like Georgia Equality, the state’s largest and oldest LGBTQ+-centered advocacy organization, are actively working to engage, educate, and advocate. This past year, it played an integral role in helping defeat the nearly 20 anti-LGBTQ+ bills introduced in the state legislature by appearing regularly at the state Capitol for hearings, votes, and meetings alongside other pro-LGBTQ+ groups. The organization also leveraged the community, organizing more than 5,000 people to make calls to their representatives during the session.
“Our priority is not to leave any LGBTQ+ Georgian behind,” Noël Heatherland (they/them), statewide organizing manager for Georgia Equality, told LGBTQ Nation. “And making sure that everyone, especially those who do not live inside the bubble of the city of Atlanta, is remembered and included throughout the year, especially during a time where our civic engagement and letting our voices be heard is so important.”
The queer experience in the state’s southern region comes with its own set of issues and specific concerns, said Heatherland, a native of Albany, Georgia. While recent reports suggest that most LGBTQ+ voters are motivated to support the Democratic party and concerned about issues like restricting women’s rights and banning medical care for transgender youth, Heatherland said queer Georgians are also concerned with a lot of the same issues that impact people across various communities and demographics.
Omarion Smart agrees. A senior at Georgia State University, Smart is a native of Bainbridge, Georgia, in the southwest region. He’s also policy director for Voters of Tomorrow, a social welfare organization for Gez Z, by Gen Z. Housing, food security, and the cost of living are key issues queer voters are taking to the ballot box this November, he said. Healtherland adds queer voters in the state are also concerned about quality education for their children and the safety of their children in schools. According to the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law, the LGBTQ+ population makes up about 4.7% of the population in the state of Georgia, with 27% of them having children.
“The majority of Georgians agree on these things,” Smart said. “We agree that housing should be affordable. We agree that we should have health care and that Medicare and Medicaid should be expanded. The economy. Housing. As well as the rise of transgender hate ideology and reproductive rights. They are all important issues to voters in Georgia. No one issue has priority over the other. Yet we have those in the legislature that do not reflect the population of our state, and it’s time that we change that.”
Smart’s concerns manifested this August when Georgia Lt. Gov. Burt Jones (R) launched the Georgia Senate Special Committee on the Protection of Women’s Sports “to ensure that female athletes across Georgia have the right to compete on a fair and level playing field.” Smart believes the committee and its purpose are “disgusting.”
“It’s not even intended to learn about these issues,” Smart said. “That’s just how the politics in our state are. Their goal is to spew their blatant hate and not be called out on their hatred.”
“We have those in the legislature that do not reflect the population of our state, and it’s time that we change that.”Omarian Smart, policy director, Voters of Tomorrow
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As far as Shawn Harris is concerned, the energy behind anti-LGBTQ+ and transgender legislation by the conservative party is a smokescreen. Harris is challenging Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) for Georgia’s 14th congressional district, which includes Rome, Calhoun, and Dalton in the northwest. He said that Greene has created a narrative about the region that makes it seem problematic. Harris, however, says local voters are more focused on quality of life, including jobs and affordable housing.
“People get up every day from our area and drive either to Atlanta to go to work or they drive to Chattanooga, Tennessee. They get up every morning at 4 a.m. to beat the traffic,” Harris told LGBTQ Nation. “They’re not home when it’s time for their kids to get off from school. They’re not home for their kid’s soccer games or whatever. They do this for a good-paying job with insurance. And they need affordable housing.”
As election day gets closer, queer voters in Georgia have an impressive slate of candidates to consider: Gen Z Democrat Ashwin Ramaswamy is running for state Senate District 48, challenging Trump loyalist Shawn Still, who was indicted in the Fulton County election interference case last year; RaShaun Kemp won the Democratic primary to fill state Senate seat District 38 and is reportedly the first openly gay man elected to the state Senate; and Laura Judge is running for the County School Board, Post 5.
Rashaun Kemp. Photo via rashaunforgeorgia.com.
“The Cobb County school system has been implementing a ton of book bans against a variety of different books and also enacting discriminatory policies,” said strategist Pippin. “If she wins, control of the Cobb Board of Education would flip and stop the madness happening there. Her district is extremely competitive, and I’m cheering for her big time.”
One candidate with personal stakes is JD Jordan, running against John Albers for Georgia Senate District 56.
“He is running to protect his children from harmful state policies. The incumbent is a co-sponsor of anti-trans legislation that threatens healthcare access for JD’s children,” said Pippin. “He has five kids between the ages of 14 and 19, and two of them identify as transgender.”
Georgia Equality’s Heatherland said Albers is not cordial to LGBTQ+ people or allies and is not willing to listen to them when they are at the Capitol to discuss issues – even if they are his constituents. The district is now trending as one of the state’s most “flippable” districts.
“It’s one thing to speak up on behalf of LGBTQ+ children, and specifically transgender people, when you’re running for something in Atlanta and like 85% of the people you’re talking to agree with you,” added Pippin. “It’s another to do that in a district that is red like SD56, and JD is out here fighting that fight and helping dispel all the misinformation that is spewed about the queer community. He is the dad many of us in the community wish we had growing up.”
Today the Movement Advancement Project (MAP) and CenterLink released the 2024 LGBTQ Community Center Survey Report, which showed that 73% of LGBTQ centers surveyed reported they had experienced anti-LGBTQ threats or harassment over the past two years, much of which were specifically in response to anti-LGBTQ politics or rhetoric.
The 2024 LGBTQ Community Center Survey report had 199 participating LGBTQ community centers in 42 states, Washington D.C., and Puerto Rico. The biennial survey series started in 2008, highlights the crucial role these centers play in the broader LGBTQ movement, offering an invaluable link between LGBTQ people and local, state, and national efforts to advance LGBTQ equality.
“As attacks on LGBTQ people escalate year after year, we applaud these centers’ ongoing dedication to serving on the front line – meeting both the immediate and long-term needs of LGBTQ people, their families, and their communities across the country,” said Tessa Juste, LGBTQ Movement Building and Policy Researcher from the Movement Advancement Project. “This report illustrates the vital difference these centers make in people’s everyday lives, while also highlighting the urgent need for continued funding and support of these centers and the lifelines they provide.”
The report also showed that the 199 participating LGBTQ community centers collectively serve over 58,700 people each week, or over 3 million people per year, with many centers primarily serving people and communities that are historically under-resourced and under-served, including low-income, people of color, transgender people, and those under the age of 18.
“This report is a crucial guidepost for us to see the positive impact of LGBTQ centers across the U.S. as well as what areas need additional resources,” said Denise Spivak, CEO of CenterLink. “As we celebrate our 30th anniversary, this report makes clear the importance of LGBTQ centers in our communities.”
Additional Key Findings The report breaks down program priorities, constituencies and services, infrastructure, fundraising, and staff, board, and volunteer capacity, in addition to the rising threats to safety and security experienced by centers.
Programs & Services 66% of LGBTQ community centers directly provide physical health, mental health, and/or anti-violence services or programs—and this number jumps to 95% of centers when including those that provide referrals to LGBTQ-friendly health providers. Half of centers (50%) offer computer resources or services to the public, providing needed tools for job searching and career development, social services, schoolwork, and more.Nearly all centers (92%) engage in advocacy, public policy, or civic engagement activities, across a wide range of issues and areas, including over half engaging in voter registration efforts. More than one-third of centers listed anti-transgender legislation or other focus areas as their top priority, reflecting the increasingly hostile political and legislative landscape today. Center Capacity Although LGBTQ community centers reported a collective 2024 budget of over $366 million across all centers, the report shows that the financial realities of LGBTQ community centers vary greatly. Over one-third of centers have budgets of less than $250,000. In addition, over 98% of that collective budget belongs to big budget centers (budgets of $250,000 or more).
Funding sources also vary across the different size centers: the largest share (41%) of big budget centers reported that government grants were their top single source of revenue in 2023, while the largest share (41%) of small budget centers said individual contributions were their main source of revenue in 2023.Government grants provide key resources to centers and are used to provide key services to LGBTQ and non-LGBTQ people alike in local communities across the country.
Over six in ten (64%) responding LGBTQ community centers reported currently having a government grant, totaling more than $117 million in funding for needed services like health and housing.While nearly half of all centers remain thinly staffed, 84% of responding centers employ paid staff, providing jobs to 3,100 people.In 2023, roughly 11,600 people volunteered over 421,000 hours at responding community centers, helping centers with and without paid staff to significantly expand their reach and impact.
MethodologyThe survey was conducted online in July 2024 and was distributed to LGBTQ community centers in the United States that are CenterLink members. The survey was jointly developed by MAP and CenterLink. Further details are available in the report.
About MAP: MAP’s mission is to provide independent and rigorous research, insight and communications that help speed equality and opportunity for all. MAP works to ensure that all people have a fair chance to pursue health and happiness, earn a living, take care of the ones they love, be safe in their communities, and participate in civic life. www.mapresearch.orgAbout CenterLink: For 30 years, CenterLink has been at the forefront of empowering LGBTQ community centers. Our mission is clear: to strengthen, support, and connect LGBTQ community centers, enabling them to effectively serve their communities across social, cultural, health, and advocacy areas. CenterLink facilitates over $1.5 million in collaborative funding annually, ensuring our centers have the resources to continue making a meaningful impact. We provide essential resources, guidance, and a collective voice to our emerging and established centers. www.lgbtqcenters.org
A Texas judge said she will not drop her lawsuit against a state commission that publicly sanctioned her for refusing to officiate at same-sex weddings, even though the commission withdrew its ethics warning last month.
Judge Dianne Hensley, an elected Texas justice of the peace who hears small claims and misdemeanor cases, said in a filing in an appeals court in Austin last week that the about-face by the State Commission on Judicial Conduct does not undermine her case.
Hensley is suing the commission for allegedly violating her religious rights as a Christian. The lawsuit seeks an order barring future sanctions, but does not ask the court to overturn the public warning. The Texas Supreme Court in June revived Hensley’s lawsuit.
The judicial commission’s Sept. 9 statement withdrawing its warning “does not acknowledge that judges and justices of the peace in Texas may lawfully choose to officiate only at opposite-sex weddings without fear of discipline,” Hensley’s lawyer, Jonathan Mitchell, said in the new court filing.
Mitchell declined to comment. A lawyer for the judicial commission, Douglas Lang, on Monday said it was opposed to the continuation of Hensley’s lawsuit.
Hensley did not immediately respond to a request for comment. She has denied violating judicial conduct rules.
Hensley, a Waco-based judge since 2015, is among about 800 justices of the peace in Texas. They can officiate at weddings for free or for a fee but are not required to do so.
The judicial commission said in its warning that Hensley’s conduct cast doubt “on her capacity to act impartially to persons appearing before her as a judge due to the person’s sexual orientation.”
A trial judge dismissed Henley’s lawsuit because she had not first appealed the commission’s warning. An appeals court later upheld the dismissal, but the state high court said Hensley could pursue her religious rights claims.
After gaining new members, the judicial conduct commission last month withdrew the 2019 warning and dismissed its complaint against Hensley after reviewing the facts and the Texas Supreme Court’s ruling.
Mitchell told the Texas Third Court of Appeals that the commission’s action “does not remove the threatened enforcement that Judge Hensley is suing over.”
Mitchell’s filing said the commission believed the withdrawal of the public warning should void Hensley’s lawsuit. The commission will ask the appeals court to weigh that issue, the filing said.
A lawyer for the commission has said Hensley’s lawsuit is seeking a “license to discriminate.”
The gay 41-year-old Democratic candidate has an undergrad degree in mathematics, a master’s in business administration, and a professional career spanning regulatory rate optimization and corporate pharmacy benefit management.
With a knack for numbers, he’s all about finding the most elegant solution to complicated problems.
He’ll find plenty in the Missouri Legislature if he’s elected the next state rep from District 100 in St. Louis. Lovett says Jefferson City is mired in dysfunction.
While his CV may sound dry, the married girl dad brings passion rooted in Midwest values – like hard work, devotion to family, and humility – to both his long list of civic contributions and his candidacy.
He can still rattle off the Boy Scouts’ creed in seconds flat.
Lovett spoke from his home office in Ballwin, a suburb on the west side of St. Louis, in the same house where he listened to and learned from his grandfather’s stories of “fighting the good fight.”
LGBTQ Nation: You lost your race for the same seat you’re running for two years ago against the same candidate, Rep. Philip Oehlerking, by less than 200 votes. What’s changed between then and now, and why do you think you’re going to prevail in the rematch?
Colin Lovett: Last time around, I was a first-time candidate, so you don’t know what you don’t know. You’re drinking from the fire hose, trying to learn how to be a good candidate. You’re building name recognition and ID throughout the district. A lot of the people that are voting have never heard your name. So we spent a ton of time and effort in that first cycle getting our name out there and making the introduction of who am I and why am I good for the district. We came that close, and we’ve basically not stopped campaigning since then.
I come from the Harvey Milk school of politics of run, and if you don’t succeed, run, and then run again. This next iteration, it’s been so exciting, because now as we go door to door, people will say, “Oh yeah, I remember you. I voted for you in ’22, and I’m voting for you again.” Or when we get to tell them how close this race was, they’re shocked. “I had no idea that this race was that close.” And we get the opportunity to describe how consequential these state legislature races are. We’re only three seats away from breaking the Republican supermajority in the House. It was six seats in 2022.
Of 26,500 registered voters, there were 10,000 people that didn’t cast a vote in 2022, at least for the state rep race. And we only lost by 181. We’ve had a lot of success in educating our voters on those things. We’re going to bring them home this time.
You haven’t mentioned your opponent. What about his performance in the last couple of years?
So about my opponent, one of the hallmarks of my campaign is we have really tried to do a good job at telling our voters what I’m going to bring to the district and what I want to do, and not disparaging and striking him down. But I will say, he has a record now, and he is pretty extreme on the issues.
He voted alongside the Republican super-majority to make it more difficult for ballot initiatives to pass, to restrict reproductive freedom, access to health care. He’s been a big proponent of privatizing public education in the state. It’s disguised under parental rights and freedom, but they’re going to gut public education dollars to put them into private religious and parochial schools and charter schools.
Missourians will be voting in November on a ballot initiative called Amendment 3, which would enshrine the right to abortion in Missouri’s constitution. Is Donald Trump right that everything is working out fine for women in the aftermath of the Supreme Court overturning Roe v Wade?
Absolutely not. Providers are so terrified of the draconian laws that have been put into effect that they won’t provide the healthcare services women need, so people are forced to travel across state lines, and that leads to severe health complications up to and including death, and it’s just horrible.
We need to make sure that we are giving people the freedom to make healthcare decisions about their own bodies, and that includes issues around pregnancy and healthcare around abortion, but also around our trans community and being able to make decisions about our bodies in that way, too. The government really just needs to stay the hell out of the way.
Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley — who memorably ran out of the Capitol on January 6 after fist-pumping to a crowd of election-denying protesters on his way in — attended a rally a few weeks ago and conflated Amendment 3 with kids getting “sex change operations” in schools. Afterward, a spokesman confirmed that Hawley was making a false argument that reproductive health care encompasses transgender care. What do the tactics say about Hawley’s character?
I think at this point we’re starting to see Hawley, and not just him, but other candidates in our state, afraid that they’re going to lose their seats, and they’re going to say whatever they need to fear monger. And, yeah, it’s a complete lie.
What are the details in Amendment 3 that he’s making that connection with?
You’ll have to ask him.
In July, a St. Louis circuit court judge slapped down the Republican Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey’s nefarious investigation into transgender children’s medical records. Bailey claimed, based on false testimony provided by a notorious anti-trans activist, that Washington University in St. Louis “systematically pressured or deceived parents and insurance providers into purchasing irreversible gender transition interventions.” The implication was that the school and others associated with gender-affirming care are doing it for the money. With that road blocked, where do you think Bailey’s next battle will be in his culture war on trans people?
If only I could predict the future, right?
I mean, for one, I really would love to see our candidate for attorney general, Elad Gross, defeat Andrew Bailey and become an actually good attorney general, where we don’t have these attacks lobbed on our trans kiddos and our trans community.
I don’t know where Bailey’s going to go next. I mean, there seems to be a lot of attempts to just completely antagonize the trans community in every way possible, from access to health care to being able to play sports in schools. What else could they go after? They could go after housing and public accommodations. I mean, there just seems to be an all-out war on the trans community.
There was recently some excitement around a local gym and a person who identifies as trans not being able to use the facilities that they needed to. At the Department of Revenue, there was a form that you could access to be able to legally change your gender. All of a sudden, that form was gone from the website.
It just seems like the leadership in the state, which right now is controlled by pretty extreme anti-trans people, are coming for whatever they can. That’s really not what Missourians are like. It’s just what, unfortunately, we have elected in our leadership right now.
Video just surfaced of failed anti-LGBTQ+ Missouri candidate for secretary of state Valentina Gomez dancing with the gays at a New Year’s Eve party last year in New York, to a DJ set from Drag Race alum Aquaria. She replied to one publication saying, it’s “impossible to walk around New York City without running into a mentally ill f**got.” You’re not a doctor, but how would you diagnose someone like Gomez?
Well, in honor of it being Mean Girls Day, I would say she doesn’t even go here (laughing). If you look at what the election results showed, she was widely unpopular, and it’s easy to get on camera and just shout a bunch of inflammatory nonsense, and she certainly got some attention, but the values of Missouri did not align with her candidacy. Maybe she should think about other things than running to serve the people of Missouri.
You’re for low taxes, a balanced budget, Second Amendment rights, increased funding for police and religious freedom protections. How do you describe your politics, and have you ever voted Republican?
I have never voted Republican, but if we really came down to a scenario where we had fascist leaders in the Democratic Party, I would consider voting for the right person rather than a party.
I have an eight-year-old who is in public schools, and every time she goes to school, I worry about gun safety and school shootings. We need to enact some of the low-hanging fruit gun laws to be able to make our schools and public places safer. But we’re a Second Amendment state. We own guns. We like to be able to protect our households.
In order to be pro-LGBTQ and equality, you don’t have to be against balanced budgets and being smart with the money. We should be smart with our public tax dollars and try and keep taxes as low as possible while funding some of the critical public services that our government provides.
It’s really about having leadership there to be able to make those balanced, nuanced decisions and make sure that we’re being responsible, but also providing care and service to the people who need it the most. That’s one of the reasons government is there. You know, you can walk and chew gum at the same time.
As you mentioned, the Missouri Legislature is overwhelmingly red, and there’s probably zero chance either chamber will flip Democrat in this year’s election. One of your policy goals is pushing through the Missouri Non-Discrimination Act (MONA), which would bar discrimination in the state based on sexual orientation and gender identity and hasn’t been taken up by Republicans. With little chance that bill and other legislation you support will pass, how do you view your role in Jefferson City if you’re elected?
When people are running for office, they have to align with their party on their messaging. Once you get elected and get into office, you find that you can work with those people. And I really look forward to using my ability to work with people from all walks of life, some that I agree with, some that I don’t agree with on everything, to be able to make progress for Missourians.
As it relates to MONA, you can be fired in Missouri for being gay or trans. You can be denied housing for those same reasons, too. MONA has been brought up in every legislative session since the year 2000 or 2001. In the last few years, we’ve gotten really close. The challenge is that if the Speaker of the House doesn’t deem it to be something that can be taken up for a floor vote, it just dies. But we’ve progressively, throughout the years, gotten a little closer each time. It’ll require a bipartisan effort and working together to make sure that we can get it teed up and across the finish line.
I think it’s fair to call you super civically engaged. You’re running for office, you’re president of your homeowners association, you’ve served on the boards of the LGBT Center of St. Louis and with the St. Louis Civic Orchestra and lots of other organizations. Who or what do you credit for your civic-mindedness?
I caught the bug from my grandfather. He enlisted after Pearl Harbor was attacked, like, literally, the next day, and he was the head of the military police unit that guarded the Little Rock Nine in 1957 at Central High School. I was educated by him and his stories of fighting the good fight.
The other thing I’ll say about that is, for me, it was Harvey Milk. When I came out in my 20s, I was kind of oblivious to LGBT history. Then I saw the film Milk and I was just stunned at how much history there had been in our community, and I just threw myself into community service and jumped into every LGBT org that I could, to just do what I could to continue to fight. If you’re not at the table, you’re on the menu. We just saw that in the dog whistle from Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas in the Dobbs decision. It’s an important reminder that we’ve come a long way, but we can’t take it for granted.
I interview a lot of LGBTQ+ candidates and electeds and not all of them advertise their identity the way you do. In particular, candidates will be forthcoming about their gender and sexuality in conversation, and happily accept strategic support and an endorsement from groups like the LGBTQ+ Victory Fund, but then it’s hard to find much evidence on the front door to their campaign — their website — that they’re a member of the same community. You, on the other hand, are front and center with your identity, with video of you and your husband walking your dogs through your neighborhood right on your splash page. What’s your calculation of the value of identity in your campaign, and why doesn’t every LGBTQ+ candidate share it the way you do?
I can’t speak to everyone else and why they do or don’t. I mean, it’s kind of like coming out. Everyone has to go through that journey on their own time and when it’s the most right for them. But to me, it was really important to be completely honest and transparent about that. Here’s my family, here’s my husband, here’s our daughter. It’s part of who I am.
And so we put it on our literature. It’s on my website. It’s everywhere I go, and I don’t lead with LGBT issues, but it’s ingrained in who I am as a person, and it’s certainly part of my history and advocacy and how I got involved. And it really goes back to that Harvey Milk thing, right? “Come out, come out, wherever you are,” and being present. And if they know us, they vote for us, 10 to one.
What’s the single most important thing the world should do to address the climate crisis?
Accept that it’s real.
You were an Eagle Scout. What did membership in the Scouts teach you that you’ve brought to your public service and life in general, and is there a place for a single-sex group for kids — like the Boy Scouts of America was when you were growing up — in society today?
Interesting question. Being an Eagle Scout, I think the first thing that always comes to mind for that is it’s like cheerful service with a smile, right? It’s service to my community, doing the right thing. I mean, I could rattle off that a scout is “trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent” (laughing). But it’s true, and you live those values, and you just incorporate it into what you do. I got to learn how to survive in the woods. That was certainly fun, all the way down to some Lord of the Fliessituations (laughing), but, you know, trying not to burn down the woods.
Those values shouldn’t be exclusive to boys. The Girl Scouts equally have great leadership programs and skills, but they’re different organizations. I think that people who identify as male should be able to join Girl Scouts of America, and I think people who identify as females should be able to join formerly-known-as Boy Scouts of America. And everybody in between. They’re just good programs.
Would you support national mandatory service for young people in the military or some other form of public service of their choosing, like the Peace Corps or Teach for America?
Maybe mandatory. Maybe not, but maybe incentivized. You know, it’s such a good experience and opportunity for people to serve their community. I’ll be honest, I haven’t thought about it in depth, but maybe an exchange of service for benefit. That could be a start. I’ll think about that.
You’re a gun owner. What’s the gun and what do you use it for?
We have guns to be able to protect our house if somebody breaks in. I’ll just leave it at that. Don’t break into my house.
What can you tell us about your husband? How did you meet, and who proposed to whom?
As so many couples do, we met online, and I proposed to him. It was funny, because I was planning on proposing in Florida, and he was on a work trip, so I was planning on bringing the ring down and all of that. Well, then come to find out his parents were also joining us on this trip, so I had to find a way to sneak away from the parents to be able to propose, and then I got in really big trouble because I didn’t ask for permission ahead of time. But it was really great. We got the beachside proposal, and he said yes on the first ask.
Donald Trump says he’ll be a dictator on “day one” if he wins the presidency a second time. What’s your plan for day one if you win your race in November?
I will be making lots of phone calls. Unlike being President of the United States, being a state representative doesn’t give me a lot of unilateral power. So it’s going to be understanding the makeup of the Missouri legislature, forging relationships with other state representatives and lawmakers to understand where we can make tangible progress, and finding the folks that I can work with to champion some of our legislative priorities and make sure we get stuff done.
The last Missouri legislative session was one of the most dysfunctional, unproductive sessions that we’ve had to date, just because of all the infighting and the disagreement. I think we can be better than that.
What are you most looking forward to if you’re elected to represent the constituents of Missouri District 100?
Yeah, I mean really, it’s doing the job.
My goal goes back to that Boy Scout thing, right? Cheerful service with a smile — doing whatever I can in the capacity of my office to be as good of a public servant as I can be.
Hundreds of veterans who were dismissed from the U.S. military under the now-repealed “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy have been given honorable discharges following a yearlong review, the Pentagon announced Tuesday.
“Even though the majority of service members discharged for their sexual orientation … were honorably separated, nearly 2,000 were separated with less than fully honorable characterizations,” Christa A. Specht, a legal policy director at the Defense Department, said in a news release Tuesday.
After the repeal, those who were dismissed due to the policy could appeal for an upgrade to an honorable discharge, which would make them eligible for full military benefits. However, Specht noted, many people affected by the policy were unaware they could do so. The “proactive review” sought to address this.
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said 851 cases were proactively reviewed over the past year, and 96.8% of them, more than 800, qualified for “relief.”
“Brave LGBTQ+ Americans have long volunteered to serve the country that they love,” Austin said in a statement Tuesday. “Under President Biden’s leadership, the Department of Defense has taken extraordinary steps to redress the harms done by ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ and other policies on these former Service members.”
The announcement comes just over a year after the department announced it would conduct a “proactive review” of service members who were dismissed under the policy, which prohibited gay and lesbian members of the military from being open about their sexual orientation. “Don’t ask, don’t tell” was in effect from February 1994 to September 2011 and resulted in the discharge of more than 13,000 service members.
“What this means is that of the nearly 13,500 individuals who were administratively separated under Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy, and served long enough to receive a merit-based characterization of service, 96% now have an honorable discharge,” Austin said in the statement.
Gays and lesbians dismissed from the military during the “don’t ask, don’t tell” era are part of a legacy that started well before 1994. Historians estimate at least 100,000 service members were forced out of the military due to their actual or perceived sexuality between World War II and 2011.
A Drag Queen Story Hour at the public library in Somerville, Massachusetts was canceled last weekend after someone called in a bomb threat.
While police had been prepared for anti-LGBTQ+ protesters, they didn’t anticipate a bomb threat, which reportedly came through right as the event was about to begin. As such, officials had to evacuate and sweep the building, the Boston Globe reported.
“I am thrilled to announce that the Drag Queen Story Hour for Children ages 4-8 event at the Somerville Public Library was CANCELLED!! VICTORY!!” the group’s director of operations Christine H. Doherty reportedly wrote on Facebook. “Thank you to my three Super Happy Fun America sisters and one surprise guest for actually showing up to protest with me.”
Doherty also released a statement denouncing the bomb threat and stating the group was not connected to it in any way.
WCVB described a “handful” of anti-LGBTQ+ protestors compared to the approximately 100 counter-protestors who showed up to support the LGBTQ+ community.
“Whenever hate arrives in Somerville or Medford or Boston, love and joy always come out 10-fold to kind of drown it out, and that’s what happened here,” counterprotestor Christian Krenek told the network.
Somerville City Council President Ben Ewen-Campen called the protest and subsequent cancellation of the event “completely outrageous.”
“We can’t let things like this take away our ability to just live our lives and be the people we are,” he told the Boston Globe. “It’s incredibly infuriating for people to go out of their way just to ruin a bunch of families’ Saturday.”
Somerville Mayor Katjana Ballantyne. also condemned the anti-LGBTQ+ protestors in a statement to WCVB: “Hate has no place here in Somerville. When any one of us is hurt, we’re all hurt, so it’s just not acceptable.”
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The Human Rights Campaign (HRC) is going all in to get out the vote for the Harris-Walz campaign.
This week, the Human Rights Campaign’s Equality Votes PAC announced the launch of a seven-figure digital ad campaign aimed at mobilizing pro-LGBTQ+ voters in four key battleground states in the remaining weeks before the November 5 election. Combined with separate campaigns aimed at getting out the vote generally and supporting Democratic Senate candidates, Equality Votes PAC is spending $2 million to safeguard LGBTQ+ rights in the upcoming election.
The campaign, according to an October 9 press release from the LGBTQ+ advocacy organization, will present a clear contrast between Democratic nominee Kamala Harris’s long-time support for LGBTQ+ rights and former president Donald Trump’s anti-LGBTQ+ agenda.
The campaign’s streaming video, radio and display ads will run in Arizona, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, all key battleground states that will determine the election’s outcome.
The goal, according to HRC, is to reach the 1.5 million “Equality Voters” in these four states who are not habitual voters in each election cycle.
“Equality Voters,” according to the organization, include members of the LGBTQ+ community and allies who prioritize LGBTQ+ equality when voting. These voters are younger, more racially diverse, and include more women than the general voting population. Equality Voters played a key role in electing President Joe Biden in 2020 and in preventing the projected “red wave” that would have given Republicans control of the U.S. Senate and a larger majority in the House of Representatives during the 2022 midterms.
But, the organization says, one-third of these Equality Voters are “at risk of not voting in 2024 or at risk of voting for a third-party candidate for president.”
The campaign’s battleground state ads are aimed at getting them to show up to vote for Harris instead.
“This election is going to come down to the smallest of margins, but the difference between an equality champion like Kamala Harris in the White House or another reign of terror from Donald Trump couldn’t be greater,” HRC’s Equality Votes PAC chief strategist Guy Cecil said in a statement.
Equality Voters, Cecil said, “will once again make the difference in battleground states across the country.”
“With the rise in anti-LGBTQ+ attacks and the threat of the Trump-Vance Project 2025 agenda on the horizon, the stakes for this election could not be higher,” said Cecil. “We must elect Kamala Harris, Tim Walz, and equality champions across the country who will protect and advance our fundamental freedoms.”
Equality Votes PAC is also running ads supporting “pro-equality” Senate candidates like Ruben Gallego in Arizona, Elissa Slotkin in Michigan, Bob Casey in Pennsylvania, and Tammy Baldwin in Wisconsin. A separate national campaign consisting of two ads urges pro-LGBTQ+ voters to get to the polls on November 5.
HRC also kicked off its 10 Days of Action campaign Thursday, with a rally in Philadelphia featuring Gwen Walz, the wife of Harris’ running mate Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz. As The Advocate reported, the 10 Days of Action campaign urges Equality Voters to participate in more than 160 planned actions across multiple states, including phone banking, canvassing, digital outreach, and community organizing to get out the vote for the Harris-Walz campaign.
“With so much at stake for LGBTQ+ Americans, we are not taking a single vote for granted. LGBTQ+ Americans deserve leaders who will champion our freedoms — like Vice President Kamala Harris and Governor Tim Walz,” the Harris campaign’s National LGBTQ engagement director Sam Alleman said in a statement. “Over the next 10 days, we will knock doors, make calls, and rally communities across this country to send the clear message that when we show up, equality wins.”
For the first time, the Democratic National Committee will invest in an advertising campaign dedicated entirely to LGBTQ publications in large metropolitan areas and several key battleground states.
The DNC will roll out the ad campaign, worth at least $100,000, on Friday morning in 16 publications across eight states, and it is estimated to reach more than 1 million voters in the first week. Those publications include the Washington Blade and Metro Weekly in the Washington, D.C., area; Out South Florida; Qnotes in Charlotte, North Carolina; the Las Vegas Spectrum; Georgia Voice; GoGuide Voter’s Guide in Iowa; Dallas Voice; Philadelphia Gay News; Ambush Magazine in New Orleans; ION Arizona; and SWERV Magazine, a national Black LGBTQ periodical.
The campaign will be featured in the Georgia Voice during Atlanta’s Pride weekend and in Philadelphia Gay News during OurFest, a festival to celebrate National Coming Out Day in Pennsylvania.
The DNC is rolling out an ad campaign on Friday in 16 LGBTQ publications across eight states.DNC
“This historic investment from the Democrats aims to meet voters where they are, recognizing that the LGBTQ+ community is a large and diverse voting bloc that we are not taking for granted,” Jaime Harrison, DNC chair, said in a statement. “Our fundamental freedoms to be who we are and who we love are on the ballot this November, and we’re empowering diverse corners of the LGBTQ+ community to make their voices heard.”
Harrison added, “In this fractured media environment, we know that we need to be smart about how we are talking to people, reaching voters through trusted platforms so folks in the LGBTQ+ community and beyond can easily check their voter registration status and learn when, where, and how to vote.”
Beyond saying it was a six-figure ad buy, the DNC declined to say exactly how much it spent on the campaign.
The ads feature the message “Freedom is on the Ballot. Make a Plan to Vote,” and they urge voters to visit Iwillvote.com, a DNC-run platform that helps eligible voters register and check their registration status, check the status of cast ballots and learn more about voting. The ads use a simple red, white and blue scheme, and some feature the progress Pride flag, which also includes the transgender flag colors and colors to represent LGBTQ communities of color.
The DNC worked on the ads with Rivendell, the oldest LGBTQ marketing and media company in the country.
The ads will roll out just a day after the Harris-Walz campaign and the Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest LGBTQ advocacy group, launched 10 Days of Action, a series of events aimed at mobilizing LGBTQ and allied voters.
The efforts contrast recent advertisements from the Trump campaign featuring prominent LGBTQ figures such as drag performer Pattie Gonia and photos of trans people as examples of what the campaign views as extreme left-wing views on gender.
Over the last few weeks, two Trump ads running nationally and locally in swing states — especially during NFL and college football games — criticized Vice President Kamala Harris’ past support for taxpayer-funded gender-affirming medical care for people in prison. The ads end with the tagline: “Kamala is for they/them,” referring to gender-neutral pronouns used by some LGBTQ people, “President Trump is for you.”
Bob Witeck, president of Witeck Communications, a firm specializing in LGBTQ marketing, described the DNC’s ad campaign as “brilliant.” He said he spoke to DNC officials in 2000 and 2004 about doing a similar campaign but was told they didn’t have the budget for it.
In 2003, Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, a Democrat who was running for president, hired Witeck to write the text for an advertisement in The Advocate, the oldest LGBTQ magazine in the U.S. Witeck said it may have been the first pro-LGBTQ targeted ad in presidential politics.
“He risked his political career to stand with us,” the ad read, referring to a law Dean signed in April 2000 that made Vermont the first state to legalize same-sex unions. “It’s time for us to stand with him.” The law caused fervent backlash and an effort to unseat Dean and regain Republican control of the state Legislature.
Witeck said the ad was effective simply because the LGBTQ community had never seen any presidential candidate advertise in gay media — let alone taking a supportive stance.
The DNC paying for an advertisement this far-reaching more than two decades later, Witeck said, “is a breakthrough.”
“I hope that it’s going to be the kind of wake-up call people will see,” Witeck said.
Gabriele Magni, an assistant professor of political science at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles and director of the school’s LGBTQ Politics Research Initiative, said his initial reaction to the DNC’s historic ad buy was: “Finally.”
Magni said LGBTQ voters have historically been taken for granted by the Democratic Party because the majority of them vote Democratic, often because Republicans have supported anti-LGBTQ policies and voters feel like they don’t have another option.
“But I think that the problem with this mentality is that we overlook the fact that it is essential to mobilize voters to convince them to go to the polls on Election Day,” Magni said, adding that although LGBTQ voters are unlikely to switch their vote to the Republican Party, they might stay home if they’re not mobilized.
“That is why this initiative is important, especially given how close the election is in many swing states, even mobilizing a few 1,000 voters — people that otherwise would have stayed home — that really can determine the outcome of the election,” he said.
Parents represent an important demographic and social experience within the U.S. across subpopulations, including among lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer+ (LGBTQ) people. Yet, most research on parenting benefits and challenges, as well as demographic characteristics of parents, remains focused on cisgender heterosexual individuals. This report analyzes multiple data sources to provide a current sociodemographic portrait of LGBTQ parents in the United States. Throughout this summary and report, we use the term parent to describe adults who identify as the biological, adoptive, step, or foster parent of a child under the age of 18 who is living in the same household. We also use LGBTQ as an umbrella term that is inclusive of the respondents in multiple data sources, including LGBT-identified people responding to the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance Survey (BRFSS) and General Social Survey (GSS), respondents who reported being in same-sex couples in the American Community Survey (ACS), and the LGBTQ+ respondents who participated in the NIH-funded Generations and TransPop studies.
Main Findings
18% (2.57 million) of LGBTQ adults are parenting children.
26% of cisgender women and 20% of transgender men, compared with 8% of cisgender men and 12% of transgender women, report being parents.
35% (1.24 million) of married LGBTQ adults are parenting children.
14% (167,000) of same-sex couples are parenting children.
18% (119,000) of married same-sex couples are parenting children.
Approximately 5 million children are being raised by an LGBTQ parent.
Two million children live in an LGBTQ single-parent household.
Almost 300,000 children are being raised by parents in same-sex couples.
In terms of being a parent at some point in their lifetime (e.g., children may currently live elsewhere or may now be adults), 32% of LGB and 19% of transgender adults report ever having a child.
Demographic Characteristics of LGBTQ Parents
Among LGBTQ parents, cisgender bisexual women, lesbian women, and bisexual men comprise the largest subgroups of parents, followed by cisgender gay men and transgender men.
Cisgender women: 75%
Bisexual women: 61%
Lesbian women: 14%
Cisgender men: 16%
Bisexual men: 11%
Gay men: 5%
Transgender people: 9%
Transgender men: 4.3%
Transgender women: 2.2%
Transgender GNC: 2.4%
Regardless of age, LGBTQ people are less likely to be parenting children in their household than non-LGBTQ people (18% vs. 28%).
However, cisgender bisexual women are parenting at similar rates to straight cisgender women (approximately 30%).
A higher percentage of Black LGBTQ adults are parents (23%) than White LGBTQ adults (17%).
Marriage and Relationship Status Among LGBTQ Parents
There are differences in marital status among parents by sexual orientation and gender identity.
49% of LGBTQ parents are married compared with 20% of LGBTQ non-parents and 71% of straight cisgender parents.
23% of LGBTQ parents have never been married, and 12% are in an unmarried partnership, while 12% of straight cisgender parents have never married, and 6% are in unmarried partnerships.
LGBTQ parents have a similar rate of divorce, separation, or widowhood as straight cisgender women, with both groups having a higher rate than straight cisgender men.
When assessing relationship status among subgroups of LGBTQ parents, we find that the majority of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender parents are married or partnered.
While cisgender bisexual women make up about 60% of LGBTQ parents, and many of them are married or partnered, a large proportion of them are single parents (43%).
Likewise, 40% of lesbian parents are single mothers compared with 29% of straight women parents.
There are differences in marital status among White parents and parents of color by sexual orientation and gender identity.
Among White adults, more LGBTQ parents are married than non-parents, but fewer are married compared to straight cisgender parents (60% vs. 22% and 78%).
People of color (POC) are less likely to be married across all parenting and SOGI groups compared to their White counterparts.
Among POC adults, more LGBTQ parents are married than non-parents, but fewer are married compared to straight cisgender parents (37% vs. 17% and 62%).
Economics Among LGBTQ Parents
LGBTQ parents are more likely to be living in poverty than non-parents and straight cisgender parents (33% vs. 21% and 21%).
For most groups, fewer people who are married are living in poverty compared to other relationship categories, particularly compared to those who were never married.
One important exception to this finding is that marriage is not a significant factor in whether someone lives in poverty for Black and Latinx LGBTQ parents who are partnered or in same-sex couples.
Family Formation and Stressors
Overall, 47% of partnered LGBTQ parents are in a same-gender or transgender-inclusive partnership; however, the majority of cisgender lesbian/gay parents are vs. 10% of cisgender bisexual/queer parents.
78% of LGBTQ parents became parents through current or previous sexual relationships, 20% through stepparenthood, and 6% through adoption.
Among parenting households, same-sex couples adopt (21%), foster (4%), and have stepchildren (17%) at significantly higher rates than different-sex couples (3%, 0.4%, 6%).
Notably among parents, 24% of married same-sex couples have adopted a child versus 3% of married different-sex couples.
Approximately 35,000 same-sex couple parents have adopted children, and 6,000 are fostering children. The majority of these couples are married.
Among all LGBTQ parents, approximately 57,000 are fostering children (1.4%). Less than half of these parents are married.
Approximately 30% of LGBQ parents are not legally recognized or are unsure about their legal status as the parent/guardian of at least one child.
23% of LGBQ adults said it was very important to them to have children in the future, and 22% thought it was very likely they would. LBQ cisgender women were three times more likely to think this than GBQ cisgender men.
This report on LGBTQ parenting rates and sociodemographic characteristics illustrates that a significant proportion of LGBTQ adults are parents, and many of these parents are experiencing economic instability. For context, prior research has identified how many LGBT adults had minors in the household, yielding higher percentages than the percentages of LGBTQ parents we have identified in this report. However, we now know that a significant proportion of those minors were siblings, grandchildren, or unrelated. As such, our estimates of how many LGBTQ people identify as parents may look slightly smaller than previous estimates due to more precise data becoming available. It also appears that the percentage of same-sex couples who are parents is slightly lower now than in prior estimates, using similar ways of defining parenthood. It is also possible that there are fewer LGBTQ people raising children than 10 years ago due to opportunities to live outside of heteronormative expectations of marriage and family.
Policies aiming to improve the lives of LGBTQ communities should focus on issues specific to LGBTQ parents, such as concerns around parental rights and access to reproductive services, as well as issues generally important to all parents, such as access to parenting support and economic justice. While the findings related to characteristics and experiences among parents are quite similar to patterns observed over a decade ago, which included people who were parents and non-parents to the children in the household,1 this report focuses only on those who identify as parents. Reporting on those who identify as having a parental relationship allows for a more accurate estimate of the population size of LGBTQ parents, and it highlights those with the most need in relation to policies impacting children and families. Yet, future research is needed that explores the nature of “non-parent” relationships to children in the household as they may represent parental figures despite non-parental labels, or they may reflect various forms of kin and queer chosen family structures. Further, LGBTQ people living with and involved in the care of young children to whom they are not formally parents may experience a range of positive social and mental health benefits, as well as economic and/or social challenges.
A Virginia man charged with attacking men he believed to be gay while posing as a police officer has been acquitted.
On September 27, a U.S. District Court jury in Washington D.C. found 50-year-old Michael Thomas Pruden not guilty on five counts of assault on federal land, one count of impersonating a federal officer, and a hate crimes sentencing designation, the Washington Bladereported.
According to a federal indictment handed down in June 2022, Pruden frequented D.C.’s Meridian Hill Park – which is reportedly a well-known cruising spot for men seeking sex with other men – after nightfall on multiple occasions. Federal prosecutors believe that Pruden sought out men who were cruising other men and approached them with a flashlight that he shined in their faces while giving them “police-style commands, and spraying them with a chemical irritant.”
Pruden was arrested in July 2022 and charged with attacking five men in the same manner. Victims testified that Pruden identified himself as either a police officer or a park security guard, The Blade reported.
Prosecutors argued that each of the victims who testified at trial had identified Pruden as their attacker when presented with an array of photos that included pictures of other men.
However, Pruden’s lead attorney Alexis Morgan Gardner argued that Pruden had been misidentified by the victims who testified, noting that Pruden himself is a gay man who frequented Meridian Hill Park. Gardner argued that the victims’ testimony conflicted with their statements to police and FBI agents. But prosecutors noted that the victims’ statements were made two years prior and any inconsistencies in their testimony did not change the overall evidence in the case.
This is the second time Pruden has been acquitted of a similar crime. In September 2021, he was found not guilty by a jury in Virginia in a separate case in which prosecutors said he attacked two men in Alexandria’s Daingerfield Island Park, pepper-spraying both and hitting one in the head with a stick after shouting “I’m a cop” and pretending to talk into a police radio. Court records reportedly indicate the Daingerfield Island Park attack occurred five days before the fifth victim in the Meridian Hill Park case was assaulted.
