LGBTQ Nation’s Roundtable: Debunking the BS

Gay-themed website LGBTQ Nation recently hosted a roundtable to discuss the biggest issues facing ‘queer’ voters.

The video, which only had 156 views on YouTube by Monday morning, featured five panelists from various organizations, including the Human Rights Campaign and The Trevor Project; it was meant to be a deep dive into all things pertinent. 

Instead, it was like watching a Soviet propaganda broadcast – except swathed in rainbow flags. 

Many of the claims were lazy, while some were just downright dishonest. Much of it fried my brain. But, in a bid for journalistic probity, here’s a fact-check.

CLAIM: YOUNG TRANS PEOPLE ARE EXCLUDED FROM SPORT

FACT-CHECK: LARGELY FALSE

Trevor Project’s Jaymes Black claimed transgender teenagers are forced to testify for their right to exist or play sports. Presumably, she was referring to the case of Becky Pepper-Jackson, who demanded to compete against biological girls in West Virginia. 

Although it’s true that Jackson did sue the school, Jackson ultimately won the case. A number of other cases have followed the same trajectory, which suggests state legislation is no force majeure against civil liberties. 

Besides, the complaints about trans athletes mainly come from other women, so this isn’t evil MAGA men trying to oppress them. It’s other women. Often, women who vote Democrat. Ergo, solve your own in-fighting.

Plus, it was the Biden-Harris administration which rewrote the landmark federal civil rights law Title IX. That legislation, part of the 1972 amendments to the U.S. Higher Education Act, prohibited sex-based discrimination in academics and sports among all schools in receipt of federal funding. In April, the Biden-Harris administration expanded these protections to include discrimination based on gender identity and sexual orientation, so it’s madness to suggest things are worse now than a decade ago.

There are also countless examples of high-profile trans athletes who succeed. 

In addition to champion swimmer Lia Thomas, who is perhaps the most well-known, there’s Layshia Clarendon, a guard for the Minnesota Lynx. Clarendon is the first openly transgender and non-binary athlete to play in the WNBA and also won a gold medal at the 2018 FIBA Women’s Basketball World Cup. 

Then there’s Chris Mosier, who began competing in triathlon as a woman, then publicly self-identified as a transgender man in 2010. Mosier went on to earn a spot on the Team USA spring duathlon men’s team for the 2016 World Championship. Mosier is now known as the first transgender man to represent the United States in international competition and is credited with prompting the International Olympic Committee to change its policy on transgender athletes.

In conclusion, while there are some hurdles to a small number of trans youth, the opposition largely comes from biological women or legislation they demanded.

In other words, the problem isn’t MAGA.

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CLAIM: GAY EQUALITY HAS SUFFERED BACKLASH SINCE OBAMA LEFT OFFICE

FACT-CHECK: FALSE

Kelley Robinson from the Human Rights Campaign made this incredulous claim during her opening remarks of the roundtable. Her source? Nobody knows. Perhaps it’s her ‘lived experience’, or maybe it’s just a convenient psyop.

The truth is something else. According to Gallup, the percentage of people who view gay relations as morally acceptable has increased from 40% in 2001 to 64% in 2024. 

In 2022, only 25% of Americans believed that gay or lesbian relations were morally wrong, down from 53% in 2001. And that came after Trump’s first term.

A 2023 GLAAD study found that a record number of non-LGBT Americans support equal rights for the LGBT community. The study also found that most straight Americans believe gay people should be able to live their lives without discrimination. 

None of this suggests ‘backlash’.

In fact, when GLAAD – a ferociously left-wing organization – published its Accelerating Acceptance report in 2023, they slammed people like Robinson who might make bogus claims of regression. 

“With the release of this data, GLAAD finds that support for LGBTQ equal rights in America among non-LGBTQ people is now at an all-time high,” they said. “Any narrative claiming otherwise, goes against a statistical supermajority of consensus, public opinion and American values.” 

LOL. 

One more thing: if Robinson was trying to throw shade at Trump, she’s a fool.

Way back in 2000 in an interview with The Advocate, of all places, Trump supported the same legal protections for gay couples as straight couples, and he hasn’t flip-flopped on the subject since.

In fact, during his first term, Trump launched a global initiative to decriminalize homosexuality.

In 2018, his administration pulled out of the U.N. Human Rights Council. The Trump administration left the U.N. Human Rights Council because other nations – such as Sudan, Nigeria, the Congo, Bahrain, and Afghanistan – that jail, execute and oppress homosexuals and women were also member nations on the Council. For these reasons, the Trump administration left in protest, believing the Council was a hypocritical body and refused to call out the human rights abuses of other nations that sat on the council.

Then a year later in 2019, during a somber speech to the U.N., then-President Trump called for the initiative saying, “[W]e stand in solidarity with LGBT people who live in countries that punish, jail and execute people based upon sexual orientation.” 

Since the initiative began, several countries, including Sudan, have eliminated the death penalty for homosexuals. Not bad, eh?

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CLAIM: ONLY EXTREMISTS ARE PUSHING BACK AGAINST DEI  

FACT-CHECK: FALSE

The roundtable’s moderator, Alex Berg, should’ve known better, but she still served a loaded question which claimed there was “backlash” against DEI.

The evidence, she says, is that a handful of organizations pulled-out of the Human Rights Campaign’s Corporate Equality Index, which is basically a massive grift. 

These companies include Molson Coors, Ford, Lowe’s and Harley Davidson. 

None of them are ‘extremist’. Not even close.

Furthermore, most American companies launched a review of their DEI programs last summer in the wake of  Students for Fair Admissions vs. Harvard, when the Supreme Court struck down affirmative action in college admissions, declaring race cannot be a factor and forcing institutions of higher education to look for new ways to achieve diverse student bodies.

This common-sense ruling was ultimately a recognition of mission creep. The court understood that equality of opportunity is good, but equality of outcome is communist and, ultimately, anti-American.

Besides, all of the data shows that DEI is an epic failure. Even the Harvard Business Review asserted this, claiming that DEI is like a cancer that eats at the host body. “All the usual tools—diversity training, hiring tests, performance ratings, grievance systems—tend to make things worse, not better,” the authors wrote.

But even if that isn’t sufficient evidence, then the very existence of Kamala Harris is. Wildly out of her depth, she got the gig as presidential candidate for all the wrong reasons. As a result, she’s failing – badly.

Commercial companies do not want failure. They want success; they need it to live. So, too, does America. 

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CLAIM: A REPUBLICAN WIN WOULD DRAG US BACK 400 YEARS

FACT-CHECK: LAUGHABLY FALSE, ALMOST CERTIFIABLY INSANE

The gift that keeps on giving, rent-a-mouth Kelley Robinson, sensationally claimed that a Trump/Vance victory would revert America back to 1624. Yes, people, that’s peak Trump Derangement Syndrome!

The mere suggestion is absurd and shouldn’t be taken seriously, but hey, let’s end on a low-point. 

First, the America we know today barely existed in 1624; the pilgrims had only just settled in Massachusetts, the first African slaves had only just been brought to Virginia, and European countries were only beginning to explore (and claim) the Americas.

Secondly, and more importantly, Trump has already been in office once before. During this period there was literally zero time travel, and laws were certainly not repealed to pre-civil war standards.

If anything, it’s hysterical hyperbole of this nature that will lose Harris tomorrow’s election. And she deserves nothing less.

Not least because Trump has a record of supporting LGBT rights. Here’s a run-down:

• In 2024, Trump removed all anti-LGBT language from the Republican Party platform.

The newly updated RNC platform under Trump removed all anti-same-sex-marriage rhetoric. The new version of the platform states that the party seeks to “empower American families”, and there is no gendered language used when referencing the spouses or parents in those families.

• Trump was also the first U.S. President to enter office supporting marriage equality.

The Supreme Court ruled in favor of same-sex marriage in Obergefell v. Hodges in 2015, and Donald Trump has never wavered in his views on the subject, saying repeatedly as president and ex-president that gay marriage is settled law.

• Trump’s Supreme Court outlawed workplace discrimination based on sexual orientation.

Trump-appointed Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote the majority opinion in the 2020 landmark case of Bostock v. Clayton County which outlawed workplace discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity.

Hell, Trump even hosted a gay wedding at his Mar-a-Lago home earlier this year.

Pretty good going for a fascist.