Fact Check
Your definitive guide to Trump vs Harris on LGBT issues
There’s a stark difference between Trump’s common sense approach to equality and Kamala’s full-throttled transgender mania.
Democrats no longer have a chokehold on the LGBT vote, which they have taken for granted for decades. For the first time ever, the DNC is spending money on political advertisements targeting LGBTs. The six-figure ad buy, revealed last week, shows the left is panicked, and more LGBTs will be voting Republican in November than at any time in recent history.
According to The New York Times, 28 percent of LGBTs voted for Trump in 2020, up from 14 percent in 2016. This year, some activists predict as many as half of the gay vote go to Trump.
The reasons are varied: from bigger issues such as the economy and immigration taking precedence over identity politics; to Trump’s now-proven record supporting LGBT equality; to the Democrat party and their candidate, Kamala Harris, being marred by radical gender theory and trans insanity compared to the Republican Party’s dramatic shift under Trump toward a common sense approach to social issues.
Let’s set the record straight, no pun intended, on some of the issues LGBT Americans care about this upcoming election cycle and where each candidate stands:
Trump’s Record
On Marriage Equality, Discrimination, & the Courts
• 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.
• Donald Trump was 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.
• In 2024, Trump hosted a gay wedding at his Mar-a-Lago home.
President Trump has hosted several LGBT events at his Mar-a-Lago home in Palm Beach, Fla. including the same-sex wedding of John Sullivan and Dan Madora in 2024.
• 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.
•Trump’s SCOTUS reaffirmed the Obergefell decision
Supreme Court Justices Amy Coney Barrett and Neil Gorsuch were both Trump appointees and both have shown resolve for gay rights. Amy Coney Barrett has stated that Obergefell is”settled law” thanks to the legal matters of stare decisis and superprecedents.
In 2017’s Pavan v. Smith, the Supreme Court reversed an Arkansas State Supreme Court decision that had prevented same-sex married couples from having both spouses’ names listed on their children’s birth certificates, reaffirming the court’s belief in constitutional protections for same-sex marriage.
Legal scholars note that the 2022 Dobbs decision–which overturned Roe v. Wade and sent the matter of abortion back to the states–includes language meant to protect federally recognized same-sex marriage. In the majority opinion, Justice Samuel Alito very plainly laid out that abortion is a standalone issue. The Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade is in no way indicative of the court’s stance on other cases that gave rights like gay marriage. “[A]bortion is ‘inherently different from marital intimacy’, ‘marriage’, or ‘procreation’. And to ensure that our decision is not misunderstood or mischaracterized, we emphasize that our decision concerns the constitutional right to abortion and no other right. Nothing in this opinion should be understood to cast doubt on precedents that do not concern abortion,” Alito wrote, specifically mentioning Obergefell.
• Trump supported equal rights for gay couples way back in 2000, and never flip-flopped.
Democrat top brass–like Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Bill Clinton, and Hillary Clinton–were all late to the game in openly supporting gay marriage, waiting until polling showed it was safe to take a stance, and even supported anti-LGBT legislation like Don’t Ask Don’t Tell and the Defense of Marriage Act. By contrast, way back in 2000 in an interview with The Advocate, of all places, New York businessman Donald Trump supported the same legal protections for gay couples as straight couples, and he hasn’t flip-flopped on the subject since.
• President Trump launched a global initiative to decriminalize homosexuality.
Former President Trump’s push to decriminalize homosexuality across the globe has often gone ignored or been forgotten.
In 2018, the Trump administration pulled out of the UN 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 UN, 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.
• Trump nominated two openly gay federal judges
Trump appointed openly gay Mary Rowland to the District Court for the Northern District of Illinois and Patrick Bumatay to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.
• Trump appointed the first openly gay Cabinet member
Richard Grenell, who previously served as Trump’s ambassador to Germany, made history as the first openly gay member of a presidential Cabinet when Trump appointed him to be Acting Director of National Intelligence.
Grenell was one of many openly-LGBT people to serve in Trump’s first administration, alongside Randy Berry (Ambassador to Nepal), Eric Nelson (Ambassador to Bosnia and Herzegovina), Jeff Daigle (Ambassador to Cabo Verde), Robert Gilchrist (Ambassador to Lithuania).
• No, Trump didn’t ‘ban’ transgender people from serving in the military
The 2018 policy stipulated that only transgender Americans who were currently undergoing medical intervention were restricted from serving. This is in keeping with previous long-standing military policy that restricts service by anyone with conditions that required ongoing medical treatment. This is the same reason diabetics, for example, cannot serve.
On Healthcare & Families
• Trump has vowed to expand IVF coverage for all families, including LGBTs
Donald Trump has vowed to expand coverage for IVF treatments and all associated costs. IVF has gained in popularity among gay and lesbian hopeful parents, but gay couples are often hit by heightened insurance costs. The Trump IVF policy would benefit LGBT couples the most.
• Trump and Vance want to expand the child tax credit for all families, including LGBT families
• Trump vowed to eradicate new cases of HIV/AIDS in America by 2030.
During his first term, Trump launched a plan that targeted the most vulnerable areas and populations to help in education, testing, and treatment. In February 2020, the Washington Blade reported, “The [Trump] budget seeks $716 million in discretionary investments for the ‘Ending the HIV Epidemic’ initiative, which is $425 million more than what Congress agreed to appropriate late last year in the omnibus for fiscal year 2020. . . . In a joint statement, the Partnership to End HIV, STD & Hepatitis — which comprises the AIDS United, the National Alliance of State & Territorial AIDS Directors, the National Coalition of STD Directors, the National Minority AIDS Coalition and the AIDS Institute — hailed the request for $716 million as ‘an important scale up of current funding.’”
The initiative must have been promising because the Biden administration continued it and unfairly took the credit for it.
• Trump expanded access to PrEP for 200,000 more Americans.
In 2019, the Trump administration announced it reached a deal with Gilead Sciences — the maker of Truvada, the only FDA-approved drug to prevent HIV infection — to donate enough pills to treat 200,000 low-income patients for up to 11 years.
Where Kamala Stands
• Kamala believes in taxpayer-funded transgender surgeries for inmates
As California AG, Kamala worked to change state policy so that incarcerated people could receive transgender surgeries and medication–all on the taxpayer’s dime.
In a 2019 interview, Harris said: “When I was Attorney General I learned that the California Department of Corrections, which was a client of mine – I didn’t get to choose my clients … they were standing in the way of surgery for prisoners, … And there was a specific case. When I learned about the case, I worked behind-the-scenes to not only make sure that that transgender woman got the services she was deserving – it was not only about that case – I made sure that they changed the policy in the state of California so that every transgender inmate in the prison system would have access to the medical care that they desire and need.”
• Kamala wants taxpayer-funded transgender surgeries for illegal immigrants
In a 2020 campaign-era questionnaire from the ACLU, Kamala Harris expressed support for government-guaranteed transgender surgeries. She affirmed that as president, she would “ensure that transgender and nonbinary people who rely on the state for medical care — including those in prison and immigration detention” would get access to “all necessary surgical care.”
“I support policies ensuring that federal prisoners and detainees are able to obtain medically necessary care for gender transition, including surgical care, while incarcerated or detained,” she wrote.
“Transition treatment is a medical necessity, and I will direct all federal agencies responsible for providing essential medical care to deliver transition treatment.”
• Tampons in boys’ restrooms
Kamala Harris’s Vice Presidential running mate Tim Walz has a striking record when it comes to children. As governor of Minnesota, Walz made sure tampons were readily available in the boys bathrooms—an act that aptly secured him the moniker “Tampon” Tim.
• Kamala Harris co-sponsored a bill that would force schools to allow male athletes to compete in girls’ sports
In March 2019, then-Senator Harris co-sponsored the Equality Act, which would amend the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to make “sexual orientation and gender identity” protected characteristics under federal anti-discrimination law.
Among other things, the bill would force public schools to expand female athletic teams to include biological males who identify as transgender girls, as both supporters and opponents of the bill have acknowledged. To add insult to injury, Democrats also want to eliminate female-only spaces, like restrooms, locker rooms, and changing rooms. This is explicitly laid out in the Equality Act, a defunct piece of legislation that Kamala Harris pledges to resurrect and pass if she were to win the presidency.
• Opening the door for human rights protections for pedophiles
On May 30, 2023, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz signed into law HF 1655, also known as the “Take Pride Act.” This controversial legislation, introduced by state Representative Leigh Finke, a member of the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party and the first transgender legislator in Minnesota House history, has drawn significant attention for its removal of anti-pedophile language from the state’s Human Rights law.
The “Take Pride Act” redefined “sexual orientation” in the Minnesota Human Rights Act, removing the explicit exclusion of pedophilia. The original text of the law stated that “‘Sexual orientation’ does not include a physical or sexual attachment to children by an adult.” The new law, signed by Walz, removed this crucial caveat, raising concerns about the potential implications for the protection of minors. Not only does that appear to be an attempt to normalize pedophilia and put children at risk, but it also lumps criminal behavior into the LGBT pool—a move that any rational gay American would deem as highly offensive.
• Censoring speech on the internet that’s critical of trans ideology
The Biden-Harris administration engaged in illegal censorship of the American people on an industrial scale by pressuring social media companies to silence users who expressed opinions and facts that ran counter to the administration’s agenda. The administration even took the dystopian step of appointing an official Minister of Truth.
Both Tim Walz and Kamala Harris have expressed their desire to expand the government’s censorship operation and chip away at American’s First Amendment rights. Tim Walz once told MSNBC, “There’s no guarantee to free speech or hate speech and especially around our democracy.”
Kamala Harris has called for holding social media platforms responsible for spreading “hate speech,” “misinformation” and “disinformation.”
• Taking kids away from parents who refuse to trans them
In 2023 as governor of Minnesota, Kamala’s running mate Tim Walz signed into law a piece of legislation naming the state a sanctuary for minors seeking “gender-affirming care” if their home state does not allow it. It has been reported that the law, in some cases, could strip custody from a parent who objects to life-altering transgender procedures being performed on his/her child. Minnesota’s law is so radical that even California Gov. Gavin Newsom refused to sign a near-identical bill when it came to his desk in 2023.
Feature image: altered composite image of Donald Trump (by National Archives CC 1.0), Pride flag (by Benson Kua, CC 2.0) and Kamala Harris (by Gage Skidmore, CC 2.0) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/
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