CLAIM: “If Donald Trump wins in November, he will once again implement policies that target the LGBTQ+ community.”
VERDICT: MOSTLY FALSE. Trump promoted LGBTQ+ rights and set boundaries on the transgender issue.
Vice President Kamala Harris is ramping up the fear machine, telling her supporters that Trump will “target” the LGBTQ+ community.
The Log Cabin Republicans, an established gay rights group within the conservative movement, responded:
Kamala Harris is fear-mongering for LGBT votes.
— Log Cabin Republicans (@LogCabinGOP) August 12, 2024
❌ Trump did NOT take away protections for LGBT workers or patients.
❌ Trump did NOT ban trans people from the military.
✅ Trump DID create a booming economy and secure the border. But Kamala doesn't want to talk about that. https://t.co/XmNWxw95Si
Trump was actually a champion for gay rights, appointing the first openly gay Cabinet-level official in Acting Director of National Intelligence Ric Grenell, and launching the first U.S. global initiative for the decriminalization of homosexuality.
The only sense in which Trump did something that was contrary to the most radical elements of the LGBTQ+ community is that he barred openly transgender soldiers from serving in the military. People who identify as transgender — i.e. who are diagnosed with gender dysphoria — can still serve, as long as they serve as their biological sex and have not undergone transitions. (The military bars people with all kinds of other medical conditions.)
He allowed states to set their own policies on transgender bathrooms, reversing an earlier policy that imposed a unitary, California-style policy on the entire country, but leaving liberal states to do implement whatever they wanted.
One could, arguably, say that Trump was an advocate for the “LGB,” though not necessarily for the “TQ+.” Harris lumps them all together to claim that Trump is opposed to gay rights in general — which is just patently false. The transgender issue, and broader issues of “queer” identity, are controversial; while there is wide acceptance of gays, lesbians, and bisexuals, many pro-transgender policies are unpopular and the phenomenon is not well understood.
Harris could have a plausible case if she simply said that Trump will not promote the transgender political agenda, or that she will promote transgender policies more than he will — a fact with which few Trump supporters will disagree.
It is precisely because the transgender agenda is so unpopular that Harris has to use the “LGBTQ+” label as a whole, thereby distorting Trump’s actual record on issues of concern to the vast majority of people within that movement.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of “”The Agenda: What Trump Should Do in His First 100 Days,” available for pre-order on Amazon. He is also the author of “The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency,” now available on Audible. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
