After Joe Biden’s shock exit from the current re-election race, let’s take a look at how the queer community could fair under the two frontrunners
BY YASMIN VINCE, IMAGES BY FLICKR AND WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
On 21 July, President Joe Biden shocked the world by pulling out of the race for re-election. He almost immediately endorsed his Vice President, Kamala Harris. Meanwhile, former president Donald Trump has secured the Republican nomination following an assassination attempt on his life.
Harris has already received an endorsement from the Human Rights Campaign for her stance on LGBTQIA rights, while GLAAD has counted over 200 individual attacks on the queer community made by Trump both during and since his presidency.
As the likely frontrunners for the presidential election this year, where do Harris and Trump stand on LGBTQIA rights?
Kamala Harris
Harris’s record on LGBTQIA issues has been incredibly progressive. Advocate remarked that they believed she would “most likely be the most pro-LGBTQIA president” in America’s history were she to win.
Her positive record began two decades ago when she was the District Attorney for San Francisco. During her time in office, she established a hate crimes unit to tackle crimes against the queer community.
Six years later, while running for Attorney General for California, Harris played a key role in restoring marriage equality not only to the city but state-wide. She vehemently opposed Proposition 8, a voter-approved ballot that aimed to ban same-sex marriage in the Golden State. By refusing to back the proposition and running on that platform, Harris’ election indicated the Californian people also no longer wanted the bill and its supporters had to go through the Court of Appeals, where the ballot was rejected.
Once elected, Harris also abolished the gay and transgender “panic” defence in criminal trials. But, she also backed the state of California when it sought to deny gender-affirming surgery to a trans prisoner. She later argued that as the Attorney General, the state’s Department of Corrections was her client and she was duty-bound to represent its interests and she continued to work behind the scenes to get the policy changed so that any inmate requiring such procedures could receive them.
As Senator, her record was a little muddied. Harris did important work, like introducing a bill to mandate insurance coverage of pre-exposure prophylaxis, the HIV prevention method, and speaking out against “Don’t Say Gay” laws. But she also backed FOSTA/SESTA, a series of bills that tried to stop sex trafficking by shutting down sites used by sex workers like Backpage. Many transgender sex workers called the bills deadly, as they removed screening tools used to keep themselves safe. Harris has said she doesn’t regret the FOSTA/SESTA support and has not been willing to re-examine the bills, as Backpage was profiting from ads trafficking children.
During Harris’ vice presidency, marriage equality has been written into federal law. The pen Biden used to sign the bill was gifted to Harris for her prior work for LGBTQIA rights. Now running for president herself, Harris has received an endorsement from the Human Rights Campaign. In their statement, they called her a “champion for LGBTQIA equality”.
Donald Trump
The former present and the current Republican nominee gave a speech at the Republican National Convention calling for unity in the wake of his assassination attempt. But does unity include the queer community? Based on the rest of the speech, which promised that a second term for Trump would involve banning transgender athletes from competing in sports, the answer is probably no.
Trump’s presidency was similarly anti-LGBTQIA. Within hours of being sworn in, the government removed pages on LGBTQIA rights from their website. During his first term, he rolled back Barack Obama’s anti-discrimination protections for the queer community and barred transgender people from serving openly in the military. The latter is a policy he said he will reinstate if he is re-elected. He also actively put the queer community abroad in danger by refusing asylum requests from queer refugees that were fleeing homophobic violence and refusing to condemn rights violations in Chechnya and Brunei.
He opposed the Equality Act, which had bipartisan support and would have ensured people were not discriminated against for their sexual orientation. He further reduced the legislation against discriminatory behaviour by issuing a regulation to allow federal contractors to claim a religious exemption if they wanted to fire LGBTQIA workers because of their sexuality or gender identity. He also eliminated guidance to schools that advised treating trans students consistently with their gender identity as part of a series of proposals that the ACLU called an attempt to “define ‘transgender’ out of existence”.
Since becoming the nominee for 2024, Trump has continued to promote anti-LGBTQIA rhetoric and policies, particularly through his choice of running mate. JD Vance is well-known for his poor record on queer issues. As a senator, he pushed a bill to prevent institutions of higher education from providing gender-affirming care to transgender students, another to ban “X” gender on US passports and repeated horrendous claims that LGBTQIA people were “grooming” children. This ticket has convinced the ACLU that another Trump administration would strip the queer community of their rights in a manner they described as “unconstitutional” and “cruel”.
DIVA magazine celebrates 30 years in print in 2024. If you like what we do, then get behind LGBTQIA media and keep us going for another generation. Your support is invaluable.
