Politics
EXCLUSIVE: Biden campaign previews messaging on Trump’s threat to LGBTQ rights
Campaign warns of the dangers if the former president returns to the White House
In an exclusive interview with the Washington Blade on Thursday, officials with the Biden-Harris reelection campaign explained their strategy for reminding voters of how the rights of LGBTQ Americans were under attack during former President Donald Trump’s first term in office, while also demonstrating how and why a second term would be far worse.
The officials said the LGBTQ-focused messaging in the months ahead will be informed to a large extent by Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation’s 881-page blueprint for Trump’s return to power that would reshape American government by advancing a Christian nationalist agenda.
“We at the campaign are using Project 2025 as an umbrella term for anything and everything that is being proposed by Trump and folks who are aligned with Trump,” an official said.
With respect to Trump’s record, he said the campaign will point out instances in which the former president, for example, opposed legislation that would have advanced LGBTQ-inclusive nondiscrimination protections, appointed judges “who continually are taking away rights,” and targeted healthcare protections “at a governmental level for LGBTQ Americans.”
A campaign memo obtained exclusively by the Blade notes that “As president, Donald Trump and his administration treated the LGBTQ+ community with contempt,” such as by:
- Opposing the legislation to guarantee nondiscrimination protections, while rolling back nondiscrimination employment protections for LGBTQ+ Americans,
- Appointing anti-LGBTQ+ judges who want to rip protections away from LGBTQ+ Americans,
- Erasing health care protections for LGBTQ+ Americans,
- Banning transgender troops from serving, and
- Attempting to repeal the Affordable Care Act, which would end protections for those with preexisting conditions.
In a second Trump term, the official said, those involved in drafting the Project 2025 document have detailed precisely how they would direct “government agencies to openly allow discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity,” imperiling “decades and decades of progress.”
The campaign memo states that, “Trump’s Project 2025 will be even worse for LGBTQ+ Americans, going beyond the ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill. A second Trump presidency will make it a mission to erode LGBTQ+ Americans’ rights, and undermine their existence.” For instance, the document notes, Trump would:
- Remove nondiscrimination protections for LGBTQ+ Americans,
- Overturn same-sex marriage and protections against anti-sodomy laws,
- Reverse Title IX to remove protections for transgender students,
- Ban and expel transgender military members,
- Book bans,
- Restrict IVF and surrogacy, and
- Appoint more extreme judges who will repeal LGBTQ+ rights
The campaign intends to show voters how the deluge of anti-LGBTQ laws that were introduced and passed at the local and state level over the past few years offer “a preview” of “what we would, unfortunately, see in a second Trump administration,” the official said.
He stressed that these laws go further than targeting the rights of LGBTQ Americans but in many cases seek “to really undermine their existence in public” — and do not constitute “one-off” issues in states like Florida, Alabama or Tennessee, but rather a blueprint for national policy that “Trump and Project 2025 would bring to Americans.”
The official added that these right-wing legislators are abetted by right-wing judges, including U.S. Supreme Court justices, who have stated their interest in challenging same-sex marriage and reviving sodomy laws that were declared unconstitutional more than 20 years ago.
The damage by Trump appointed jurists, he noted, has ranged from rulings challenging safe and effective abortion medication that has been approved for more than 20 years to overturning Covid protections for workers enforced by OSHA.
The campaign official also expressed plans to show how extreme Republican efforts to restrict medically-assisted family planning could carry devastating consequences for LGBTQ families in particular.
The Alabama Supreme Court’s extension of personhood rights to frozen embryos in a ruling last month, which portends the risk of lawsuits targeting clinics that offer in-vitro fertilization, has put elected Republicans on the defense for their support of restrictions on IVF.
“This is a real threat to how people choose to grow their families,” he said.
The false notion that Trump is progressive on ‘social issues’
Part of the work of the campaign, a second official said, will be to disabuse voters of the idea that Trump, perhaps because he is from New York, or because has been married multiple times and has previously proclaimed to be pro-choice, is progressive on “social issues.”
“You have to look at his record and the people that he surrounds him with and what they want to do,” he said. “And the bottom line here is that when it comes to a lot of these issues, he has created the conditions — legally, executively, and culturally — to attack and undermine LGBTQ Americans.”
As an example, he pointed to the Trump-appointed judges on the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals who are considering a case that could reverse a federal mandate for health insurers to cover lifesaving pre-exposure prophylaxis medications that prevent the transmission of HIV.
The first official added, “there is this false perception that Donald Trump is socially liberal, but his record and the people that he’s choosing to fill his administration, what he did as president, and what these allies and he are planning to do in a second Trump administration, go against that perception.”
For voters, he said, it can be “hard to digest all these things and some of this stuff is easier to explain than others, but that’s also why we’re making this effort in the first place” beginning with constituency papers and memos and then the campaign will “continue to hammer this message until November.”
Motivating ‘equality voters’
Since the Jan. 6 insurrection and the decision by the Supreme Court’s conservative supermajority in 2022 that overturned the constitutional right to abortion first established with Roe v. Wade in 1973, the second official said, “there’s more opportunity for us to expand our electorate and reach voters that frankly are outraged by the assault on these basic fundamentals of the United States.”
“Equality voters are not just our community,” the first official said, but rather a “broad and diverse” group who constitute “a high propensity population, especially in some of these battleground [states].”
The campaign is confident that LGBTQ rights are “one of many issues that will motivate folks” to vote, he added.
In terms of the mediums through which the campaign will deliver the message, the second official noted that this involves “managing a highly personalized highly fragmented media environment in which we really have to fire on a lot more cylinders than in a traditional campaign even 10 years ago,” which was “kind of TV-heavy.”
As a result, he said, “you’re seeing a ton of different and diverse ways that we are reaching folks,” from TikTok to Truth Social, the right-wing social media platform founded by Trump, and “paid media that’s skewing heavily toward digital.”
Expect to hear from Biden
LGBTQ rights are “intimate and personal to the president,” the second campaign official said. So, on these matters “you’re going to hear from all of our principals, all of our campaign officials, especially at key moments that are high impact for LGBTQ Americans, including Pride Month.”
“This is a campaign that continues to really represent the diversity of our community, including in inner leadership,” he added.
In November, the Blade interviewed six senior LGBTQ Biden campaign officials for a series of stories about their work on the reelection effort.
Beyond highlighting the dangers presented by Trump, the campaign will continue to show LGBTQ people that Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, and the administration “will stand up for you and respect your dignity,” the first official said.
“That’s the contrast,” he said. “That’s the choice in this election. We’re going to highlight the history both the Vice President and the President have had supporting LGBTQ rights and implementing them as part of the Biden-Harris agenda and record.”
Biden-Harris 2024 Senior Spokesperson Kevin Munoz shared the following statement on Donald Trump’s plans to eliminate LGBTQ rights:
“The freedom-loving Republican party isn’t so free under Donald Trump’s reign. They’ve told us what we can and cannot read, who we can and cannot love, and are even telling us who we can or cannot be. Donald Trump’s Project 2025 would make it their mission to nationalize the draconian, anti-LGBTQ nightmare we’ve seen at the state level and go even further.
In Joe Biden’s America, the government works for all the American people – not just the people Donald Trump approves of. President Biden is fighting for a more equal, just future, while Donald Trump and his MAGA cronies can’t seem to even acknowledge our existence. We’ll fight in this election like our lives depend on it – because they do.”
Congress
McBride, other US lawmakers travel to Denmark
Trump’s demand for Greenland’s annexation overshadowed trip
Delaware Congresswoman Sarah McBride is among the 11 members of Congress who traveled to Denmark over the past weekend amid President Donald Trump’s continued calls for the U.S. to take control of Greenland.
McBride, the first openly transgender person elected to Congress, traveled to Copenhagen, the Danish capital, with U.S. Sens. Chris Coons (D-Del.), Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) and U.S. Reps. Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y.), Madeleine Dean (D-Pa.), Don Bacon (R-Neb.), and Sarah Jacobs (D-Calif.). The lawmakers met with Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen and Greenlandic MP Pipaluk Lynge, among others.
“I’m grateful to Sen. Coons for his leadership in bringing together a bipartisan, bicameral delegation to reaffirm our support in Congress for our NATO ally, Denmark,” said McBride in a press release that detailed the trip. “Delaware understands that our security and prosperity depend on strong partnerships rooted in mutual respect, sovereignty, and self-determination. At a time of growing global instability, this trip could not be more poignant.”
Greenland is a self-governing territory of Denmark with a population of less than 60,000 people. Trump maintains the U.S. needs to control the mineral-rich island in the Arctic Ocean between Europe and North America because of national security.
The Associated Press notes thousands of people on Saturday in Nuuk, the Greenlandic capital, protested against Trump. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer is among those who have criticized Trump over his suggestion the U.S. would impose tariffs against countries that do not support U.S. annexation of Greenland.
A poll that Sermitsiaq, a Greenlandic newspaper, and Berlingske, a Danish newspaper, commissioned last January indicates 85 percent do not want Greenland to become part of the U.S. The pro-independence Demokraatit party won parliamentary elections that took place on March 12, 2025.
“At this critical juncture for our countries, our message was clear as members of Congress: we value the U.S.-Denmark partnership, the NATO alliance, and the right of Greenlanders to self-determination,” said McBride on Sunday in a Facebook post that contained pictures of her and her fellow lawmakers meeting with their Danish and Greenlandic counterparts.
Congress
Van Hollen speaks at ‘ICE Out for Good’ protest in D.C.
ICE agent killed Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis on Jan. 7
U.S. Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) is among those who spoke at an “ICE Out for Good” protest that took place outside U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s headquarters in D.C. on Tuesday.
The protest took place six days after a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent shot and killed Renee Nicole Good, a 37-year-old woman in Minneapolis.
Good left behind her wife and three children.
(Video by Michael K. Lavers)
Congress
Advocates say MTG bill threatens trans youth, families, and doctors
The “Protect Children’s Innocence” Act passed in the House
Georgia Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene has a long history of targeting the transgender community as part of her political agenda. Now, after announcing her resignation from the U.S. House of Representatives, attempting to take away trans rights may be the last thing she does in her official capacity.
The proposed legislation, dubbed “Protect Children’s Innocence Act” is among the most extreme anti-trans measures to move through Congress. It would put doctors in jail for up to 10 years if they provide gender-affirming care to minors — including prescribing hormone replacement therapy to adolescents or puberty blockers to younger children. The bill also aims to halt gender-affirming surgeries for minors, though those procedures are rare.
Greene herself described the bill on X, saying if passed, “it would make it a Class C felony to trans a child under 18.”
According to KFF, a nonpartisan source for health policy research, polling, and journalism, 27 states have enacted policies limiting youth access to gender-affirming care. Roughly half of all trans youth ages 13–17 live in a state with such restrictions, and 24 states impose professional or legal penalties on health care practitioners who provide that care.
Greene has repeatedly introduced the bill since 2021, the year she entered Congress, but it failed to advance. Now, in exchange for her support for the National Defense Authorization Act, the legislation reached the House floor for the first time.
According to the 19th, U.S. Rep. Sarah McBride (D-Del.), the first trans member of Congress, rebuked Republicans on the Capitol steps Wednesday for advancing anti-trans legislation while allowing Affordable Care Act tax credits to expire — a move expected to raise health care costs for millions of Americans.
“They would rather have us focus in and debate a misunderstood and vulnerable one percent of the population, instead of focusing in on the fact that they are raiding everyone’s health care,” McBride said. “They are obsessed with trans people … they are consumed with this.”
Polling suggests the public largely opposes criminalizing gender-affirming care.
A recent survey by the Human Rights Campaign and Global Strategy Group found that 73 percent of voters in U.S. House battleground districts oppose laws that would jail doctors or parents for providing transition-related care. Additionally, 77 percent oppose forcing trans people off medically recommended medication. Nearly seven in 10 Americans said politicians are not informed enough to make decisions about medical care for trans youth.
The bill passed the House and now heads to the U.S. Senate for further consideration.
According to reporting by Erin Reed of Erin In The Morning, three Democrats — U.S. Reps. Henry Cuellar and Vicente Gonzalez of Texas and Don Davis of North Carolina — crossed party lines to vote in favor of the felony ban, joining 213 Republicans. A total of 207 Democrats voted against the bill, while three lawmakers from both parties abstained.
Advocates and lawmakers warned the bill is dangerous and unprecedented during a multi-organizational press call Tuesday. Leaders from the Human Rights Campaign and the Trevor Project joined U.S. Rep. Becca Balint (D-Vt.), Dr. Kenneth Haller, and parents of trans youth to discuss the potential impact of restrictive policies like Greene’s — particularly in contrast to President Donald Trump’s leniency toward certain criminals, with more than 1,500 pardons issued this year.
“Our MAGA GOP government has pardoned drug traffickers. They’ve pardoned people who tried to overthrow the government on January 6, but now they want to put pediatricians and parents into a jail cell for caring for their kids,” said Human Rights Campaign President Kelley Robinson. “No one asked for Marjorie Taylor Greene or Dan Crenshaw or any politician to be in their doctor’s office, and they should mind their own business.”
Balint, co-chair of the Congressional Equality Caucus, questioned why medical decisions are being made by lawmakers with no clinical expertise.
“Parents and doctors already have to worry about state laws banning care for their kids, and this bill would introduce the risk of federal criminal prosecution,” Balint said. “We’re talking about jail time. We’re talking about locking people up for basic medical care, care that is evidence-based, age-appropriate and life-saving.”
“These are decisions that should be made by doctors and parents and those kids that need this gender-affirming care, not certainly by Marjorie Taylor Greene.”
Haller, an emeritus professor of pediatrics at St. Louis University School of Medicine, described the legislation as rooted in ideology rather than medicine.
“It is not science, it is just blind ideology,” Haller said.
“The doctor tells you that as parents, as well as the doctor themselves, could be convicted of a felony and be sentenced up to 10 years in prison just for pursuing a course of action that will give your child their only chance for a happy and healthy future,” he added. “It is not in the state’s best interests, and certainly not in the interests of us, the citizens of this country, to interfere with medical decisions that people make about their own bodies and their own lives.”
Haller’s sentiment is echoed by doctors across the country.
The American Medical Association, the nation’s largest organization that represents doctors across the country in various parts of medicine has a longstanding support for gender-affirming care.
“The AMA supports public and private health insurance coverage for treatment of gender dysphoria and opposes the denial of health insurance based on sexual orientation or gender identity,” their website reads.
Rodrigo Heng-Lehtinen, senior vice president of public engagement campaigns at the Trevor Project, agreed.
“In Marjorie Taylor Greene’s bill [it] even goes so far as to criminalize and throw a parent in jail for this,” Heng-Lehtinen said. “Medical decisions should be between patients, families, and their doctors.”
Rachel Gonzalez, a parent of a transgender teen and LGBTQ advocate, said the bill would harm families trying to act in their children’s best interests.
“No politician should be in any doctor’s office or in our living room making private health care decisions — especially not Marjorie Taylor Greene,” Gonzalez said. “My daughter and no trans youth should ever be used as a political pawn.”
Other LGBTQ rights activists also condemned the legislation.
Tyler Hack, executive director of the Christopher Street Project, called the bill “an abominable attack on the transgender community.”
“Marjorie Taylor Greene’s last-ditch effort to bring her 3-times failed bill to a vote is an abominable attack on the transgender community and further cements a Congressional career defined by hate and bigotry,” they said. “We are counting down the days until she’s off Capitol Hill — but as the bill goes to the floor this week, our leaders must stand up one last time to her BS and protect the safety of queer kids and medical providers. Full stop.”
Hack added that “healthcare is a right, not a privilege” in the U.S., and this attack on trans healthcare is an attack on queer rights altogether.
“Marjorie Taylor Greene has no place in deciding what care is necessary,” Hack added. “This is another attempt to legislate trans and queer people out of existence while peddling an agenda rooted in pseudoscience and extremism.”
U.S. Rep. Mark Takano (D-Calif.), chair of the Congressional Equality Caucus, also denounced the legislation.
“This bill is the most extreme anti-transgender legislation to ever pass through the House of Representatives and a direct attack on the rights of parents to work with their children and their doctors to provide them with the medical care they need,” Takano said. “This bill is beyond cruel and its passage will forever be a stain on the institution of the United States Congress.”
The bill is unlikely to advance in the Senate, where it would need 60 votes to pass.
