Politics
Jared Polis warns of the dangers of Project 2025
Gay Colo. governor spoke at Democratic National Convention on Wednesday
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CHICAGO — Addressing the Democratic National Convention on Wednesday, gay Colorado Gov. Jared Polis warned of the dangers presented by Project 2025, the conservative Heritage Foundation’s governing blueprint for a second Donald Trump administration.
He began by outlining the extreme restrictions on reproductive freedom that would be effectuated under the plan, which would go far beyond an abortion ban.
“It says that Donald Trump could use an obscure law from the 1800s to single handedly ban abortion in all 50 states, even putting doctors in jail,” he said, while “page 486 puts limits on contraception” and “page 450 threatens access to IVF.”
“On page 455,” Polis continued, “Project 2025 says that states have to report miscarriages to the Trump administration” and “page 451 says the only legitimate family is a married mother and father, where only the father works.”
The governor spoke while holding a large “Project 2025” book. Tearing out a page, he said, “You know what? I’m going to take that one out. I’m going to put that in my pocket so I can share it with undecided voters, so they better understand what’s at stake this election.”
Vice President Kamala Harris and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, the Democratic Party’s presidential and vice presidential nominees, have focused much of their messaging on issues of reproductive freedom. The Walz family had their children through IVF.
“Project 2025 would turn the entire federal government and bureaucracy into a massive machine,” Polis said. “It would weaponize it to control our reproductive and personal choices.”
“Look, as a Redditor, gamer, entrepreneur and Swifty from the Free State of Colorado, I’m excited by Kamala Harris’s vision for protecting and expanding our personal freedom, internet freedom and economic freedom,” he said.
“Democrats welcome weird, but we’re not weirdos telling families who can and can’t have kids, who to marry, or how to live our lives,” the governor said, setting up a contrast with the Republican ticket.
“These Project 2025 people” like Trump and U.S. Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, the Republican vice presidential nominee, “are not just weird — they’re dangerous,” Polis said.
“They want to take us backwards, but we aren’t going back — like ever, ever, ever,” he said, a reference to Taylor Swift’s single, “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together.”
“Let’s stop project 2025 and elect Kamala Harris president this November.”
Politics
Becca Balint speaks exclusively with the Blade at the Democratic National Convention
Lesbian Vt. congresswoman spoke at LGBTQ Caucus meeting
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CHICAGO — U.S. Rep. Becca Balint (D), Vermont’s first woman and first LGBTQ member of Congress, spoke exclusively with the Washington Blade shortly after her remarks before the second LGBTQ Caucus meeting on Wednesday at the Democratic National Convention.
“There’s so much energy and light,” this week, “and I think people understand that we are starved for connection,” she said. “We’re starved for connection — And it’s not just in our community.”
“It is across the country that people don’t want to live in a hateful, cynical place. They just don’t. And we have a special part in helping people to not just see the joy, but channel the joy. And I think that’s a huge part of our community.”
It was “super fun,” the congresswoman said, when she got a shout-out for her teaching background during the ceremonial roll-call vote on Tuesday, which officially made Vice President Kamala Harris the Democratic presidential nominee.
Asked to share her thoughts on her experience as an LGBTQ educator at a time when schools have become the nexus of Republican-led attacks against the community, particularly targeting queer and transgender young people, Balint said “our students across this country need us, and I mean all of us adults, to show up for them.”
“Educators are under attack” too, she said. “Librarians are under attack. And they believe — by them, I mean the MAGA, the folks who are supporting Project 2025 — they believe that somehow they can stifle who we are by going after teachers and educators and [it’s] not going to work.”
Balint continued, “We are who we are. We’re going to keep being who we are. But we, we need to show up for those teachers. We need to show up for those librarians, because they are the ones day in and day out who are standing up for our kids.”
Harris is “tremendous,” she said. “The day that [Joe] Biden endorsed [her], I endorsed [her]. I believe that she is the exact right leader we need at this moment. She has been very, very good for our community for a very long time.”
“And, you know, she’s the real deal,” Balint said. “She’s the real deal. She she shows up, she does the work, and that’s what we need.”
During the LGBTQ Caucus meeting, writer and LGBTQ activist Charlotte Clymer had noted the absence of trans Democrats in the convention’s primetime lineup featured at the United Center, arguing that congressional candidate and Delaware state Sen. Sarah McBride, who would be the first trans member of Congress, should have been invited to speak.
“We have to continue to work within the Democratic Caucus and the Democratic National Committee to make sure that the face that we’re putting forward to Americans truly represents all of us,” Balint said.
“There are other groups, too, that I know feel like they wish that they were more represented as well,” she said. “And this is a work in progress.”
Balint added that “it’s one of the reasons why I am extremely excited that Sarah McBride is going to be my colleague. She’s going to win in Delaware. She’s going to do it. She’s a star, and I can’t wait to welcome her.”
Politics
HRC president speaks at Democratic National Convention
Kelley Robinson shared family’s journey from slavery to freedom
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CHICAGO — Human Rights Campaign President Kelley Robinson addressed the Democratic National Convention on Wednesday, beginning with a stirring account of her family’s journey from enslavement in antebellum Mississippi to freedom in Muscatine, Iowa.
“Progress is happening,” HRC’s first Black woman leader said, noting that the country is “preparing to elect President Kamala Harris.”
“My friends, the 20+ million LGBTQ+ Americans are living proof,” Robinson said. “We are your friends and your neighbors, your classmates and your family — like Daniel, a trans kid in Tucson who’s going to his very first prom, like Eric from San Antonio, who sacrificed in combat and then came home to battle ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,’ like Sandy and Kris, the first same-sex couple to get legally married in California 11 years ago, in a ceremony officiated by Kamala Harris.”
By contrast, “Donald Trump wants to erase us,” she said. “He would ban our healthcare, belittle our marriages, bury our stories. But we are not going anywhere. We are not going back.”
“Kamala Harris and Tim Walz, they are champions for LGBTQ+ freedom, y’all,” Robinson said. “So tonight, we’re fighting for lesbian, gay, bisexual, queer and trans freedom without exception. We’re fighting for equality for all without exception. We’re fighting for joy. Somebody say joy? Somebody say joy. Somebody say joy, without exception.”
Politics
LGBTQ leaders, DNC chair address LGBTQ Caucus meeting at Democratic convention
Danica Roem, Sarah McBride among attendees
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CHICAGO — A coalition of LGBTQ leaders addressed the second meeting of the LGBTQ Caucus at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago’s McCormick Place Convention Center on Wednesday.
In order of appearance, speakers included Democratic National Committee LGBTQ Caucus Chair Earl Fowlkes, Harris-Walz National LGBTQ+ Engagement Director Sam Alleman, congressional candidate and Delaware state Sen. Sarah McBride (D), senior advisor to Vice President Kamala Harris Sergio Gonzales, LGBTQ Victory Fund and Institute President Annise Parker, Chasten Buttigieg, Texas state Rep. Julie Johnson (D), Democratic National Committee Chair Jaime Harrison, actor and LGBTQ activist Wilson Cruz, writer and LGBTQ activist Charlotte Clymer, Virginia state Sen. Danica Roem (D), National LGBTQ Task Force President Kierra Johnson, Stonewall veteran and transgender rights activist Miss Major Griffin-Gracy, and U.S. Rep. Becca Balint (D-Vt.).
Fowlkes celebrated the record-breaking number of LGBTQ delegates in Chicago this year — more than 800, up from 635 in 2020 — and invited those who were in the room to gather near the stage for photos. He also noted his formation of a trans advisory commission, an ad-hoc committee to the LGBTQ caucus.
“I don’t think I have to tell anyone how clear as day the difference between our ticket is and their ticket is when it comes to issues for our community,” Alleman said. Outlining the Out for Harris national LGBTQ organizing program, he noted the events and investments in earned and paid media, along with metrics.
Up next, Alleman said, will be continued onboarding of sub-groups and state programs with a focus on Broadway, drag performers, queer women, Black LGBTQ people, and “mama bears and allies.” He said Out for Harris will also scale national direct voter contact and organizing efforts through an organizing call on Aug. 29, weekly direct voter contact trainings and activations, which will become daily on Oct. 12, and get out the vote (GOTV) efforts.
McBride, the Democratic Party’s endorsed candidate for Delaware’s open congressional seat, said that while to she hopes to “join you in four years not just as Delaware’s next member of Congress, but as the first openly trans member of Congress in American history,” she is “running to make historic change on all of the issues that matter.”
“Right now, there is a cruel and concerted effort,” McBride said, to “roll back the clock on our progress” and “target some of the most vulnerable but badass members of the LGBTQ community for hate and discrimination — trans young people.”
“We also know what is possible when it comes to all of the issues that we face, because at the end of the day, as Audre Lorde reminds us, there is no such thing as a single issue cause, because no one lives single issue lives,” she said.
“As someone who has worked up close with the vice president now for a number of years,” said Gonzales, who has been a senior advisor to Harris from the time she began serving in the U.S. Senate in 2017, “the only thing I really want to focus on today for his remarks is just to make sure that you know we are on the cusp of electing a leader and a champion who has been in the LGBTQ community for years.”
But while “we know that Kamala Harris has showed up for our community time and again,” Gonzales said, now “Kamala Harris needs you” because “this is going to be a really tight election” and “we know the ugliness of the other side, the kind of hate that they’re spewing towards our community in particular.”
After outlining the services provided by the Victory Fund, which works to elect LGBTQ people to public office, and the Victory Institute, which provides training, professional development, and networking services, Parker discussed the stakes of November’s elections.
“Kamala Harris is going to have coattails,” she said, “but she’s going to need us at the grassroots pushing up. And people are going to show up for the trans school board candidate in their community. People are going to show up for a state rep who is non binary in their community. People going to show up for a lesbian or gay man who is running for city council. Even if they’re not excited about the top of the ticket, as we are, they will show up in their community for people they know.”
“Politics has always pushed me to try to do the right thing, and I don’t think me becoming a parent has changed my political convictions, but it sure has scared the daylight out of me,” said Buttigieg, who is raising a son and daughter with husband Pete Buttigieg, secretary of the U.S. Department of Transportation.
“I hope that we can remind one another that, yes, some dreams have come true because of politics and because of progress, because of the people linking arms in this room saying ‘we demand more, we demand better,'” he said, but there are kids out there who are afraid to be who they are or unable to be open about who they are for fear for their safety. “So let’s go out there and show them that there can be a better way, and I know we can do that by electing Kamala Harris and Tim Walz this November.”
Noting that she formed the first-ever LGBTQ caucus in the Texas legislature, Johnson said the message from her opponents during her primary campaign was “that the gay community, that the trans community, were terrible, were going to destroy our society and ruin the American family.”
“I was the only Democrat on TV, and my message was, I am gay all day, I am gay, gay, gay, gay, gay,” she said. “My message to you is this, don’t hide from your truth. Own it. Campaign on it. People value it. They will vote for you, and you will win, just like I did in the state of Texas.”
“I describe this convention as a big and probably the hardest family reunion in the world,” Harrison said, “because, in family reunions, people are laughing, they’re hugging, they’re dancing, and they’re crying sometimes, but those reunions are filled with love and happiness, joy” while “the other party is a party that’s built around fear; they want to make you afraid of everything.”
“When they come for one of us, they come for all of us,” he said. “I want every LGBTQ+ person who is growing up in this country to understand you matter, you are enough, and we are going to fight for you.”
Cruz defined the two tickets in stark and diametrically opposite terms. “We can have a White House that believes in equality for all of us,” he said, “or we can have a dictatorship hellbent on ending American democracy itself.”
“And that’s why I’m showing up,” said the actor, who is board chair of SMYAL, the LGBTQ youth-serving organization in D.C. “A brighter future is worth fighting for. For our young people, our freedoms are worth fighting for. We have made incredible progress, and we are not going back.”
Clymer thanked the DNC for “a fantastic convention this week,” adding that, “very respectfully, I also want to say something that I think needs to be heard.” At a time when “trans people are being viciously, directly attacked on a daily basis, and in a year when we are about to elect the first trans member of Congress, it is absolutely ridiculous that Sarah McBride is not on the speaking program” in the evening primetime sessions at the United Center.
When Terry McAuliffe lost the Virginia gubernatorial race to Republican Glenn Youngkin in 2021 “there was a lot of talk about CRT (critical race theory) and LGBTQ rights and all the hateful speech that is usually brought up in the analysis of why Democrats lose,” Clymer said. “What was missing in that post-election analysis is that a progressive trans woman was elected to the state Senate and outperformed the top of the ticket in her district.”
She was referring to Roem, the next speaker to take the stage. “Throughout this week, I’ve gotten the chance to hear people describe Vice President Harris as being fearless,” the Virginia state senator said, “and we heard even earlier about how she was that kid standing up to the playground bully as a child,” referring to an anecdote that was repeated by Harrison.
Roem explained how she learned to be fearless, too, as she gradually came out as trans, beginning around the time when Harris, then the newly elected district attorney of San Francisco, “started officiating [same-sex] weddings, and she did it with the same joy that’s the cornerstone of her campaign today.”
She “supported us before it was popular, even in the Democratic Party, not because it was easy, but because it was right,” Roem said.
“I met President Carter at the convention in Denver in 2008,” Johnson said. “You may not know that his administration was the first administration to entertain a queer delegation, and the Task Force led that delegation — yes, my president, President Carter, was the only president that the National LGBTQ Task Force Action Fund ever endorsed until just this year, when we endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris.”
She added, “It is only fitting, given that together, she and Tim [Walz] have a nearly unmatched record for being champions of LGBTQ+ people, and with you, with us, with our peoples, we can secure the presidency, the Senate and the House, and ensure the Equality Act is finally, finally passed — an Equality Act that was first introduced by President Carter, and we’re gonna finish that business with this next administration.”
After she was introduced by Johnson, members of the audience approached the stage to hear Miss Major draw the contrast between Harris, the first presidential candidate she has ever endorsed, and Trump, who she feels is beneath contempt.
The activist spoke with the Washington Blade last week for a profile focused on her decades of work as an activist, her involvement in this election, her work with the Task Force, and her take on the Harris campaign’s commitment to not go back.
Vermont’s first woman and first LGBTQ member of Congress took the stage to share how she “learned recently that there is this incredible thing that happens when we experience a sense of awe.”
“And when you experience that, something changes inside of you,” Balint said. “We know this intuitively, but the data also bears it out — you are more open to the world; you have more humility; you have more curiosity, which is why we seek it.”
“I want you to remember you have a part in this. You do not need to be in elected office to transform your community, to transform the people around you. Lean hard into your humility and your curiosity and your generosity. Others will be drawn to you.”
Politics
DNC includes queer voices and addresses LGBTQ rights
Speakers at Chicago convention denounce discrimination
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CHICAGO — For the second consecutive night, the Democratic National Convention in Chicago’s United Center made reference to LGBTQ rights, including in the context of the 2024 nominee’s record of expanding freedoms and protections for the community.
Vice President Kamala Harris “has always done the right thing, a champion for voting rights, civil rights, LGBTQ rights, the rights for women and girls,” California Gov. Gavin Newsom said during the ceremonial roll call Tuesday night, whereupon she was officially made the nominee.
Leading the roll call was openly gay Democratic National Committee Secretary Jason Rae, who in 2006 interned at the LGBTQ Victory Fund (which at the time was called the Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund.)
When Vermont pledged 24 votes for Harris, the state’s first LGBTQ representative in Congress, Becca Balint, was highlighted as an exemplar of its commitment to public education, as she previously served as a middle school history and social studies teacher.
Speeches were kicked off Tuesday by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.).
The night was headlined by former President Barack Obama, who said, “We believe that true freedom gives each of us the right to make decisions about our own life, how we worship, what our family looks like, how many kids we have, who we marry, and we believe that freedom requires us to recognize that other people have the freedom to make choices that are different than ours.”
“Shutting down the Department of Education, banning our books, none of that will prepare our kids for the future,” former First Lady Michelle Obama said. “Demonizing our children for being who they are and loving who they love — look, that doesn’t make anybody’s life better.”
“Americans with LGBTQ kids don’t want them facing discrimination at school because the state sanctioned it,” Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker (D) said.
Monday night saw two LGBTQ speakers, U.S. Rep. Robert Garcia and U.S. Sen. Laphonza Butler, Democrats of California.
Michigan state Sen. Mallory McMorrow, who is widely considered a rising star in Democratic politics, stepped on stage with a printout of the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 right-wing and socially conservative governing agenda.
Then, when President Joe Biden took the stage to close out the evening with a rousing and emotional address to his party, he discussed “the freedom to love who you love” among the liberties that are at stake in November.
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Politics
Gloria Allred at the DNC: Harris is ‘more than ready for this job’
Trailblazing attorney spoke exclusively with the Washington Blade
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CHICAGO — Vice President Kamala Harris, the 2024 Democratic nominee for president, is “more than ready for this job,” Gloria Allred told the Washington Blade on the sidelines of an LGBTQ caucus meeting during the Democratic National Convention on Monday.
“I met [Harris] when she was running for District Attorney of San Francisco, and she came to my office to seek my support, which, of course, I gave her,” Allred said. “I was extremely impressed with her at the time.”
“Usually I don’t make time to meet with political figures, frankly, because I’m so busy with the cases,” she said. “And I just, you know, can’t. But for some reason, I said, ‘Okay, I’ll meet her in my office,’ and I did, and I just had a feeling about her. And I’m so happy.”
Allred stressed that “we have to work to make it happen because it’s not going to happen just if we hope for it, we wish for it, we pray for it. We have to work for it.”
She also pointed out the dangers of Donald Trump’s candidacy for a second term in the White House, warning, “The Trump administration was just a disaster and a catastrophe for the country. And what they are doing now, Project 2025 in terms of pro-choice, in terms of gay and lesbian and transgender rights, is just a disaster.”
The former president, Allred said, “wants to distance himself from it” but “he can’t because so many of his employees, or former employees, I should say, from the administration, were involved in writing it — and also, of course, he’s on video talking about how great it was and is.”
An attorney whose career has spanned five decades, Allred has argued some of the most high profile civil rights cases in America, with a particular focus on LGBTQ and women’s rights, often representing some of the most famous public figures, from politicians to entertainers.
“I just want to say, my law firm and I have been involved in advocating and litigating for gay, lesbian, and transgender rights since the late 1970s,” Allred said. “I know what going back means when they we say ‘we won’t go back,’ because I’ve been saying that at pro-choice marches and gay and lesbian protests since that time.”
“No one has ever given women our rights. We’ve always had to fight for women. And this is the same for gay, lesbian, transgender, you know, bisexual, the whole community — no one’s giving us anything. No one ever gave us anything. We always have to fight to win it.”
At the DNC, “that’s what we’re doing here, is organizing, and I’m just really proud of the community that they’re here, educating people and helping to mobilize them,” Allred said. “Because we have to mobilize, we have to organize, and we have to help raise money to win.”
Trump, she said, has “billionaires supporting him,” and while Harris and the Democrats can win, Allred cautioned “we have to be really committed. There are not many days left to do it.”
“We have a real commitment, and we know how much more this election can make in terms of a difference for the community and equal rights for all,” Allred added.
Allred’s precedent-setting LGBTQ rights cases
Allred told the Blade about several landmark cases that she litigated on behalf of LGBTQ clients, going back several decades, including one involving two gay men who attended their high school reunion in the 1980s and were told their photo would not be published in the book because “the publisher felt it was against his religion to publish a photo of two gay men together.”
“We sued them, and after 16 years of litigating it all the way up to the California Court of Appeals, we won,” Allred said. The matter earned media attention, as the publisher “took out advertisements in the newspapers” arguing that “he had a right of free speech and religious expression to not publish” the photo.
“Well, we won the case in California decades ago,” she said.
Allred noted that apart from the role of the California Unruh Civil Rights Act in her case, analogous legal disputes were at issue in the U.S. Supreme Court’s Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission (2018).
California was, and is, at the vanguard of LGBTQ civil rights movements. So was, and is, Allred and her firm, Allred, Maroko & Goldberg. “We did the right to marry case,” she said, “I did AIDS discrimination cases that we also won up in the California Court of Appeals” which ruled that “you can’t discriminate against someone” because of their HIV/AIDS status.
“We represented Robin Tyler and Diane Olson and Reverend Troy Perry and Phillip Ray De Blieck, his partner, the four of them in our right to marry case in California,” Allred said. “And we were the first in the state to challenge the family code law that essentially said that two people of the same sex could not marry. We challenged that. We went all the way to the California Supreme Court and we won.”
Here, too, Allred’s work crossed paths with Harris’s efforts in the public sector, aided by other allies like California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) who was, during this time, mayor of San Francisco.
“Because we were the first, Robin and Diane were the first, to be allowed to marry in LA County, a day before everyone else, we know that Newsom — actually, the same day that we announced we’re challenging the constitutionality of the law [he] started marrying gay and lesbian couples.”
The attorney — who in 2022 was awarded the highest honor of the LGBTQ+ Lawyers Association of Los Angeles — noted her and her firm’s ongoing work on behalf of transgender clients, which she considers “part of what we think should be always a teaching moment for what happens so that if people see the injustice and the unfairness, then they will join with us in wanting to right the wrongs.”
Allred highlighted another landmark case in the 1980s in which she represented “two lesbian life partners, wonderful women, businesswomen, very articulate” who were “not going to be in the closet” about their relationship when they celebrated Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday at Papa Choux, a fine dining establishment in Los Angeles.
“One was Latina, the other one was African American,” she said. “They were a couple, and they made a reservation for the romantic booths, which were like a few steps up from the main restaurant” with “sheer curtains, and violinists [who] came in to play” by the tables.
The couple was told that they were welcome to sit elsewhere but “two people of the same sex can’t sit in this romantic section” as a matter of restaurant policy and also per a city ordinance. “They weren’t kissing, they weren’t hugging, they weren’t even holding hands,” Allred said, and they did not want to move. As they would later say publicly, “‘we thought to ourselves, what would Martin Luther King Jr. want us to do? And we decided he would want us to call Gloria Allred.'”
“They came to us,” she said, and “we took the case. We had to decide, is this sexual orientation? Is it sex discrimination? Is it important? Or is it not important? Is it ridiculous? And then we decided, if you think that Rosa Parks sitting in the back of the bus was important, even though the bus would still get there, but she was treated in a way that was not respectful of her right to be treated in a dignified, respectful way, so this is the same thing.”
“So we fought at the lower court,” Allred said. “The trial court said, the judge said, ‘I want to go see the restaurant,’ which was not necessary. It’s a legal issue. But he did, and then he ruled against us, and we went up to the Court of Appeals, and we won, and they reversed, and we set a legal precedent that we’re able to cite in other cases and other attorneys were able to cite that you can’t discriminate against people because they’re lesbian or gay or of the same sex.”
That was 1984. “It’s still a legal precedent in California,” Allred added.
Politics
George Santos pleads guilty to wire fraud, identity theft
Gay Republican was expelled from Congress last year
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Former U.S. Rep. George Santos of Long Island, N.Y., who was the first out gay non-incumbent Republican to win election to Congress in 2022 and whose congressional colleagues voted to expel him last year, pleaded guilty on Aug. 19 to felony charges of wire fraud and aggravated identity theft as part of a plea deal with federal prosecutors.
His guilty plea came a little over a year after a federal grand jury indicted him in May 2023 on 13 counts of defrauding campaign donors and falsely claiming unemployment benefits. Last October prosecutors obtained another indictment that included the charge of aggravated identity theft on grounds that he falsified campaign donation information with the Federal Election Commission. He initially pleaded not guilty to the charges.
CBS News reports that a judge at the U.S. District Court in Central Islip, N.Y., which is on Long Island, set a sentencing date for Feb. 7, 2025, and said Santos faces an estimated sentencing range of between six and eight years in prison. Under the plea agreement, Santos will be required to repay at least $373,000, according to CBS News.
Had he not accepted the plea deal he was expected to go on trial in September.
“I understand that my actions betrayed my supporters and constituents,” the Washington Post quoted Santos as saying during the court hearing in which he pleaded guilty to the two charges. “I am committed to making amends and learning from this experience,” the Post quoted him as saying.
Santos, 36, who was expelled from Congress last December, is one of only five members of Congress who have been expelled in U.S. history. The Washington Post reports that three were expelled in 1861 for supporting the Confederacy during the U.S. Civil War, and two others, one in 1980 and the other in 2002, were expelled after being convicted of bribery.
In his 2022 race for New York’s Third Congressional District seat, which includes part of Nassau County on Long Island and part of the New York City Borough of Queens, Santos defeated another gay candidate, Democratic businessman Robert Zimmerman. Political observers have said the two appeared to be the first two openly gay U.S. House candidates to run against each other in a general election.
Santos won the election in what is considered a swing district by a margin of 53.7 percent to 46.3 percent. Following Santos’s expulsion, Long Island Democrat Tom Suozzi emerged as the winner in a special election on Feb. 13 of this year.
The Washington Post reports that from among the total of 23 felony charges that Santos faced before his guilty plea he was alleged to have defrauded campaign donors and used their money for personal expenses, including the purchase of designer clothing; he allegedly stole his donors’ identities and made thousands of dollars of purchases on their credit cards; received unemployment benefits when he was employed; lied to Congress about his finances; and falsified campaign finance reports.
Politics
Looking ahead to the Democratic National Convention
Victory, Task Force, HRC, GLAAD, A4TE, and others will be in Chicago
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The Washington Blade will be reporting live from Chicago at the Democratic National Convention next week.
With 81 percent of delegates responding, this year has seen a record number — 17 percent — who identify as LGBTQ, up from 11.5 percent in 2020, convention officials told the Blade. They will be joined by LGBTQ lawmakers, including the chair and most co-chairs of the Congressional Equality Caucus, and representatives from several major LGBTQ advocacy organizations.
This year’s DNC will be the last in which Annise Parker will participate as president and CEO of the LGBTQ+ Victory Fund and LGBTQ+ Victory Institute. Under the leadership of the former Houston mayor, the political action campaign and training organization for LGBTQ elected leaders have become powerhouses.
The Human Rights Campaign will also be on the ground with President Kelley Robinson leading events throughout the week. Less than a week after Vice President Kamala Harris’s emergence as the presumptive Democratic 2024 nominee, HRC raised more than $300,000 during an Out for Harris LGBTQ+ Unity Call.
For the first time in more than 40 years, the National LGBTQ+ Task Force Action Fund endorsed a presidential candidate, Harris, following President Joe Biden’s announcement on July 21 that he would step off the presidential ticket. Task Force President Kierra Johnson will be in Chicago alongside senior staff for the organization.
GLAAD will be at the DNC to help inform media about LGBTQ issues and amplify queer and trans voices, while Advocates 4 Trans Equality (f.k.a. the National Center for Transgender Equality and the Transgender Legal Defense and Education Fund) will have a presence at the convention, too.
Events for next week will include:
- Sunday Aug. 18 | 6 p.m. CT: HRC and Victory Fund will host a delegate meet-up and mixer/bar crawl at various LGBTQ establishments in Chicago
- Location: LGBTQ venues including Sidetrack, Roscoe’s, Progress, Lark, Kit Kat, and Hydrate
- Monday Aug. 19 | 3 p.m. CT: HRC will host a “DNC LGBTQ+ Kickoff — The Power of Equality Votes,” which will feature top leaders and strategists from the LGBTQ movement and the Democratic Party, along with influencers and others
- Location: McCormick Place
- Tuesday, Aug. 20 | 10 a.m. CT: GLAAD will host a “Media Institute Culture Briefing” to review the organization’s 2024 Accelerating Acceptance report
- Location: The Drake Hotel
- Tuesday Aug. 20 | 4 p.m. CT: The Victory Fund will host a “Victory at the DNC” event, which is expected to draw delegates and executive officers
- Location: The Wit
- Tuesday Aug. 20 | 9 p.m. CT: HRC and Planned Parenthood Action Fund will host a “We Show Up — We Decide” party (by invitation only)
- Location: downtown Chicago
- Wednesday Aug. 21 | 11:45 a.m. CT: The Task Force will address a meeting of the LGBTQ+ Caucus
- Location: McCormick Place
- Thursday Aug. 21: HRC will host 50+ watch parties across the country. Harris is expected to take the stage at the United Center between 6 and 10 p.m. CT
- All week: HRC will host a “Creator Studio and Activation Center” where attendees can learn how best to make an impact in the 2024 elections and mobilize volunteers
- Location: McCormick Center
Register for HRC events at HRC.im/DNC.
Politics
Harris’s online image redefined by queer fans on social media
Contours of 2024 race being shaped by the internet in unusual ways
![](https://www.losangelesblade.com/content/files/2024/07/Kamala_Harris_meme_illustration_via_equalityVAYD_X.jpg)
Earlier this month, as speculation grew over whether President Joe Biden would withdraw from the 2024 race, a video featuring a supercut of footage of Kamala Harris alongside audio and visuals from Charli XCX’s new album, Brat, went viral on social media.
The post was neither the first nor the last of its kind. Hours after Biden’s announcement on July 21 that he would step aside to back his vice president’s historic bid for the nomination, a photo was circulated on X of men wearing matching cropped tees in Brat green (hex code: #89CC04) that were emblazoned with Kamala’s name in the album’s Arial Narrow typeface.
BRAT Kamala shirts already on Fire Island. The gays move SO FAST pic.twitter.com/Zq3e9yctzv
— Michael Del Moro (@MikeDelMoro) July 21, 2024
Minutes after the photo was shared with the caption, “BRAT Kamala shirts already on Fire Island. The gays move SO FAST,” the artist herself weighed in, posting “kamala IS brat.” The vice president then followed Charli XCX on social media and a Brat-themed banner image was uploaded to Kamala HQ, the campaign’s official, newly rebranded rapid response page on X.
Over the next week, as they covered the convergence of support for Harris among Democratic Party officials, delegates, donors, and elected officials, news organizations directed their attention, too, to the groundswell of online support for her candidacy, which inevitably meant confronting questions like what exactly was meant by proclamations that Kamala is Brat.
The album, which dropped on June 7, was an instant hit among Charli XCX’s LGBTQ fans. By this point, the “young girl from Essex” had become, as Pink News wrote, “synonymous with queer pop-music lovers,” particularly since her second EP “Vroom Vroom” was released in 2016 and “critics didn’t get it, but the gays did.”
Likewise, many of the pro-Harris social media posts seen recently, including those referencing music and themes from Brat, are inscrutable, though not for the predominantly young and LGBTQ online audiences by and for whom the content was created in the first place for purposes of giving voice to the post-July 21 vibe shift in the election and the jolt of enthusiasm they feel for the vice president’s candidacy.
“One of the things that I’m loving about this election cycle so much is the meme-ification of politics — brat summer, you know, I’m learning things about the internet that I didn’t know,” Human Rights Campaign National Press Secretary Brandon Wolf said during the organization’s Out for Harris LGBTQ+ Unity Call on Friday.
After the 2.5-hour virtual event wrapped, with remarks from a slate of LGBTQ elected leaders and celebrities, Wolf joined colleagues including HRC President Kelley Robinson for a dance party set to Beyoncé’s “Freedom.”
The rousing anthem was played by Harris in her first public appearances following Biden’s exit from the race and in her campaign’s first ad, which was released Thursday morning.
“There are some people who think we should be a country of chaos, of fear, of hate,” the vice president says in the video, over footage of Donald Trump and his running mate U.S. Sen. JD Vance of Ohio. “But us, we choose something different.” A crowd chants, “Kamala! Kamala! Kamala!” and Harris proclaims “we choose freedom,” as the booming chorus to “Freedom” begins.
I’m Kamala Harris, and I’m running for President of the United States. pic.twitter.com/6qAM32btjj
— Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) July 25, 2024
The use of Beyoncé’s music and this song in particular is suffused with layers of meaning, from the contrast Harris’s campaign is drawing between her and her opponents’ visions for the future of America to her position as the country’s first Black woman poised to win a major party’s nomination for president.
The decision might also signal Harris’s embrace of her LGBTQ supporters, just as her campaign did by celebrating the queer online fandom she has enjoyed in recent weeks. After all, Beyoncé’s work has often celebrated Black queer culture, love that has been reciprocated by the community throughout the singer’s career.
LGBTQ fans helped to redefine Harris’s image online
The source material for recent viral online content about Harris is largely comprised of clips taken from audio and video footage of the vice president’s public remarks that were originally shared in many cases by critics and political opponents for purposes of presenting her as unserious (or mocking her words, laugh, and mannerisms).
Most were excerpted from a speech last year at the swearing-in ceremony for the White House Initiative on Advancing Educational Equity, Excellence, and Economic Opportunity for Hispanics, where Harris relayed an anecdote about how her mother “would give us a hard time sometimes, and she would say to us, ‘I don’t know what’s wrong with you young people. You think you just fell out of a coconut tree?'” (Laughs.)
“You exist in the context of all in which you live and what came before you,” the vice president said.
By the end of June into early July, in the wake of the president’s poor performance against Trump in the televised CNN debate that spurred calls for him to step out of the race, clips from and references to Harris’s speech once again cropped up across social media platforms.
This time, however, they tended to signal support for the vice president, even before it became clear, starting with Biden’s endorsement, that she was favored to lead the Democratic Party ticket in 2024.
For instance, the “coconut tree” clip was used to kick off the viral supercut featuring imagery and music from Brat (the track “Von Dutch”).
when this video single-handedly wins kamala the election… pic.twitter.com/EZKTWS7VWV
— aram (@aramnotagoat) July 11, 2024
In another post, shared on X by the Virginia Young Democrats LGBTQIA+ Caucus, emojis of coconuts and coconut trees were used to supplant the letters “o” and “t” to spell out “Hot To Go” a song by the queer artist Chappell Roan.
We gotta H-🥥-🌴 🌴-🥥 G-🥥 to the polls in November for Vice President Kamala Harris! She’ll be the one to stop Project 2025 in its tracks and protect our rights as queer people pic.twitter.com/r2byVHZQg5
— VAYD LGBTQIA+ Caucus (@equalityVAYD) July 22, 2024
Many users shared videos with footage of the song “Coconuts” by trans singer Kim Petras (or from the lip sync battle featuring the song during Season 8 of “RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars” with queens Jessica Wild and Ra’Jah O’Hara).
Sometimes, these were cut with footage from the vice president’s speech or used in posts urging her to feature the song in her campaign.
Coconuts aside, another through-line connecting much of the pro-Harris social media content seen over the past few weeks was their inclusion of years-old clips of the vice president dancing.
Especially popular were videos in which she was grooving on stage in the rain while holding an umbrella during a campaign rally in 2020 and showing off her moves at the Iowa Democratic Party’s Liberty and Justice celebration in 2019.
For example, both were included in this viral July 21 supercut featuring RuPaul’s “Call Me Mother.”
All aboard the coconut express!!! pic.twitter.com/lxFTNJtqFe
— Giuseppe (@theJoeMichaell) July 21, 2024
Eventually, the playful and enthusiastic posts from young, queer corners of the internet seemed to inspire the Democratic Party establishment and its elected leaders.
Hours after Biden’s endorsement of Harris, U.S. Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) posted a photo of himself climbing a coconut tree with the caption, “Madam Vice President, we are ready to help.”
Madam Vice President, we are ready to help. pic.twitter.com/y8baSx44FL
— Brian Schatz (@brianschatz) July 22, 2024
Once again, the Harris campaign leaned in, updating the bio of the Kamala HQ page on X to read: “Providing context,” another nod to her famous 2023 speech.
An election defined by personalities and ‘vibes’
Looking ahead to November, it is hardly clear whether and to what extent the online enthusiasm for Harris and her campaign will be sustained.
Of course, a political candidate’s “memeability” is hardly an an exact proxy for public opinion. And online narratives can change over time, as demonstrated by the ways in which content featuring the vice president, like the footage of her “coconut tree” remarks, was co-opted by supporters who transformed them into pro-Harris memes and videos.
Also worth noting is the extent to which these have celebrated attributes like the candidate’s laugh and her dance moves rather than, for instance, her record of public service over several decades in public life or her campaign’s policy agenda.
Additionally, messaging from Trump and his allies and supporters suggests their strategy of going after Harris’s personality was not blunted by the evolution of online discourse seen on social media platforms. “I call her Laughing Kamala. You ever watch her laugh?… She’s crazy. She’s nuts,” the former president said at a recent rally in Michigan.
Meanwhile, beginning with a July 23 appearance on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” Democratic Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota debuted a similar line of attack against Trump and his running mate U.S. Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio: “they’re weird.”
During a rally in St. Paul, he said, “The fascists depend on us going back, but we’re not afraid of weird people. We’re a little bit creeped out, but we’re not afraid.”
The remarks made headlines, amplifying calls for Harris to choose Walz as her 2024 running mate while prompting other high-profile Democrats, including other top contenders for the party’s vice presidential nomination, to follow suit.
Among them was out Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, who told MSNBC’s Jen Psaki on Sunday that the characterization of the Republican ticket as “weird” is not just name-calling, but rather a legitimate response to the policies they have proposed and positions they hold.
He pointed to Vance’s statement that the Democratic Party is led by “childless cat ladies,” as well as the vice presidential nominee’s stance that Americans who have children should wield more political power than those who do not.
With respect to Trump, Buttigieg noted the former president’s “talk about terminating the Constitution,” his odd remarks during campaign rallies about subjects like the fictional serial killer Hannibal Lecter, and “the dark and twisted things that were kind of shoved in our face all of the time during the Trump presidency and ever since by the Trump campaign.”
For her part, Harris used the epithet on Saturday, though not in direct reference to Trump and Vance. Rather, the vice president characterized her opponents’ swipes against her as “just plain weird.”
Speaking of weird…
Shortly after Vance’s nomination was announced on July 15, a user on X wrote, “can’t say for sure but he might be the first vp pick to have admitted in a ny times bestseller to fucking an inside-out latex glove shoved between two couch cushions (vance, hillbilly elegy, pp. 179-181).”
The claim was totally bogus, but the post nevertheless went viral along with a deluge of memes and videos poking fun at Vance that flooded social media platforms alongside the viral pro-Harris content over the past few weeks.
And just as news organizations had brought offline attention to the “Kamala is brat” memes and “coconut pilled” supercuts, the social media posts about Vance reached even wider audiences when, for instance, John Oliver, host of the late-night program “Last Week Tonight,” called Republican campaign officials on Sunday with an inquiry about whether their vice presidential candidate ever had intercourse with a sofa.
Politics
HRC event raises $300K+ for Kamala Harris campaign
Dozens of LGBTQ activists, elected officials participated in fundraiser
![](https://www.losangelesblade.com/content/files/2024/07/20240725_HRC_Zoom_meeting_on_Harris_presidential_run_screen_capture_insert_via_Zoom-1.jpg)
The Human Rights Campaign raised more than $300,000 and enlisted more than 1,500 new volunteers to support the vice president’s 2024 presidential campaign with the organization’s Out for Kamala Harris virtual event on Thursday night.
Delivering remarks before an audience of about 20,000 listeners were a slate of LGBTQ leaders including trailblazing elected officials, celebrities and other public figures, and officials representing the Harris 2024 campaign and advocacy groups including HRC, the National LGBTQ+ Task Force Action Fund, and Advocates 4 Trans Equality.
The speakers discussed Harris’s work fighting to expand rights and freedoms throughout her career, her historic bid to take on Donald Trump and their confidence in her ability to win, the state of the race nearly 100 days out from Election Day, and the stakes in November with respect to queer and transgender communities, reproductive rights, and the preservation of America’s democratic institutions.
They also celebrated the Biden-Harris administration’s record of accomplishment over the past four years — and the legacy President Joe Biden will leave behind after bookending his five decades in elected office by announcing his decision on Sunday to exit the 2024 race in favor of clearing the path for his vice president to earn the Democratic Party’s nomination.
Harris 2024 campaign
Fundraising Chair and former U.S. Ambassador to Denmark Rufus Gifford:
- A lot of us have had a very, very difficult last few weeks. What happened on Sunday was this extraordinary moment where we had what I believe is one of the great American presidents of all time, in Joe Biden, decide to pass the torch to the next generation in Vice President Kamala Harris, a woman who could not be any more qualified for the job as president of the United States
- In Vice President Harris, we see a leader who’s going to fight every single day, fight for members of our community.
- We saw an unprecedented, absolutely unprecedented, surge in support from Americans across the country. We’ve only made public essentially where we were from Sunday afternoon until Tuesday night, where we raised just under $130 million
- This is my fifth presidential campaign. I did both Obama campaigns and I also did the Biden campaign in 2020. I’ve never seen anything like this before. The surge in support — because that support, the small dollar contributions, people give in five, 10, 25, bucks, and even more than that, the numbers are extraordinary. Well over a million people have supported this effort, and we’re going to need it
- We have to know it’s going to come down to seven swing states, Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Arizona, Nevada, Georgia, North Carolina … I believe that our community, that this LGBTQ+ community, can make a difference here. I believe that, with all my heart, knowing the margins of this election it’s just fundamentally true
National LGBTQ+ Engagement Director Sam Alleman:
- We are overwhelmed, humbled and inspired by the outpouring of support that we are seeing for Vice President Kamala Harris. I just I can’t put it into words this feeling, but I do think it’s important, despite the energy and the excitement that we are feeling right now, to ground us in [the reality] that the general frame of this election and what we’re doing here hasn’t really changed
- On one hand, we’ve got a candidate who wants to ban books instead of assault weapons. We’ve got a candidate that if a national abortion ban comes across his desk, he will sign it. We’ve got a candidate that will not fight to protect our community and instead will vilify and bully LGBTQ+ children to score political points
- On the other hand, we’ve got Kamala Harris, who’s been a champion for our community since day one, since her first time in public office, who we know will fight to protect our reproductive freedom and bodily autonomy, who we know will fight to ensure we have paid leave for all, and who’s going to spend every single day fighting to protect and enshrine the democratic principles that this country was founded on
LGBTQ officeholders
US Sen. Laphonza Butler (D-Calif.), the first Black lesbian US senator:
- The leadership that was shown by President Biden has been shown over five decades. This man has been a public servant to the people of this country, not always perfect, but always committed, not always exact, but always in the game
- [Following his example] let us all aspire to have the opportunity to put our personal egos aside and to put the people before any personal achievement
- [Biden’s] full throated endorsement of California’s daughter, Vice President Kamala Harris, is just another display of the kind of leadership and the kind of human being that he is
- [His decision to step aside and endorse] the first woman to serve in the role of vice president, the first Black and South Asian woman to serve as vice president, has really inspired a movement across this country
- There’s so many comparisons to what took place in 2008 [with former President Barack Obama’s election]. The energy, the giving, the volunteerism, the excitement, the feel, the vibe of what is taking place across this country is absolutely electric
- LGBTQ+ leaders across this country, givers, volunteers, activists, we are going to make the difference in this election. Not only in the election of Vice President Harris, but we’re going to make sure that Democrats are able to keep the Senate, and make sure that we’re going to send the first Black person, the first Black man, to be the Speaker of the House of Representatives [the minority leader, U.S. Rep. Hakeem Jeffries of New York]
- It was mentioned that I am the first Black out LGBTQ+ leader in the Senate. I am only the third Black [person] to ever serve in the United States Senate. I am only the 12th Black person to ever serve in the institution’s 248 year history. What we have the opportunity to do is move beyond counting just a handful of representatives in the United States Senate and in the House of Representatives — we have the opportunity to kick the door wide open, to not just crack the glass ceiling, but to blow it out
- Rejecting the policies of Project 2025, rejecting Trumpism, rejecting sexism and ageism and racism and all the isms, to bring our country together, that is the kind of leader that I have known for more than a decade, that is who we have in Vice President Kamala Harris
Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey, the country’s first lesbian governor:
- I’m the first lesbian to be elected governor in the country. I was the first gay person to be elected attorney general in the country, and I took office at the time when Kamala Harris was attorney general in California
- But I actually came to know her before that, because back in 2004 I appreciated that she officiated same sex marriages in California. That was just about the time that we were in court here in Massachusetts over marriage equality. Flash forward to her time as attorney general, and I witnessed as she not only [refused to] defend the discriminatory Proposition 8 [but also petitioned] the court … to try to get that appealed
- Kamala Harris is a person of strength, of grace, of empathy, of compassion. And yes, she is tough, which is probably why Donald Trump backed out of a debate tonight. She’s obviously continued that advocacy as senator, as vice president.
- And big shout out to President Biden, the first to step forward back in 2012 and declare that ‘love is love’ and gay people should be allowed to marry. That administration, the Joe Biden-Kamala Harris team, have done so much for our community
- There’s a lot of love and joy right now, and there should be, but I also want your dollars to be fueled by the stark reality of what’s coming if we don’t do the work
- Here’s what’s at issue: We are facing a situation where we may go back to a time — if we don’t do the work — [where LGBTQ people can be] discriminated against in school, in the workplace, at hospitals. Think about not having access to marriage equality, to Medicaid, to coverage under the Affordable Care Act, to all sorts of things. Think about the specter of no funding for HIV/AIDS prevention. Think about, once again, bans on transgender people from serving in the military and so, so much more
- If they’re coming for anyone’s rights, any of our rights, they’re coming for everyone’s rights. There’s a reason that Kamala chose ‘Freedom’ [by Beyoncé] as her song, right?
US Rep. Becca Balint, the first woman and first queer person elected to represent Vermont in Congress:
- [This event] gives me the hope and the energy we are going to need in the next 100 days as we do the hard and joyous work of electing Kamala Harris as our next president
- Now I know many of you have been discouraged by attacks on our community, and worried as we feel the weight of the stakes of this presidential race. We’ve been witnessing overt attacks on our civil rights in Washington, D.C., where I do my work, and in state capitals across the country
- we know, as history has shown us time and time again, when we make progress, there is always a backlash, and we have been in the midst of that backlash. It’s full of meanness of spirit, a denigration of democratic ideals. It’s full of dog whistles and racist comments and deep sexism
- But I know that we also have the ability to see this moment differently. It’s full of possibility and promise. I want us all to embrace it. Don’t give in to the cynical voices that say that we can’t elect a woman president. Of course we can. Let’s not have a failure of imagination. Of course we can elect a black woman. We have to stop parroting this idea that we are only as good as the most racist and sexist, people in our country
US Rep. Angie Craig (D-Minn.), the first lesbian mother elected to Congress:
- Ten years ago when I started running for Congress in this district that had been in Republican hands for like 68 of 72 years, nobody thought a Democrat could win, but certainly nobody thought a lesbian mother of four could win
- So when we think about what is possible in this election, we’re going to get Kamala Harris across the finish line, because she’s going to stand with legislators like me
- We’re going to work to make sure that the Equality Act is passed into law [so that] young people across this country don’t have to fight the fights that we fought
US Rep. Mark Takano (D-Calif.), the first gay Asian man elected to Congress:
- I want to tell you how excited I am that Kamala Harris will be our candidate for president United States, because I believe she can beat Donald Trump
- [We] need to do everything we can to step up and lift her up, so that she will be victorious. We need to decide right now that we are going to win this election — not just win the White House, but win the Congress
- If we don’t have that trifecta of the White House, a pro-equality House of Representatives, [and] a pro equality Senate, we will not get the Equality Act signed into law. [So] that’s going to be my job, it’s going to be your job, it’s going to be all our jobs to make sure that we set the conditions for full equality in November
Sarah McBride, Delaware’s first trans state senator who will become the first trans person in Congress if elected in November:
- I hope to join you all, not only as the nation’s first out trans member of Congress, but also as Joe Biden’s member of Congress. And I want to take a moment to thank Joe Biden for always being exactly the kind of leader our nation needs at exactly the moment we need him
- He ran in 2020 to save our democracy, and he is passing the torch to a new generation, to Kamala Harris to do that once again in 2024 and that’s one of the many reasons why I’m proud to join my fellow Delawarean in support of our next president, Kamala Harris
- We come together tonight at a critical moment for the LGBTQ community, particularly transgender people like me across the country, Donald Trump, J.D. Vance and their Project 2025 agenda are crystal clear. They will spend the next four years seeking to manufacture culture wars and to divide and discriminate
- We saw it at the Republican Convention just last week. After building up expectations for a new Donald Trump gracing the stage with a focus on unity, what we saw when Donald Trump took that stage was the same old self-serving, insecure, incompetent trust fund baby that he has always been.
- But I know our community was not surprised. We know Donald Trump. He’s the man who governed based on pettiness and grievance for four long years, who incited an insurrection and mocked victims of political violence, who attacked abortion rights, LGBTQ rights, voting rights and workers rights, every step of the way
- That’s what four more years of Donald Trump would mean, and that is the question in this election. Would we go backwards or do we move forward? Do we choose freedom over fear, hope over hatred? Do we return to the policies of the 1950s or do we build on the progress of the Biden-Harris administration, the most accomplished in modern history? That’s why we must elect Kamala Harris to the White House. It’s why we must keep the Senate, and it’s why we must flip the United States House of Representatives to not only defeat the politics of hate, but to move equality forward
- The responsibility in this election, to show a young trans person who fears that the heart of this country is not big enough to love them too, that no matter what extremists say or do that our next President and Vice President continue to have their back
Michele Rayner, the first lesbian Black woman to serve in the Florida Legislature:
- I was able to finalize an adoption for two of my best friends, two gay dads who were able to adopt their queer, nonbinary child. And guess what? That’s what happens in an America where Joe Biden is the president and he hands the torch to Kamala Harris. That’s what happens when we have love over hate
- I’m all in for [Kamala Harris]. I’m all in not just because of experiences that I’ve had with her, being able to spend time with her, I’m all in because, listen, right now, right now, justice is on the ballot, and the people are on the ballot. Our very lives are at stake, and she has a proven track record
- My good friend, [Florida state] Sen. Shervin Jones, used my phrase, ‘you can’t compare what you don’t compete. Baby, there is no competition. I don’t know what the competition is. I don’t know what we’re comparing. We’re comparing one of the most accomplished stateswomen that has ever ran for office, that’s ever ran for the presidency, against the other person that’s 34 times convicted
- I was thinking about what my mother endured while she was integrating the University of South Florida, what Vice President Harris’s mother endured when she came to the United States and fought her way
- We are our queer, LGBTQ ancestors’ wildest dreams. And it is incumbent upon us to do the thing, because they are giving us the strength to do it. They are giving us the fight to do it
Lorena Austin, Arizona’s first chicane gender non-conforming state legislator:
- I was elected as the first chicane nonbinary legislator in the country. So don’t tell me that we can’t do this. Don’t tell me that we can’t make progress. And I’ll tell you right now, we’re not going back
- Talking about marriages, something that’s been established for so long, Kamala was one of the first people — let’s give it up for our future president, Kamala Harris, who, on the day that marriage was passed in our nation, she said, ‘let us get married right now. Not in a few hours from now. Right now. I demand it’
- Here in the state of Arizona, our LGBTQ+ rights are on the line every single day. We see nothing but record numbers of anti LGBTQ bills. Here in the state of Arizona, I’m doing everything I can to combat those bills, and thankfully, we have defeated so many of them
- But I know I’m just annoyingly optimistic that we’re going to get the job done, because we have Kamala on this ticket
Pennsylvania state Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta, the first gay person of color to serve in the Pennsylvania General Assembly:
- I am in Erie, which is a battleground county in a battleground state. We love the work of the Biden Harris administration. They have stood with Black women’s maternal health, a problem here, in a way you might not understand the rest of this country. They are standing with our youth
- You know Kamala Harris’s record. You all know that there is nobody more qualified to be our next president. And you know that on the other side of the ledger, we have folks who couldn’t care less, and in fact, are as antagonistic and aggressively backwards as you could possibly be. [But] candidates don’t win elections. You win elections
LGBTQ advocacy leaders
Advocates 4 Trans Equality Executive Director Rodrigo Heng-Lehtinen:
- This is history in the making, and what I’m most excited about with this election is that it it is so easy for any of us to get scared and worried in these times, these unprecedented times. But now with this election, we don’t have to just watch this happen anymore. We get to take control. We now get to be in the driver’s seat by voting, by getting our friends registered, getting them out to vote. We get to be in control, and we get to make history happen.
- This is not the only time we’re going to be getting together, y’all, right? This is only the start of some incredible work we’re going to be able to do together to get this over the finish line and not just elect President Harris, which we will, but usher in a new era where all of us can be our authentic selves no matter who we are
National LGBTQ+ Task Force Action Fund Executive Director Kierra Johnson:
- The National LGBTQ+ Task Force Action Fund is supporting Kamala because we know she’s a candidate who will protect the right to vote and protect the right for fair elections. [Some might say] ‘that’s not an LGBTQ issue!’ Like hell it isn’t! We can’t do anything without protecting democracy
- This is the first time since President Carter that the Task Force Action Fund has endorsed a presidential candidate. That is no small thing. And we are excited to be putting our energy and our excitement and our feet on the ground for this campaign
- We know LGBTQ children are under attack in schools, and voting for Kamala on Nov. 5 will ensure that Project 2025 and Agenda 47, which would put the lives of trans and nonbinary youth at risk under the guise of parental rights, doesn’t move an inch
HRC President Kelley Robinson:
- I am so grateful to President Joe Biden and the greatest decision that he made, to pass the torch to Kamala Harris to be that standard bearer that helps us think of ‘what can be, without being burdened by what has been,’ right, as our good soon-to-be president says
- This time, we’re not just choosing between two candidates. We are choosing between two different futures for our country, two different futures for our kids, at a moment where we’ve got to make sure, make it clear, and make it explicit
- We’re not just going to beat Donald Trump. We’re going to stomp out Trumpism and all the MAGA-ism wherever it lives and where it lies, because in this moment, we’re going to ensure that love triumphs over hate, that hope triumphs over fear…that joy is available to every single one of us
- I just got back from Milwaukee, Wis.,, where the Republican National Convention was, and let me tell you, we are dealing with a unified opposition. They are unified in their hate. They’re unified in their bigotry, in their sexism and their racism. And coming together today, we’re showing them that we’re unified too
- We have to be clear, especially as queer folks, as people of color, this ain’t the hardest it’s ever been. There’s always been moments that call our values into question as a nation, our humanity into question, and it’s always been people like us that step up and protect it. I’m talking about those activists that came through during the AIDS crisis. I’m talking about the civil rights leaders who marched across the Edmund Pettus Bridge [and those who stood up for marriage equality and trans rights]
- When you’re experiencing a breakdown like the one we’re in — a social breakdown, a spiritual breakdown, a cultural one — there’s usually a breakthrough waiting for you on the other side
Politics
Joe Biden to ‘stand down’ from 2024 presidential race
Announcement comes amid growing pressure from Democrats to step aside
![](https://www.losangelesblade.com/content/files/2024/04/President-Joe-Biden-delivers-remarks-at-a-Pride-celebration.jpg)
President Joe Biden on Sunday announced he will “stand down” from the 2024 presidential ticket.
“It has been the greatest honor of my life to serve as your president,” he said in a statement he posted to X. “And while it has been my intention to seek reelection, I believe it is in the best interest of my party and the country for me to stand down and to focus solely on fulfilling my duties as president for the remainder of my term.”
Biden said he will speak to the country “later this week in more detail about my decision.”
The president in his statement specifically thanked Vice President Kamala Harris, describing her as an “extraordinary partner in all this work.” Biden in a second statement endorsed her.
My fellow Democrats, I have decided not to accept the nomination and to focus all my energies on my duties as President for the remainder of my term. My very first decision as the party nominee in 2020 was to pick Kamala Harris as my Vice President. And it’s been the best… pic.twitter.com/x8DnvuImJV
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) July 21, 2024
The move comes after weeks of pressure from Democratic leaders, including former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), who met privately with the president to urge him to step aside because he had no clear path to beating the Republican nominee Donald Trump.
Doubts among Democrats were crystalized by Biden’s poor performance in his televised debate against Trump on June 27, which led prominent donors including actor George Clooney to urge the party to replace him. They were followed by a steady trickle of elected Democrats.
“We are deeply grateful to President Biden for his more than 50 years of public service and his longtime support for the LGBTQ+ community,” said Human Rights Campaign President Kelley Robinson in a statement. “Today’s announcement reflects his legacy and what President Biden has done his entire career: put the needs of Americans and his country above his own. We owe the Biden-Harris team a debt of gratitude for leading the country out of a state of chaos and constant crisis under former President Trump.”
“The Biden-Harris administration has been the most pro-LGBTQ+ equality administration in history: assembling the most diverse administration, signing the Respect for Marriage Act into law to protect against attacks on marriage equality, and taking important steps to protect our transgender community and LGBTQ+ students,” added Robinson. “President Biden and Vice President Harris have worked closely with HRC and others to get things done and move us closer to equality. We look forward to hearing President Biden address the nation later this week.”
Los Angeles reacts, backs Harris
Reaction was swift and supportive in Los Angeles, where Harris has long been a popular figure.
During her 2020 run for president, Harris made the LGBTQ fundraising rounds and raised large sums of money, most notably during a private event at the home of David Cooley, the then- owner of the Abbey. Cooley agreed to host at his home after Harris popped in unexpectedly at the famous bar while campaigning.
Just this week she toured Los Angeles with Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and then traveled with him to a swank fundraiser in Provincetown, Mass., that brought the financial elite of Los Angeles together.
The Biden-Harris Provincetown fundraiser was co-hosted by noted Angelenos, including Creative Artists Agency partner Joe Machota and his husband Michael Russell, along with Bryan Rafanelli and Abbey owner Tristan Schukraft, raising more $2 million for the Biden-Harris reelection campaign.
That, coupled with today’s announcement, indicates the vice president will have no trouble raising funds from the LGBTQ community and Hollywood as a presidential candidate.
LGBTQ elected officials and other LGBTQ community leaders were ecstatic about today’s events:
“I’m excited to support Vice President Harris and look forward to continuing the progressive legacy she championed alongside President Joe Biden,” West Hollywood Mayor John Erickson told the Los Angeles Blade. “VP Harris is a longtime champion of LGBTQ+ rights and access to abortion, and we need her leadership in the White House.”
“Every election, we say: ‘This is the most important election,’ and this time, we really need people to understand that it is,” he continued. “We are at the moment in history where we either will defeat the evil being presented by the other side of the aisle or choose to embrace what this country is really all about life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for all.”
Wilson Cruz, chair of the GLSEN board of directors, said he is “so grateful to President Biden for, once again and always, putting the nation and its needs before his own. A statement we can never make about the Republican nominee. “
“Kamala Harris, he said, is the future. She is the embodiment of the promise of America. As a California resident, I wholeheartedly supported and then voted for her at every opportunity. As we will see when she prosecuted the case against felon and his VP lackey, she is more than qualified, fit and ready for this fight.”
Cruz said he sees Harris as a “unrelentingly vocal and visible ally” and believes she will “build the most supportive administration the LGBTQ community has ever seen.”
“I will do anything and everything the campaign believes I will be useful in doing,” Cruz told Blade.
“I’m going to get LGBTQ and people of color out to vote in order to protect this democracy, protect a woman’s bodily autonomy and defend and secure the rights of LGBTQ people across this country,” he said, adding “let’s go!”
Equality California Executive Director Tony Hoang, in a statement that focused on Biden, said his organization is “eternally grateful to President Joe Biden for his lifetime service to our country, and his longtime support for the LGBTQ+ community.”
“As he has throughout his more than half a century in elected office, President Biden has put what is best for America above all else,” said Hoang. “During his time in the White House, President Biden pushed forward a proactive agenda that opens doors and levels the playing field for all LGBTQ+ Americans, while defending against attacks from far-right extremists seeking to roll back our hard-fought rights. Our community owes President Biden a tremendous debt of gratitude.”
“As vice president under President Barack Obama, he was one of that administration’s earliest voices in support of marriage equality, and as president he has led the most pro-LGBTQ+ administration in history,” he added. “From overturning a discriminatory ban on transgender people serving in the military, to signing the Respect for Marriage Act, to strengthening protections for LGBTQ+ people, President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris have demonstrated an unwavering commitment to the betterment of all LGBTQ+ Americans. Additionally, President Biden tapped members of the LGBTQ+ community to serve key roles in his cabinet, including Pete Buttigieg as Secretary of Transportation and Admiral Dr. Rachel Levine — the first out transgender Cabinet official in American history — as Assistant Secretary of Health, and nominated hundreds of pro-equality federal and district judges.
Moving forward, our primary objective must be defeating Donald Trump and JD Vance this November. Both candidates pose an existential threat to democracy, evidenced by their support of extremist agendas such as Project 2025 — which spells out in chilling detail processes to dismantle governmental checks and balances, reverse all progress made by LGBTQ+ people, and threaten reproductive choice and bodily autonomy.
At a time of unprecedented anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric and hate violence directed at our community, it is more important than ever before to have strong champions for LGBTQ+ equality in the White House. In the coming days, we will reevaluate the organization’s endorsement for president. Equality California remains committed to getting out the vote this November to ensure that pro-equality champions are elected up and down the ballot to continue building a world that is healthy, just, and fully equal for all people.”
West Hollywood Councilmember and former Mayor Sepi Shyne thanked Biden “for his many years of service to our country and his legacy on LGBTQ+ rights, especially his vital role in supporting gay marriage when he was VP.”
“He has been a champion for us,” she said, adding, “I am in full support of his decision to step down and endorse vice president Harris as the Democratic nominee for president.”
Shyne states that she “fully supports VP Harris and has faith she will win.”
“This is an incredibly important moment for us all to unite for justice, women, LGBTQ+ rights, diversity, common sense, democracy, and our human rights,” she said. “When we stand together we win. I am with VP Kamala Harris all the way.”
Los Angeles LGBT Center Chief Executive Officer Joe Hollendoner said “the Biden-Harris Administration is the most pro-LGBTQ+ in United States history. I am grateful to President Biden for his commitment to our community and applaud his service to our country.”
He added “the nation is facing an unprecedented time and we continue to face dangerous inflection points targeting LGBTQ+ civil rights, reproductive justice, and so much more. This November, we need candidates who will not abandon our interests on the ballot and instead keep a steadfast commitment to the issues facing LGBTQ+ Americans.”
Los Angeles County Assessor Jeffrey Prang told the Blade that “President Biden‘s announcement that he won’t seek reelection is a moment in history won’t be forgotten for time immemorial.” He noted “it is an example of the highest standard of pure statesmanship.”
Prang also said “the president’s action marks an amazing half century political career that began as one of the youngest senators in the nation and is now ending as its oldest president.”
“Under his steady calm but strong guidance the Biden–Harris administration led our nation through the COVID pandemic while he rebuilt our manufacturing arm here at home,” he said. “Leading the way was his work to return the manufacturing of the computer chip here in our great nation.”
Prang also points out “he fought for investment both at home and globally that created hundreds of thousands of new jobs that will steer the country into a stronger industrial well that could charge our economic recovery.”
Prang thanked the president for his legacy of selfless public service
Troy Masters contributed to this story.
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