President-elect Donald Trump has promised to begin his new term by starting “the largest deportation program in American history,” aiming to deport 11 million undocumented immigrants. But Aaron Morris — executive director of Immigration Equality, a non-profit organization dedicated to protecting LGBTQ+ immigrants through legal services and litigation — has said it’s already preparing to combat Trump’s plans.
“Unfortunately, we have survived and thrived through a previous Trump administration, so there are certain expectations that we will have, and steps he will take, that will hurt both immigrant communities at large and also target LGBTQ immigrants,” Morris told Gay City News. “We are preparing various strategies and mapping out possibilities to stop harm from happening.”
Trump has pledged to reinstate his ban on immigration from majority-Muslim countries. He threatened to use the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, the same law used to justify the internment of Japanese and German Americans during World War II, to put millions of immigrants in internment camps. He has also insinuated that he may deport naturalized citizens and the undocumented parents of children who gained birthright citizenship by being born in the United States.
Morris says he expects Trump to issue “sweeping executive orders that overreach his legal authority” during his first 100 days in office. Those orders will trigger court challenges that may take months to sort out, but they will also create fear, confusion, and anti-immigration sentiment that may endanger immigrants and people of color.
While Morris says he and his organization disagreed with the immigration and deportation policies of President Joe Biden, Immigration Equality at least maintained an “open dialogue” with the administration. Morris expects his organization to play a much more “defensive” role in the second Trump administration, similar to the role his organization played during Trump’s first.
Despite Trump’s anti-immigrant rhetoric, his and Biden’s records on immigrant deportations have been mixed. Millions more Central and South Americans have attempted border crossings during Biden’s presidency than during Trump’s, and Biden deported, returned, or expelled millions more of these immigrants than Trump did, according to The Washington Post. However, Trump deported hundreds of thousands of more undocumented immigrants already living in the U.S. than Biden did.
Even though Biden deported more immigrants than Trump, he also repeatedly tried to protect undocumented immigrants already living in the United States, prioritizing the removal of immigrants deemed as public safety threats and pursuing efforts to create an easier pathway to citizenship for hundreds of thousands of immigrants married to U.S. citizens.
In contrast, Trump has repeatedly used racism and fascist rhetoric to demonize darker-skinned immigrants as rapists, murderers, and thieves who are “poisoning the blood of our country.” He has also appointed anti-LGBTQ+ white nationalist Stephen Miller as his deputy chief of staff for policy, a man who declared during Trump’s re-election campaign that “America is for Americans and Americans only.”
Trump’s deportation plan would break up law-abiding families that have been living, working, and paying taxes in the U.S. for decades. This would not only cause the U.S. to lose an estimated $100 billion a year in taxes paid by immigrants, but it would also massively destabilize the agriculture, construction, and hospitality industries, all of which rely on immigrant labor.
“In some ways, [Trump’s victory was] shockingly disappointing given the ramifications of what is going to happen to the queer community and immigrant community,” Morris said.
“Stay strong,” he added. “We have weathered this storm before. We will do our part to chip away at everything Donald Trump will do, but we need people to open their homes, to open their government… People can see the storm coming. People are going to be very afraid. At most, his administration will last four years.”
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It has been a hard week, and while we’re more committed now than ever to sharing empowering, uplifting stories, we wanted to offer some compassion and encouragement too:
It’s an emotional time, and it’s good (and vital) to express our feelings, both alone and with others. Remember, nearly 70 million others also voted for progress, equality and decency — and we’re heading into the future with them.
Throughout history, we’ve needed healers, artists, warriors, and caring neighbors, and we’ll need them in the days ahead. We can’t always control our circumstances, but we can positively impact our immediate communities, families, and friends — that is our magic power and let us not forget it.
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LGBTQ+ ally Ruben Gallego has seemingly won his race against anti-LGBTQ+ Republican Kari Lake for Arizona’s U.S. Senate seat. He won 50% of the vote, beating Lake by 66,305 votes with 93% of all voting precincts reporting as of Monday morning, Decision Desk HQ reported. He has not yet made a statement commenting on his projected victory.
As such, Gallego will win the Senate seat that will soon be vacated by outgoing bisexual Independent Sen. Kyrsten Sinema. Sinema — a controversial figure in the Senate, often frustrating Democratic priorities — left the Democratic party in late 2022, after earning enmity from other Arizona Democrats for not helping others get reelected that year. She announced her retirement from the Senate in early March.
Gallego has been a vocal supporter of LGBTQ+ rights. In 2015, Rep. Gallego signed on as an original co-sponsor of the Equality Act, a comprehensive federal anti-discrimination bill that would add sexual orientation and gender identity to pre-existing anti-discrimination laws. He voted in favor of the Respect for Marriage Act, which provides federal protections for same-sex and interracial marriages.
In February 2022, Gallego co-signed a letter from the Congressional LGBT Equality Caucus opposing Florida’s “Parental Rights in Education” law, also known as the “Don’t Say Gay” bill, which forbids LGBTQ+ instruction in the state’s public schools. While serving as a Marine, he was a member of Voices of Honor, a group of military members that spoke out against “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” (DADT), the national ban on out gay and bisexual military service members.
Lake, on the other hand, is a former local news anchor and failed 2022 candidate for Arizona governor who has repeatedly claimed that she and former President Donald Trump lost their respective elections due to an voter fraud that was never successfully proven in courts.
As of Monday morning, Republicans have won 53 of the U.S. Senate’s 100 seats — Democrats have won 46 seats and two were won by other politically affiliated candidates.
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A group of 10 to 15 individuals allegedly attacked Sebastian Thomas Robles Lascarro, a 22-year-old Colombian model, inside a Washington, D.C., McDonald’s fast food restaurant after a member of the group uttered homophobic slurs. The attack left Lascarro hospitalized, and he criticized both emergency personnel and local police for their responses to the violence.
The attack allegedly occurred in the early morning hours of Sunday, October 27, after Lascarro and his husband left two nearby LGBTQ+ nightclubs: Crush Bar and Bunker. While Lascarro was in line to use a McDonald’s self-service kiosk to place his order, Lascarro’s spouse, Stuart West, said a woman then screamed at his husband to “watch where the f**k he was going,” he told WTTG.
Lascarro reportedly tried to leave in order to avoid a conflict, when a group of 10 to 15 individuals — who were reportedly the woman’s friends — blocked Lascarro from leaving and allegedly called him homophobic slurs like “fa**ot” and demanded he apologize to the woman. Lascarro refused, and the assault allegedly began.
“Five to 10 individuals started just punching him all over his face, all over his body,” West said. “No one in the restaurant intervened; no one screamed ‘stop.’”
The attack reportedly left Lascarro injured and bleeding on the sidewalk outside the restaurant while the mob threw food, trash, and drinks at him. Two passers-by eventually contacted emergency medical services to assist Lascarro.
At Howard University Hospital, Lascarro was treated for a busted lip, scrapes, and bruises. He was placed in a neck brace and photos show him with bruises and blood on his face. Lascarro is reportedly recovering from his injuries.
“I fear for his mental health,” West said. “We’ve had conversations about whether D.C. is safe for us and whether the United States was the right choice.” Lascarro is originally from Colombia, moved to Washington, D.C., last year, and became a permanent resident of the U.S. this year, NBC News reported.
West and Lascarro said that they felt dismissed by both the emergency medical technicians (EMTs) who arrived at the scene and police who took a report of their incident later on. Lascarro said the EMTs failed to “acknowledge the severity of the assault and his experience as a gay man,” and West said police initially refused to acknowledge the attack as a possible hate crime until he contacted the police department’s LGBTQ+ liaison.
West launched a GoFundMe crowdfunding campaign to help pay for Lascarro’s medical bills, as the attack has made it difficult for him to keep modeling. The campaign had raised $7,037 of its $20,000 goal by Monday morning.
“Thomas is a loving, compassionate person who did not deserve this, and no one in our community should face this kind of hatred,” West wrote for the campaign website. “Any help to ensure he gets the care he needs to regain his health and peace of mind will be a blessing.”
Democratic vice presidential nominee, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, recently defended trans people and slammed Republicans for “demonizing” them. Vice President Kamala Harris has responded by saying she would continue to enforce federal laws protecting trans people from discrimination.
However, two congressional candidates have recently released ads responding more negatively to anti-trans attacks against them. Senate candidate Rep. Colin Allred (D-TX) released an ad saying, “I don’t want boys playing girls’ sports.” Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) also released an ad saying that policies on trans athletes should be made by sports’ governing bodies.
Vote in the poll below this week, and we’ll share the results on Friday.
A new political ad from former President Donald Trump delves deep into transphobia, highlighting Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris’ support of providing lifesaving care to transgender inmates (something required by federal law) and showing pictures of her next to a drag queen, a trans woman, and a nonbinary person.
“Kamala is for they/them,” the 30-second ad says. “President Trump is for you.”
The ad primarily accuses Harris of supporting “taxpayer-funded sex-changes for prisoners and illegal aliens” — a crude restatement of her 2019 ACLU questionnaire answer that all federal prisoners, including trans immigrants detained by border agents, deserve medically necessary care, which includes gender-affirming care and surgeries. The Constitution requires U.S. prisons and detainment facilities to provide such care, and courts have upheld this requirement, but some facilities still deny it to inmates.
“It’s hard to believe, but it’s true. Even the liberal media was shocked,” the ad states. To substantiate its claim, the ad shows Harris’ video interview with the National Center for Transgender Equality, in which she declares her support for providing care for trans inmates.
Neither one has anything to do with the federal government’s decades-long obligation to provide essential medical care to all inmates.
Trump has also claimed that schools are conducting surgeries on trans youth without parental consent. This is also a lie. No schools are providing such surgeries, doctors typically refuse to provide such surgeries to minors, and doctors never provide gender-affirming surgery to minors without parental consent.
Furthermore, the Republican National Platform pledges to “keep men out of women’s sports” and cut federal funding for any schools “pushing radical gender ideology” or “inappropriate sexual or political content on our children.”
Chapter 9, Section 5 of the platform promises to “end Left-wing gender insanity,” stating, “We will keep men out of women’s sports, ban Taxpayer funding for sex change surgeries, and stop Taxpayer-funded Schools from promoting gender transition, reverse Biden’s radical rewrite of Title IX Education Regulations, and restore protections for women and girls.”
Down-ticket Republicans are also incorporating transphobia into their political messaging.
One recent TV ad from the National Republican Congressional Committee accuses Democratic Texas state Rep. Vicente Gonzalez of “push[ing] sex changes for kids” even though he told the Texas Tribune that he has “never supported tax dollars paying for gender transition surgeries and never will.”
U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) has also published ads accusing his opponent, U.S. Rep. Colin Allred (D-TX), of being “wrong for our girls,” a reference to Allred’s support of the Equality Act, a federal bill that would add sexual orientation and gender identity to federal anti-discrimination protections.
Allred was a co-sponsor of a resolution to create a “Transgender Bill of Rights to protect and codify the rights of transgender and nonbinary people under the law and ensure their access to medical care, shelter, safety, and economic security,” the Texas Tribune noted.
Allred’s campaign called the ads a “disgusting, false attack, and another example of how Ted Cruz only wants to divide Texans.” Allred and Cruz are polling very closely in a high-profile race that could help determine party control of the Senate.
U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) released an anti-trans ad featuring Riley Gaines, a former competitive collegiate swimmer who launched a career as a spokesperson against trans athletes after she tied for fifth place with trans University of Pennsylvania swimmer Lia Thomas in the 200-yard freestyle at the 2022 NCAA championship.
In the ad, Gaines says that Hawley’s Democratic opponent Lucas Kunce “supports the radical trans agenda” and falsely claims that he supports “sex change operations for minors.” Doctors rarely ever conduct such procedures on minors. Gaines also claims that Kunce supports “boys in girls bathrooms” and “explicit teaching in grade school,” though both are distortions of his support for LGBTQ+-inclusive school policies.
“It’s really disgusting that these politicians think they can use trans people, and more specifically trans youth, as a political tool to win points,” Chase Glenn, the trans male executive director of the Alliance for Full Acceptance, told the Associated Press.
Republican campaigners and polls indicate that transphobia resonates with conservative Christian voters. In fact, the Republican National Platform promises to legally protect Christians who discriminate against LGBTQ+ people.
However, a March 2024 poll showed that 53% of voters oppose candidates who campaign against transgender people. While that might sound like a slim majority, such a majority could help determine which candidates win in close races.
An August 2023 Economist/YouGov poll found that majorities of voters mostly care about inflation, taxes, jobs, the economy, government spending, and immigration.
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North Carolina’s anti-LGBTQ+ Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson (R)—who is running for governor and considers LGBTQ+ people as “filthy” “demons” who “mentally rape” children—is reportedly turning off so many moderate Republicans that he could risk harming former President Donald Trump’s ability to win the state in November, recent polling shows. Trump endorsed Robinson last March, calling him “Martin Luther King on steroids.”
“Trump is being weighed down by a very unpopular Republican candidate for governor,” Mick Mulvaney, Trump’s former chief of staff, told News Nation on August 17. “So Trump is going to have some difficulty in this state, in North Carolina, that he may not have in others.”
Recent polls suggest that voters disapprove of him. One showed Robinson running 14 points behind his Democratic opponent, North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein, and most polls show Stein beating Robinson anywhere from 6% to 10% — a significant gap, as the state’s 2020 and 2016 gubernatorial races were decided by less than 5%.
A recent Elon University poll found that one in six state Republican voters plan to ticket-split by choosing one party for president but another party for governor — comparatively, only one in 20 Democratic voters plan to do the same.
Another recent Bloomberg/Morning Consult poll showed the Democratic presidential nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris, leading Trump in the state by 1%. While that might sound small, Trump had been leading in the state by 8% in July, before President Joe Biden dropped out of the presidential race. Also, Trump won the state by a margin of just 1.34% in 2020, winning its 16 electoral votes in the process. In other words, Harris’ 1% lead could prove key to her winning the Electoral College.
Steve Kornaki, NBC News’ out gay national political correspondent, told WRAL, “Democrats say they hope that there’s an issue there with an unpopular Republican gubernatorial candidate sort of making the entire Republican ticket, the Republican brand in the state, less appealing…. Honestly, I think the Republicans are simply hoping that Trump is able to carry the state and, ultimately, that maybe lifts Robinson up a little bit.”
David Plouffe, a senior advisor for the Harris campaign, told Axios on August 20that Robinson’s unpopularity can help her win North Carolina. Plouffe, who served as a campaign manager for then-candidate Barack Obama in 2008, helped make him the first and only Democrat to win the state since Jimmy Carter in 1976.
“Mark Robinson, the gubernatorial candidate, is, you know, even more MAGA than Trump, which is saying something,” Plouffe said. “There’s a bunch of people who right now are voting Democrat for governor who aren’t yet Democrat for president. So we need to run a campaign to them. Huge opportunity.”
Dan Kanninen, the Harris campaign’s battleground state director, called Robinson the embodiment of “MAGA extremism” during an August 27 Pod Save America podcast, adding, “We’re going to link those two guys,” meaning Trump and Robinson.
Eager to win over Republicans who dislike Trump, the Harris campaign has started a state chapter of “Republicans for Harris.” The “never Trump” Republican group Lincoln Project has also added North Carolina to its planned ad campaign to woo moderates who are tired of Trump’s MAGA movement. Stein and Harris are also both outspending Robinson and Trump by millions of dollars in the state.
Stein’s campaign ads have highlighted Robinson’s past statements opposing abortions as “murder”—even when needed to protect the pregnant parent’s life—and saying that only slutty women want them. Polls have shown that voters largely oppose total abortion bans. Robinson recently said he supported a 12-week abortion ban with “common sense exceptions” for rape and incest.
Yesterday, Louis Money, a man who worked in a Greensboro porn shop, was one of six men who claimed that Robinson regularly patronized pornographic video stores two decades ago. Money claimed that Robinson regularly purchased bootleg pornographic video tapes from him for $25 each.
“We developed a friendship,” Money told WRAL. “He would bring pizza every night and he’d hang out for a few hours…. Many people remember him. I’m not the only one.”
Robinson’s campaign denied the accusation and said that the men only recognized Robinson because he worked at a nearby Papa John’s pizza store at the time. The accusation is notable considering Robinson’s repeated claims that LGBTQ+ people and allies are promoting “pornography” in school libraries.
In 2021, Robinson created an education task force to investigate and pull LGBTQ+ literature from public schools, as well as report instances of LGBTQ+ inclusion in schools. He has called public schools “indoctrination centers.”
Numerous anti-LGBTQ+ right-wing broadcasters — including Tim Pool and Dave Rubin — have been unwittingly working for a Russian government-funded media company established to push Russian propaganda and disinformation to American audiences, according to an indictment from the Department of Justice (DOJ). There’s no indication whether the broadcasters knew about the company’s Russian origins, but unsealed court documents showed that Russia favors former President Donald Trump to win the 2024 election, The Hillreported.
The FBI is now actively investigating the case which somewhat mirrors the Russian “troll farms” that flooded social media with anti-Democratic messaging during the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections. Concurrently, the Biden administration announced on Wednesday Russian efforts to influence the 2024 U.S. election, and the DOJ announced its seizure of 32 web domains that Russia has used to spread its messages in the United States.
The DOJ indictment alleges that two employees of RT (formerly Russia Today), a state-controlled media outlet funded and directed by the Russian government, spent nearly $10 million over the last year to covertly finance and direct Tenet Media, a Tennessee-based online content creation company. The company, which platforms the aforementioned broadcasters, has published over 2,000 videos posted in the last 10 months on TikTok, Instagram, X and YouTube. Their videos have been collectively viewed over 20 million times, according to the DOJ.
While the indictment doesn’t specifically mention Tenet Media by name, referring to it only as “U.S. Company 1,” the indictment mentioned that the company describes itself as a “network of heterodox commentators that focus on Western political and cultural issues.” That description matches the same one that Tenet Media uses on YouTube, according to New York Times reporter Aric Toler.
The RT employees — Kostiantyn Kalashnikov and Elena Afanasyeva — worked under the pseudonyms Helena Shudra and Victoria Pesti, and oversaw the company’s funding and hiring as well as the editing of its content.
Tenet Media’s YouTube channel features numerous anti-LGBTQ+ videos including ones titled, “Fellas, Is It Gay To Date A Trans Woman?”, “The TRUTH About Gender Ideology”, videos claiming that Pride parades regularly expose children to nudity and another falsely accusing the drag queen segment of the Olympic Opening Ceremonies for “mocking Christianity.” (The segment’s artistic director said it depicted a Dionysian feast.)
In a similar vein, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin has accused the U.S. of pushing gender “perversions” on Russian schoolchildren. Putin has used this reasoning to justify attacks on LGBTQ+ citizens and his ongoing invasion of Ukraine. Tenet Media has published numerous videos attacking Ukraine for spreading violence and unrest in Russia.
“While the views expressed in the videos are not uniform, most are directed to the publicly stated goals of the Government of Russia and RT — to amplify domestic divisions in the United States,” the DOJ said.
Tenet Media’s webpage listing its “talent” includes Tim Pool, Dave Rubin, Tayler Hansen, and Turning Point USA chief creative officer Benny Johnson — all of them have shared anti-LGBTQ+ views on social media. Tenet Media has also featured talks between disgraced former Fox News host Tucker Carlson and conservative gay commentator Glenn Greenwald.
On Wednesday, the Biden administration announced that Russian government agents operated websites, social media and created fake social media personas to spread propaganda furthering Russian interests. The DOJ said it had already seized 32 web domains connected to the Russian plot and suggested it would seize more as part of its ongoing investigation, The Verge reported.
Numerous media studies have shown that Russian government-funded “troll farms” disseminated Russian state propaganda designed to fuel political divisions between Americans during the 2016 and 2020 elections. The exposure of Tenet Media is just the latest iteration of the same ploy — and it apparently is using anti-LGBTQ+ media figures as part of its anti-American campaign.
Rep. Robert Garcia (D-CA) understands the stakes of the upcoming election. He immigrated to the U.S. at age 5, became a U.S. citizen in his early 20s, tackled the COVID-19 epidemic as the youngest and first out LGBTQ+ mayor of Long Beach, California, and—after the virus killed both his mother and stepfather—became the first out gay immigrant ever elected to Congress. Now Garcia is surrounded by some Republican legislators who believe COVID-19 was a hoax, immigrants are “poisoning the blood of our country,” and that LGBTQ+ people don’t deserve legal protections.
About a month ago, Garcia was all in on the campaign to re-elect President Joe Biden. He supported Biden’s 2020 campaign as one of the first out LGBTQ+ people to deliver a keynote address at the Democratic National Convention. In April, he helped launch a national initiative focused on rallying LGBTQ+ voters and volunteers behind Biden, and while many Democrats called on Biden to step down following his lackluster June 27 debate performance, Garcia wasn’t among them.
But a lot has changed over the last month. Biden dropped out of the presidential race on July 21 and immediately endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris as his replacement. Garcia quickly expressed his support for Harris — a fellow Californian — noting that he served as her campaign co-chair during her candidacy for president during the 2020 Democratic presidential primary.
Barely two weeks later, Garcia cheered Harris’s selection of Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) as her running mate, calling him “a home run pick” and adding, “He’s a former teacher and veteran and understands Congress. He has a strong record standing up for working families. Let’s go Harris-Walz because we are not going back!”
“It’s sad to see what’s happening in so many states in the South and Texas and so many other places,” Garcia told LGBTQ Nation about the wave of Republican legislation trying to roll back protections for LGBTQ+, reproductive, and immigrant rights. “And it’s really unfortunate that [these places] send representatives to Congress that can really impact all of our rights.”
With a conservative Supreme Court willing to overturn the court’s past decisionsupholding the rights to contraception and same-sex marriage, “We’re in a really dangerous moment for the community,” Garcia said. “Which is why we need to be very honest and focused on pushing really hard, winning the White House, on flipping the house and making sure that we do everything we can organize in these states.”
Luckily, Democratic enthusiasm has skyrocketed since Harris replaced Biden. According to gay election data analyst Nate Silver, Harris currently leads Trump in five critical swing states.
But history shows us that polls are anything but certain. In 2016, data indicated a promising victory for then-presidential nominee Hillary Clinton just before her shocking loss to Trump despite winning the popular vote.
For his next term, Trump has promised to outlaw gender-affirming care for trans youth (with prison time for anyone complicit in the act), deny federal funds to any hospital or doctors that offer gender-affirming care, and roll back all Biden administration policy protecting trans students “on day one” of his presidency. With the aid of the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, Trump has also promised a nationwide ban on trans student-athletes, a federal law recognizing only two genders, prosecution of schools with LGBTQ+-inclusive policies, and the end of all diversity, equity, and inclusion programs (DEI) that encourage the inclusion of non-white, women, and queer individuals.
Trump is also targeting undocumented immigrant families, and it’s an issue Garcia cares deeply about. Trump has also promised to conduct the largest domestic deportation of immigrants in American history (including individuals who have “anti-American views,” which is worrying since he considers racial justice and anti-fascist protestors to be “terrorists”); to reinstate his Muslim travel ban; to end the 125-year-old U.S. right to birthright citizenship; and to terminate the Department of Education.
“It’s really important that we tell people that we can’t be hopeless, that we have to fight back, and we can’t just allow them to steamroll us and to take our rights away.”Rep. Robert Garcia
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“I have met with folks that are really, really scared,” Garcia said. “I think it’s important to recognize that people are scared, that people are concerned at the same time. I think it’s really important that we tell people that we can’t be hopeless, that we have to fight back, and we can’t just allow them to steamroll us and to take our rights away.”
“It’s really important that we are aggressive and that we fight back, that we bring the fire,” Garcia added. “This is not a moment where we should be, in any way, holding back our punches. We’re going to be punching back really, really hard, and especially when you have nut jobs like Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert who are impacting our community and who… are insulting LGBTQ+ families almost every day in Congress.”
Garcia has exemplified his willingness to fight back against the likes of Trump, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), and their ilk in Congress.
He has said that Greene “obviously has no business being in Congress and is completely, in my opinion, a traitor to the country,” noting that she supported the Trump-inspired January 6, 2021, insurrection to stop the certification of the 2020 presidential election. He has called out hypocritical Republicans for ignoring the Trump family’s numerous (and possibly unethical) foreign business deals while Trump was in the White House; he also led efforts to kick out now-former Rep. George Santos (R-NY) for his dishonesty and financial misdealings.
Garcia has compared Trump’s anti-immigration rhetoric to Hitler’s, saying, “His imagery, the way he supports white nationalism, the way he supports white supremacy, and those kinds of comments are completely offensive to immigrants and hopefully to all Americans in this country.”
For Garcia, the fight over immigrant rights remains particularly personal and important. When he was sworn into Congress in January 2023, he swore on a copy of the U.S. Constitution and three meaningful personal items: a photo of his mother and stepfather, who he had recently lost to COVID, his citizenship certificate, and an original 1939 first-issue copy of a Superman comic from the Library of Congress. Superman is himself an immigrant who arrived in the U.S. as a child and fought for “Truth, Justice, and a Better Tomorrow.”
Trump’s plan to deport 11 million undocumented people — despite his use of immigrant labor at his properties — would break up law-abiding immigrant families who have been living, working, and paying taxes in the U.S. for decades. Not only would the U.S. lose about $100 billion a year that they pay in taxes, according to Mother Jones, but the agriculture, construction, and hospitality industries, which largely rely on immigrant labor, would all take a massive hit.
“We came here when I was a young, young kid, and I grew up like a low-income family, a lot of good families, and it was a struggle and tough, but we all became citizens… very grateful and very patriotic Americans,” Garcia said. “And I certainly believe that other kids should have the same opportunity that was given to me to earn my citizenship.”
“It’s important, particularly in the LGBTQ+ community, to know that we all have shared struggles,” Garcia added, “and for us to have empathy and understand the humanity of migrants and of immigrants: that they are also LGBTQ+ migrants trying to flee oppressive countries or places where they are hurt or not accepted. There are areas where those issues intersect…. And I think it’s important for immigrants to support gay issues and vice versa.”
Garcia also knows that tomorrow may not look certain for LGBTQ+ people either, both domestically and abroad. But as a Congress member, he has shown what it means to fight for queer rights in the Capitol.
“Congress needs more radical homosexuals. I’m proud and openly queer, and we have 10 members of Congress that are gay — we need a lot more.”Rep. Robert Garcia
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For Garcia, “fighting back” not only means voting, though he acknowledges its importance — it means using influence to persuade and organize with others.
“Be vocal, be unapologetic, if you’re able to, with friends and family. Push and do what you can with organizing, volunteering for a campaign, and donating. There are a bunch of ways of organizing, and obviously, the work can happen any place,” Garcia said. “If you work at a school, there’s ways to organize. If you work at a healthcare system, there’s ways to organize. There’s a passion of community in every place, in every type of workplace.”
Garcia’s own means of organizing and persuading has included turning his House speeches into viral moments that raise his profile online. In fact, earlier this year, he won the “The Most Likely to Trumpet His Own Thirsty Award” in Politico‘s second-annual Thirsties Awards, an honor for “the members of Congress who have worked the hardest — at getting attention.”
For Garcia, these moments aren’t just about expressing himself, creating a viral moment, or raising his online profile. He sees it as an important part of the political process, too.
“When I try to incorporate pop culture and other things that I like, I know sometimes reaches a different audience,” Garcia said. “We have to learn how to speak to an entire audience, and we have to learn how to communicate to folks that maybe don’t follow politics.”
Garcia’s approach has made him a rising star in the Democratic Party, and he said he’s working hard to help elect other out and proud LGBTQ+ politicians, like Sarah McBride, who would become the first trans member of Congress out of Delaware, and Emily Randall of Washington who would be the first Latina lesbian in Congress.
“Congress needs more radical homosexuals,” Garcia said. “I’m proud and openly queer, and we have ten members of Congress that are gay — we need a lot more. We need a lot more folks that are aggressive, that stand up for the community: They’re going to talk about trans rights, health care, and the attacks on our community, and be proudly open while doing it.”
The Democratic Party has released its official national platform for 2024, just in time for the start of its national convention, which begins today in Chicago, Illinois. The platform contains a section on “LGBTQI+” issues and also mentions the community and related issues in other sections, including those covering gun violence, the judiciary, education, and racial equity.
“This election will decide whether the next generation of Americans has more rights and freedoms than past generations or fewer,” the platform states. “Trump and Republicans are already ripping away Americans’ hard-won freedoms. Reproductive freedom, freedom from hate, freedom from fear, the freedom to control our own destinies and more are all on the line in this election.”
The LGBTQI+ section noted that Biden signed the Respect for Marriage Act, reversed “Trump’s un-American ban” on transgender military members, has aimed to protect LGBTQ+ children and parents in the adoption and foster care systems, has helped protect gender-affirming care, has implemented a strategy to end the HIV epidemic, opposes anti-LGBTQ+ book bans, established a task force to combat address online harassment, promoted international LGBTQ+ human rights, and ended the “disgraceful and discriminatory” ban on blood donations from gay and bisexual men. It also mentioned that Biden has signed several executive actions to lessen anti-LGBTQ+ discrimination in housing, employment, health care, education, and the judicial system.
The section also notes that Trump seeks to repeal the Affordable Care Act—which prohibits LGBTQ+ discrimination and denial for pre-existing conditions—and that Trump has appointed judges who oppose same-sex marriage and have sided with businesses to reject LGBTQ+ customers.
“When a person can be married in the morning and thrown out of a restaurant for being gay in the afternoon, something is still wrong,” the platform states.
The platform then pledges to pass the Equality Act, a bill that would add sexual orientation and gender identity to existing federal anti-discrimination laws. The platform also pledges to prohibit anti-LGBTQ+ discrimination among federal government contractors, to ensure that federally-funded senior programs are LGBTQ+-inclusive, and to ban conversion therapy for queer youth.
“Trump is running on an extreme plan to punish doctors who treat transgender youth and to ban gender-affirming care, and his MAGA Republican allies have pushed a tidal wave of extreme anti-LGBTQI+ bills in statehouses across the country,” the platform accurately states. “Democrats will vigorously oppose state and federal bans on gender-affirming healthcare and respect the role of parents, families, and doctors– not politicians – in making health care decisions.”
The platform also pledges to end violence against transgender Americans, especially Black and brown transgender women, and to prioritize the investigation of hate crimes against trans and non-binary people.
LGBTQ+ mentions & issues elsewhere in the Democratic National Platform
In the section entitled “Violence Against Women,” the platform says that Biden is “keeping students safe on campus by restoring and strengthening protections under Title IX, including explicit protections for LGBTQI+ students.”
The “Judges” section notes that Biden has appointed many out LGBTQI+ judges as well as others who “represent the diversity of the American experience.” It then says that Trump has appointed far-right judges and that the next president could appoint “one, two, or more new Supreme Court justices who will determine what freedoms Americans have – or lose – for the next 30, 40, or even 50 years.”
Its plank on education opposes “the use of private-school vouchers, tuition tax credits, opportunity scholarships, and other schemes that divert taxpayer-funded resources away from public education.” Such schemes are a major aim of anti-LGBTQ+ Christian conservatives.
“Public tax dollars should never be used to discriminate,” the platform states. “And we’ll continue working to increase accountability at charters, holding them to the same transparency standards as public schools.”
While the platform pledges to institute mandatory background checks for all gun purchases, red flag laws, and a national ban on assault weapons, it also notes that Trump has told families devastated by gun violence to “get over it” and has bragged about “doing nothing” to restrict firearms during his presidency.
The criminal justice plank notes that Biden pardoned LGBTQ+ military service members who had received less than honorable discharges “just for being themselves.”
The plank of “racial equity” states, “Where MAGA extremists are politicizing our classrooms, banning books, and trying to erase history, we are fighting back, including by appointing a federal coordinator to address the threat these bans pose to students’ civil rights.”
The platform also states, “No one should be in jail for using or possessing marijuana.” While it calls for cannabis to be rescheduled, and for people convicted for possession or use to be released with expunged criminal records, the platform neither calls for national decriminalization nor for legalization.
Its plank on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in Gaza says that Biden has called for a ceasefire for Palestine to return all hostages kidnapped during Hamas’ October 7, 2023 attack on Israel while maintaining humanitarian relief for displaced and suffering Palestinians. The plank pledges for a peace deal that will help Gaza rebuild and create a Palestinian state that does not allow Hamas to re-arm itself.
However, the plank does not pledge to end the U.S. supply of weapons to Israel, a major goal of pro-Palestinian protestors. Some pro-Palestinian voters have warned that their support could help ensure a Democratic electoral victory or defeat.
