According to the 2024 Fox News Voter Analysis, one out of every five self-identified LGBT voters supported Donald Trump for president this year. Based on the internal dynamics within that acronym umbrella, I'd be willing to bet that the percentage of Trump backers was substantially higher among gay men than it was among lesbians or trans people (despite America's most famous trans person, Caitlyn Jenner, being an outspoken Trump friend and fan). In the aftermath of the election, a meme sprouted up within 'progressive' gay circles that states, "If you don't understand why your gay friend is worried right now, you don't have a gay friend. You know a gay person." The obvious implication is that gay people are justified in being frightened by Trump's election, and you're not a true friend to any gay person if you don't share and affirm their fear. In response, other gays have circulated a competing meme that reads, "If you don't have a scared gay friend, you have a normal gay friend," which is a nod to a recent JD Vance comment. I've also seen social media posts like this floating around:
Dear Republicans, this is what you voted against this week pic.twitter.com/TIIeaoO3dx
— Dylan Ward Cunningham (@theprincedylan) November 7, 2024
Since last Tuesday, I have received multiple messages from right-leaning parents of gay sons who have internalized the fear campaign. They've asked to be pointed in the direction of a resource that at least presents another side to the 'gay people are justifiably terrified right now' mindset. If the concern is that gay people are on the precipice of having their rights -- including or especially same-sex marriage -- stripped away under the Trump administration, allow me to make a few points:
(1) Trump was already president. He had Republican majorities in Congress for half of his four-year term. The predicted parade of horribles on this front didn't unfold last time, either. Indeed, my own same-sex wedding was held during the Trump administration. When we held a celebration in DC a few weeks after the ceremony, several high-ranking members of the administration attended the celebration and offered their congratulations.
(2) The Supreme Court is not going to overturn the Obergefell case, which established a right to same-sex marriage. In the Court's Dobbs decision, reversing Roe v. Wade, Justice Samuel Alito wrote for the majority and explicitly stated that the abortion ruling did not extend to any other other precedents involving cultural issues. Indeed, he explicitly mentioned marriage a non-impacted example: "Roe’s defenders characterize the abortion right as similar to the rights recognized in past decisions involving matters such as intimate sexual relations, contraception, and marriage, but abortion is fundamentally different..." It's true that Alito and Justice Clarence Thomas have expressed an interest in revisiting Obergefell, a case in which they each dissented. In order for SCOTUS to take up a case, however, four justices must agree to accept it. Based on the current composition of the Court, I'd be willing to wager that there wouldn't even be three votes to 'grant cert' on a hypothetical Obergefell challenge. 'But they did it with Roe,' one might counter. Overturning Roe, whether you agree with it or not (I happen to agree with it) was a prominent, overt, loudly-discussed, multi-decade legal project of the conservative legal movement. It represented a long-sought-after objective. The proverbial ball was not hidden. By contrast, no such coordinated, mainstream, determined movement exists to uproot Obergefell. That matters.
(3) Speaking of the Supreme Court, it's often overlooked by those seeking to foment overwrought concern or hysteria that the Court actually expanded LGBT protections in its 2019 Bostock case. That 6-3 ruling was authored by Justice Neil Gorsuch, a Trump appointee.
(4) For the sake of argument, let's entertain a scenario in which the Supreme Court somehow did accept an Obergefell challenge, then erased the constitutional right to same-sex marriage (again, to be clear, I think this possibility is extremely remote). Then what? Well, then the Respect for Marriage Act is the law of the land. What is the Respect for Marriage Act? It's the bipartisan law -- joined by dozens of Republicans in the House and Senate, and signed by President Biden in 2022 -- that makes legally-recognized same-sex marriage the de facto law of the land. In other words, even if an exceptionally far-fetched anti-Obergefell armageddon somehow played out at the Court, the legislative and executive branches have already created a backstop law. It's in place, right now. What if Republicans repealed the law? Anyone who is even passingly familiar with Congressional GOP priorities understands how vanishingly unlikely it is that any such bill would even be brought up for a vote, and even if it were, it would not pass either chamber. Too many Republicans support it, along with literally every Democrat in Congress.
(5) President Trump is in favor of same-sex marriage. In fact, he was the first president to enter office as a SSM supporter. He has even hosted a same-sex wedding at his house. He and his wife are strong supporters of the most significant organization of gay conservatives in the country. He personally softened the party's platform on the issue. He appointed the first openly gay official to a presidential cabinet in the history of the country, from either party. Whatever else you may think of him, the idea that Donald Trump secretly harbors some desire to claw back gay rights is ludicrous -- especially considering that he didn't pursue any such agenda when he was already president.
A few more thoughts: My personal interpretation of Vance's aforementioned characterization is that 'normal gay guys,' in his estimation, are gay people who want to live their lives happily and freely, in a prosperous and safe society. They unabashedly and proudly identify as gay, but they don't construct their entire worldview around their sexuality. Most importantly, they do not reflexively embrace every excessive 'LGBT rights' agenda item that's foisted upon them by a class of aggressive, loud activists. Many support trans adults being left alone to live and thrive -- which is what they want in their own lives, too -- while actively opposing the notion of 'gender affirming care' (an Orwellian term, in my view) for children, a disturbing practice from which much of the civilized world is rapidly retreating, in light of evidence. Many also oppose individuals born as biological males competing in women's sports. These are mainstream, sensible, fairness-minded views that might be succinctly summarized, in a word, as normal.
As a related illustration, conservative journalist Andy Ngo recently interviewed a gay porn star who performs under the name 'Devin Franco' and who is receiving backlash from the gay Left for coming out as an anti-woke Trump supporter. This person literally makes a living as a gay sex worker, yet publicly explained that he's "tired of the censorship, cancel culture, and manipulative emotional coercion of the Left," and has also "voiced opposition to gender transitioning for minors while supporting adults' rights to make their own decisions. He further commented on the issue of transgender-identifying biological men competing in women’s sports, stating, 'Get Y chromosomes out of women’s sports,'" per Ngo's report. Whatever one thinks of Franco's livelihood -- which makes him awfully difficult to marginalize as a homophobic bigot -- his overall approach on these political issues sounds pretty...normal. Refusing to sign on to every bullet point of an LGBT 'agenda' that has suffered from profound mission creep, in many people's eyes, is not some sort of self-loathing 'betrayal' of one's own identity or cause. To the contrary, it's laudable evidence of non-tribal critical thinking.
It's possible that a red-tinted Congress and executive branch will consider making poor policy decisions in the coming months and years. Any potential push to constrict PrEP access (Trump himself very well may have something to say about that), or to undermine the incredible, pro-life, anti-AIDS initiative and legacy of President George W. Bush, should be opposed -- if any such effort materializes at all, that is. My argument is not that liberal or progressive gay people should suddenly become Trump supporters or Republicans, or that the GOP will always handle all of these issues perfectly, or well, or even to their own gay supporters' satisfaction (I do think it's strategically useful to have gay people in good standing on the center-right to help address potential blind spots or overreach within their coalition, a point that left-wing ideological enforcers rarely seem to contemplate).
My argument is that ostentatious professions of urgent anxiety about what a Trump administration might mean for gay rights should be met with fact-based scrutiny, not an insistence that anyone who questions the premise is either 'self-hating' or a bad friend or ally. For the reasons explicated above, I believe the evidence suggests that such worries are largely a product of partisan and politically-motivated fear-mongering, rather than a reflection of reality.
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