In case you missed it, “Make America Safe Again” was the theme of the second night of the Republican National Convention on Tuesday – yet for some featured speakers, using LGBTQ Americans to stoke misunderstanding and fear mongering seemed to take first priority.
Governor Bill Lee of Tennessee, who is responsible for signing into law the slate of his state’s worst anti-LGBTQ bills in recent history, was the first to take jabs at LGBTQ people, youth, and freedom in schools by accusing the Biden administration of attacking “parental rights” and claiming that Republican governors have successfully fought for the right of parents’ to have a choice in their kids’ education. “President Trump was right when he said school choice is the civil rights issue of our time,” Lee said. The truth is, Tennessee’s own education laws require parental notification and the option to opt out of any discussion of LGBTQ people, issues, and history in classrooms, erasing the choice of approximately a quarter of a million LGBTQ Tennesseans and their loved ones to be acknowledged among students and educators in Tennessee’s schools.
Julie Harris of the National Federation of Republican Women later built on the misconceptions Lee began, stating in her speech: “We need a pro-family president in the White House again and that president is Donald J. Trump.”
Fact check: Approximately 2.6 million LGBTQ adults are raising children under 18 across the U.S., and a majority of them live in states without laws prohibiting discrimination against LGBTQ people. Among parents, same-sex couples adopt and foster at significantly higher rates than different-sex couples, providing homes to those most in need in an overflowing child welfare system. Any administration that claims to be pro-family should be clear about how their platform supports LGBTQ parents and youth in their definition of family.
Following Lee and Harris’ vague references to family, Tim Sheehy, Montana’s Republican candidate for U.S. Senate, took the insults to the next level by stating that his last name – pronounced “SHE-hee” – also constituted his “pronouns,” adding “It shows the lunacy we are living [under the current administration]]” and that his opponent, Democratic candidate Jon Tester, “can’t even define what a woman is … “Boys are boys, girls are girls.”
Sheehy’s ignorance on the basic tenets of treating transgender people with respect is unsettling. Asking people how they describe themselves and what pronouns they use is a simple and effective way to make LGBTQ people – and all people – feel safe and welcome. Gender expression, or what a person looks like, doesn’t necessarily accurately reflect who a person is. Everyone uses pronouns, whether they are transgender or not. Pronouns are a fact, not a joke.
Later in the evening, business owner and former presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy suggested that conservative values and tenets have been replaced by “race, gender, sexuality and climate.” Nikki Haley suggested that young people are being “indoctrinated” to think America is evil. And Brenna Bird, the attorney general of Iowa, denounced Kamala Harris’ support of DEI programs for police.
The truth is that diversity, equity and inclusion programs have long been a part of making schools, workplaces, and businesses more open and welcoming to all people; and is good for the bottom line. Research shows that if a brand publicly supports and demonstrates a commitment to expanding and protecting LGBTQ rights, Americans are twice as likely to buy or use the brand. Americans ages 18–34 are 5.5x more likely to want to work at a company if it publicly supports and demonstrates a commitment to expanding and protecting LGBTQ+ rights. Americans who care about building a stronger economy deserve to know the truth about how building diverse workplaces and communities is good for everyone.
Out of all the elected officials and supporters who spoke throughout the evening, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis had the most to say attacking LGBTQ people, consistent with his past record of enshrining in Florida some of the most extreme anti-LGBTQ and particularly anti-transgender laws in the country. He purported that [Biden/Harris and their allies] “impose gender ideology on everyone from our infantrymen to kindergarteners.” He also attacked Democrats for their support for DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) programs, “which really stands for division, exclusion, and indoctrination, and it is wrong,” adding that: “Schools should educate, not indoctrinate. We stand for parents’ rights, including universal school choice.” He asserted that Biden and Harris “can’t even define what a woman is,” and promised that under Republican leadership, Americans can imagine “the woke mind virus is dead.”
Fact check: The slate of anti-LGBTQ legislation that DeSantis has pushed forward throughout his tenure as governor of Florida is proving unsustainable and unconstitutional. Just last month, a Florida district court ruled that Florida’s ban on health care for transgender youth and restrictions against transgender adults seeking health care are unconstitutional and based on “anti-transgender animus,” and can no longer be enforced. (Under DeSantis’ leadership, Florida had been the first state to push for restrictions on health care for transgender adults.) In total, at least seven federal courts so far have affirmed that sweeping categorical exclusions on mainstream consensus health care for transgender Americans are discriminatory, and every single major world health authority agrees. In addition, a settlement earlier this year put limits on DeSantis’ extreme “Don’t Say LGBTQ” bill, which prohibited discussion of LGBTQ people and issues in Florida K-12 classrooms and caused similar bills to pop up in other parts of the U.S.
For a night of speeches supposedly committed to the theme of “safety,” these officials’ remarks failed to address the need to keep all Americans safe. Instead, they focused on making fun of LGBTQ people, an already vulnerable community, in an attempt to distract from real safety issues, like gun violence, the number one leading cause of death for American children.
To follow more of GLAAD’s coverage of the Republican National Convention this week, read our coverage of day one’s speeches and activities. To learn about the candidates’ stances on LGBTQ issues and more, reporters can reference GLAAD’s fact sheet on covering the Republican National Convention here; as well as a broader guide to the 2024 elections here.