The fact that convicted felon Donald Trump failed to acknowledge Pride Month is no surprise. He failed to note it throughout his one-term, twice-impeached presidency, among the more than 210 and counting documented moves against LGBTQ Americans.
The Trump campaign’s response to not noting Pride baselessly claimed Trump’s agenda will “create a safer and more prosperous America for ALL Americans, regardless of gender, sexual orientation, race, religion, or creed!”
The campaign’s claims are demonstrably false. The record shows multiple ways Trump and his enablers made, and plan to make, LGBTQ Americans LESS safe and LESS prosperous.
A few examples as documented in GLAAD’s Trump Accountability Tracker:
- Trump has promised to defund schools that support transgender students’ safety. Targeting vulnerable students makes them and the entire school community LESS SAFE. Stripping funding makes all communities LESS PROSPEROUS.
- Trump has pledged a national ban on mainstream consensus health care that allows transgender people to live and thrive. Restricting health care endangers people’s health and well-being and makes them LESS SAFE.
- Trump is backed by the longtime anti-LGBTQ Heritage Foundation, whose Project 2025 manifesto for the next conservative president is an authoritarian fever dream. It calls for ending protections for LGBTQ people as well as ending access to abortion and contraception, and erasing LGBTQ-inclusive language throughout federal agencies. Targeting Americans for who they are is unhinged and unAmerican. Unchecked discrimination makes LGBTQ Americans and everyone from marginalized backgrounds LESS SAFE and LESS PROSPEROUS.
- In 2016 Trump said he would “strongly consider” Supreme Court justices who would overturn marriage equality. Overturning marriage rights destabilizes couples, children, and communities, and threatens physical, emotional, and financial security. Targeting people and their private relationships makes them LESS SAFE and LESS PROSPEROUS.
- Throughout his one-term presidency, Trump fought for the right to discriminate against LGBTQ people, including all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, arguing to legalize discrimination at work, at school, accessing health care and housing, trying to buy a cake, and trying to adopt Discrimination, and all efforts to legalize it, makes LGBTQ Americans LESS SAFE and LESS PROSPEROUS.
- As President, Trump tweeted a ban on transgender military service. Trump has promised to reinstate the ban, and there’s still no evidence to support it. Leading the military by bias makes AMERICA LESS SAFE at home and around the world.
- All three Trump nominees to the U.S. Supreme Court voted to overturn Roe v. Wade, endangering patients, families and safe medical care across the country. Abortion is an LGBTQ issue. LGBTQ people can and do get pregnant and need reproductive health care. Trump nominee, credibly accused rapist Brett Kavanaugh, is supported by anti-LGBTQ group Family Research Council. Trump nominee and frequent speaker for anti-LGBTQ hate group Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) Amy Coney Barrett served at a school that discriminates against LGBTQ students and families. Justice Neil Gorsuch, who had written the Bostock decision expanding civil rights protections to LGBTQ workers (over Trump administration objections), wrote the decision in 303 Creative, a 26-page opinion about a legal dispute that never existed, and websites that do not exist, again at the behest of ADF on totally made up standing. Justices in the pocket of anti-LGBTQ activists who vote to remove protections against discrimination, strip rights to safe and essential health care, as well as the anti-LGBTQ presidents who nominate them, make LGBTQ people and all Americans LESS SAFE and LESS PROSPEROUS.
- Trump’s supporters refuse to stop lying about his LGBTQ record. The Washington Post gave Trump advisor Richard Grenell four Pinnochios for “the absurd claim that Trump is the ‘most pro-gay president in American history.’” The claims are deemed “whoppers,” and every claim Grenell makes is discredited. Lying about support you do not have rather than actually working for policies that protect LGBTQ people makes LGBTQ Americans LESS SAFE and LESS PROSPEROUS.
- Trump lies about his support among Black Americans In July 2020 at the height of the pandemic, the Trump administration revoked regulations to mitigate racial disparities in housing. Only 30% of Black LGBT Americans own a home compared to 64.3% of the overall population. Removing protections that help people find safe and affordable homes makes all Americans, especially Black LGBTQ Americans, LESS SAFE and LESS PROSPEROUS.
- Trump jokes about violence to LGBTQ people and chooses known anti-LGBTQ activists to serve with him. Then-President Trump reportedly joked about his Vice President, Mike Pence, when asked about LGBTQ rights: “Don’t ask that guy—he wants to hang them all!” Joking about violence and encouraging violence makes LGBTQ people LESS SAFE.
- Trump refused to condemn white supremacists who chanted violently racist, antisemitic and anti-LGBTQ slurs during a rally in Charlottesville, VA. Trump said there were “good people on all sides.” Refusing to acknowledge and act to end racist, antisemitic and anti-LGBTQ extremism makes all Americans LESS SAFE.
- Trump’s niece Mary Trump says her uncle is uncomfortable with gay people and trans people, because “he’s uncomfortable with anyone that’s different… differently-abled, different color of skin, and different beliefs… He’s not [an] ally of the gay community, or really any community for that matter. Donald doesn’t have any concern or beliefs beyond his own self-interest.” Running for President to enrich yourself, and stay out of prison, while avoiding Americans you are supposed to serve and protect even if they are different from you, does not improve American lives. Leaders who prioritize themselves instead of the citizens they serve make LGBTQ Americans LESS SAFE and LESS PROSPEROUS.
- Trump continues to lie about losing the 2020 election, encouraged supporters to violence to overturn the election, and did nothing to stop the deadly insurrection as it raged at the U.S. Capitol. He has promised to release prisoners convicted of assault, conspiracy, treason and trespassing. Lying about elections, releasing dangerous criminals from prison, and encouraging violence makes all Americans LESS SAFE.
The Trump campaign ignored Pride, and lied to explain why.
Voters and reporters can review the full record to see how Trump’s disastrous history does not support an agenda of safety and prosperity for LGBTQ people.