Former President Donald Trump announced Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, as his vice presidential running mate Monday, sparking near-immediate backlash from some of the country’s largest LGBTQ advocacy groups, who called attention to his support for policies and rhetoric targeting the community.
Both the Human Rights Campaign, the country’s largest LGBTQ rights organization, and GLAAD, a national LGBTQ media advocacy group, released lists of comments Vance had made and policies he had supported relevant to the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer community.
HRC and GLAAD noted that Vance introduced a bill last year called the Protect Children’s Innocence Act, which would have banned transition-related medical care, including puberty blockers, hormone therapy and operations, for minors nationally. The bill, which was never taken up in committee, would have charged health care providers who violated it with a class C felony, which is punishable by up to 15 years in prison, and also would have banned institutions of higher education and accrediting entities from providing instruction about gender-affirming care.
In October, a few months after he introduced the transition-related health care bill, Vance introduced the Passport Sanity Act, a bill to ban “X” gender markers on U.S. passports, an option that the State Department rolled out in April 2022. The bill was also never taken up in committee.
“The last thing the State Department should be doing is wasting its time and your tax dollars pushing far-left gender ideology,” Vance said in a statement at the time. “There are only two genders — passports issued by the United States government should recognize that simple fact. I am proud to introduce this bill to restore some sanity in our federal bureaucracy.”
During his Senate campaign in July 2022, Vance told Mission America, a right-wing Christian organization based in Ohio, that he would oppose the Respect for Marriage Act, a bill to ensure federal marriage protections for same-sex and interracial marriages. Congress passed the legislation in fall 2022, and President Joe Biden signed it in December, before Vance was sworn in in January 2023.
Vance has also echoed false tropes increasingly used by conservatives to describe LGBTQ people and those who support them as “groomers.”
“I’ll stop calling people ‘groomers’ when they stop freaking out about bills that prevent the sexualization of my children,” Vance said on social media in April 2022.
GLAAD wrote in its post about Vance’s record: “There is no evidence that discussing LGBTQ people, history or families in schools ‘sexualizes’ anyone. Experts in child sexual abuse say false rhetoric about grooming diminishes understanding about actual abuse and endangers all children.”
Vance also spoke about bills that would censor discussions of LGBTQ issues on Fox News’ “Tucker Carlson Tonight” in April 2022, arguing that teachers were also hiding their efforts to teach children about sexual orientation or gender identity.
“So, one of the things we’re learning, Tucker, is that this is being forced by some of these really radical teachers, and they’re hiding it from the parents,” he said. “‘That’s maybe the most pernicious part.”
Vance did not immediately respond to a request for comment about his stance on LGBTQ issues.
Some gay conservatives voiced support for Vance. Log Cabin Republicans, the country’s largest organization representing LGBTQ conservatives and straight allies, praised him as an “incredible pick” on social media.
Richard Grenell, the acting director of national intelligence during the Trump administration, described Vance, whose bestselling memoir, “Hillbilly Elegy,” recounted his experience growing up poor in an Ohio Rust Belt town, as “the living example of the American dream.”
He added, “His story gives everyone hope that this is the land of opportunity.”
Kelley Robinson, president of the Human Rights Campaign, described Trump and Vance as “anything but a unity ticket.”
“Donald Trump has been a bully for years — and his pick of MAGA clone JD Vance is a reminder that nothing has changed,” Robinson said in a statement. “We are not simply choosing between two campaigns. We are choosing between two fundamentally different visions of America. One, with Trump and MAGA ‘yes man’ JD Vance at the helm, where our rights and freedoms are under siege. And the other, with Joe Biden and Kamala Harris leading the way, where we are advancing toward freedom and equality for all. Everything is at stake and the contrast could not be clearer.”
Dara Atkinson, executive director of TransOhio, a state trans rights organization, said Vance’s federal bill to restrict transition-related care for minors goes further “in cruelty, scope and enforcement” than Ohio’s similar law, which a judge blocked in April. Oral arguments in the case began this week.
“Vance is a hateful, cruel man who would love to hurt trans kids,” Atkinson said. “He places himself as an authority between doctors, parents and the trans youth. We need legislators with enthusiasm to help their constituents, not venom to harm children.”
LGBTQ rights organizations widely criticized the Trump administration as one of the least friendly to the community. Among its policies, the administration banned transgender people from enlisting in the military, reversed Title IX protections for trans students and moved to roll back an Obama-era policy that protected trans people from health care discrimination.
LGBTQ rights are mentioned only a few times in the GOP’s 2024 platform, which the Republican National Convention will vote on this week. The platform says Republicans want to “keep men out of women’s sports,” which refers to bans on trans women participating in women’s sports, and “cut federal funding for any school pushing critical race theory, radical gender ideology, and other inappropriate racial, sexual or political content on our children,” referring to bills that would restrict the discussion or instruction of LGBTQ issues in classrooms.
The platform also says Republicans would “promote a Culture that values the Sanctity of Marriage, the blessings of childhood, the foundational role of families, and supports working parents,” using a phrase that is often used to promote only heterosexual marriage.
For more from NBC Out, sign up for our weekly newsletter.
