J.D. Vance’s Complete Track Record on LGBTQ Issues
J.D. Vance’s Complete Track Record on LGBTQ Issues
Vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance’s track record with LGBTQ issues isn’t great. Here’s what he’s said and done through the years.
Pre-politics
2011
Vance hears a speech delivered by gay venture capitalist Peter Thiel, which convinces him to become a businessman instead of a lawyer. From this moment forward Thiel becomes an influential force in Vance’s career. Thiel later hires Vance as a partner at his global investment firm.
2016
Vance publishes his memoir in which he writes about his thoughts on feeling gay as a child:
“I broached this issue with Mamaw, confessing that I was gay and I was worried that I would burn in hell.”
“She said, ‘Don’t be a fucking idiot, how would you know that you’re gay?’ I explained my thought process. Mamaw chuckled and seemed to consider how she might explain to a boy my age. Finally she asked, ‘J.D., do you want to suck dicks?’ I was flabbergasted. Why would someone want to do that? She repeated herself, and I said, ‘Of course not!’ ‘Then,’ she said, ‘you’re not gay. And even if you did want to suck dicks, that would be okay. God would still love you.’ That settled the matter. Apparently I didn’t have to worry about being gay anymore. Now that I’m older, I recognize the profundity of her sentiment: Gay people, though unfamiliar, threatened nothing about Mamaw’s being. There were more important things for a Christian to worry about.”
Ohio Senator
April 2022
Vance sends a message to folks trying to limit discussion of LGBTQ issues in the classroom: “I’ll stop calling people ‘groomers’ when they stop freaking out about bills that prevent the sexualization of my children.”
In an interview with Tucker Carlson, Vance says pharmaceutical companies are “experiment[ing] on children” with “medical castration.” When asked about sex-ed and gender in the classroom, he says: “The democrats are advocating to teach about sexuality and crazy gender theory to 7-year-old children.”
July 2022
Vance says in a radio interview “I believe that marriage is between one man and one woman, but I don't think the gay marriage issue is alive right now. I'm not one of these guys who's looking to try to take people's families and rip them apart.”
Vance says he would vote against federal protections for gay and interracial marriage in the Respect for Marriage Act. “The religious liberty piece of this is very bad.”
Vance criticizes Democratic Ohio Senate nominee Tim Ryan for voting for The Equality Act, which provides comprehensive protections against discrimination for every LGBTQ American, using the inaccurate terms “biological males” to refer to transgender women and girls and “biological female sports” to refer to women's sports teams.
2022
On his candidate profile page, Vance says he “strongly disagree[s]” that LGBTQ people should be protected from discrimination.
May 2023
On May 16, Vance introduces the Protect Children’s Innocence Act that would make providing gender-affirming care to minors a felony, punishable with a prison sentence of 10 to 25 years.
“Under no circumstances should doctors be allowed to perform these gruesome, irreversible operations on underage children,” he said.
Vance joins Republican Sen. Marco Rubio in a letter expressing concern about the U.S. Census Bureau’s potential use of questions about “gender identity” on the American Community Survey.
Vance introduces legislation to forbid using the X gender designation on U.S. passports. The Passport Sanity Act would require that application documents only include male and female genders.
2024 Presidential Election
July 19, 2024
The Washington Post discovers that Vance held up “the nominations of dozens of diplomats” for more than a year, after giving them a questionnaire asking would-be ambassadors if they would increase the number of “gender-neutral bathrooms” in U.S. embassies, boost resources for “gender dysphoria and gender transition care” and raise the “Progress [Pride] flag” during “regional Pride celebrations.
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