JD Vance: Examining the potential future US Vice President’s LGBTQ+ record
It's probably what you'd expect
Donald Trump has named his pick for the role of Vice President of the United States should he win the US election in November, JD Vance.
The Republican Senator from Ohio, 39, was announced to be Trump’s running mate on Monday (15 July). Vance is known for writing the memoir Hillbilly Elegy, which was adapted into a film with Glenn Close and Amy Adams. He joined the US Senate last year after being voted in in 2022. He used to be a strong critic of Trump, once calling him “America’s Hitler.” Trump’s picking of Vance has been decried by LGBTQ+ and human rights organisations given Vance’s anti-LGBTQ+ and anti-abortion stances in the past.
On abortion, Vance is against it even in cases of rape and incest. Asked whether there should be exceptions in cases of rape and incest he said: “Two wrongs don’t make a right.” He added: “At the end of the day, we are talking about an unborn baby. What kind of society do we want to have? A society that looks at unborn babies as inconveniences to be discarded?”
Here’s what we found on the potential US Vice President’s LGBTQ+ record.
Gender-affirming healthcare
In July 2023 Vance introduced the Protect Children’s Innocence Act to the US Senate. Broadly it seeks to make gender-affirming care for under-18s unlawful. Any such care would carry a sentence of three and a half to 15 years in prison. “Under no circumstances should doctors be allowed to perform these gruesome, irreversible operations on underage children,” said Vance. The bill would also ban all taxpayer funding and prohibit higher education institutions “from providing instruction on gender-affirming care.” The bill is the Senate companion to H.R. 1399 introduced by Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene in the House of Representatives.
Marriage equality
In 2022 Vance, then a nominee for the Ohio Senate seat, said he would oppose the Respect for Marriage Act (ROMA) if he was in office. He said “The religious liberty piece of this is very bad,” and offered no further explanation. President Joe Biden signed ROMA into law in December 2022. It codified gay marriage into United States law.
Anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric
In April 2022 Vance tweeted: “I’ll stop calling people ‘groomers’ when they stop freaking out about bills that prevent the sexualization of my children.” GLAAD reports this was said as a response to people opposing legislation that censors LGBTQ+ topics in schools. In an interview with the conservative Tucker Carlson, Vance repeated his claims about ‘groomers’ and that such bills were about parents’ rights.
In 2021 he also ridiculed the Democrat representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez for “inventing” words like two-spirit. After AOC showed solidarity with trans, non-binary, and two-spirit people, Vance tweeted: “I’m sorry but what the hell is two-spirit? Would love if progressives just stopped inventing words.”
However, a recent New York Times list of 27 facts about Vance gleaned from his memoir, interviews, and statements included one entry about Vance being taught to accept gay people. In Hillbilly Elegy Vance wrote that he once thought he could be gay. It was his grandmother or “mamaw” who said he wasn’t and that if he was, “that would be OK. God would still love you.” As per the NYT Vance wrote, “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.”
Diversity
As reported by GLAAD, Vance claimed on his campaign website that America’s leaders are “using America’s military as a social justice side project. Our troops don’t need to focus on diversity or equity or any other progressive buzzword.”
In June 2024, Vance, as well as Congressman Michael Cloud, introduced the Dismantle DEI Act to eliminate all federal Diversity, Equality, and Inclusion (DEI) programmes and funding for federal agencies. “The DEI agenda is a destructive ideology that breeds hatred and racial division. It has no place in our federal government or anywhere else in our society,” Vance said.
Russia
After initially saying he didn’t care about the war in Ukraine, Vance backtracked, praised Trump, and claimed Trump contained Russia just days before Russia’s invasion began. Trump notably called Vladimir Putin, who has overseen the introduction of horrendous anti-LGBTQ+ legislation, “a genius.” Vance also said in February 2022 that the US was risking war with Putin “because he didn’t believe in transgender rights,” as per PolitiFact.
Viktor Orbán
In a 2021 address, Vance praised the far-right leader of Hungary for encouraging married couples to have children. He then blamed America’s problems on the “childless left” naming out gay transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg. He also named Vice President Kamala Harris and Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Buttigieg and his partner, Chasten, welcomed twins later in 2021.
LGBTQ+ discrimination
After the US Supreme Court ruled in 2020 that LGBTQ+ employees should be protected from workplace discrimination, Vance posted on social media that “the conservative legal movement has accomplished two things: libertarian political economy (enforced by judges) and betrayal of social conservatives and traditionalists.”
As per The Washington Examiner, Vance then said: “The next (and perhaps most important) step is for social conservatives to realise that donor economics is not merely incidental.” Vance also said: “It flows from, and reinforces, principles that degrade family, community, industrial bases, and nations.”