History of LGBTQ rights under U.S. presidents
George Washington Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army To train the new American Army in the latest military drills and tactics, General
George Washington brought in
Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben (1730–94), who had been an officer on the German General staff. Von Steuben escaped Germany where he was threatened with prosecution for homosexuality. He joined Washington's army at Valley Forge in February 1778 accompanied by two young aides. Steuben became an American general, and a senior advisor to Washington. Despite rumors about sexual behavior at his parties, there never was an investigation of Steuben, and he received a congressional pension after the war. The first evidence of discrimination to homosexuals serving in the United States military dates from March 11, 1778, when Lieutenant
Frederick Gotthold Enslin was brought to trial before a court-martial. According to General Washington's report: "...Lieutt. Enslin of
Colo.
Malcolm's Regiment tried for attempting to commit
sodomy ..." Washington's secretary described the results of the trial: "His
Excellency the
Commander in Chief approves the sentence and with Abhorrence & Detestation of such Infamous Crimes orders Lieut. Enslin to be
drummed out of Camp tomorrow morning...."
John Adams In 1801, Congress enacted the
District of Columbia Organic Act of 1801 that continued all criminal laws of Maryland and Virginia in the now formally structured District, with those of Maryland applying to that portion of the District ceded from Maryland, and those of Virginia applying to that portion ceded from Virginia. At the time, Maryland had a sodomy law applicable only to free males with a punishment of "labour for any time, in their discretion, not exceeding seven years for the same crime, on the public roads of the said county, or in making, repairing or cleaning the streets or bason [sic] of Baltimore-town;" it imposed the death penalty for slaves committing sodomy. Similarly, Virginia had a penalty of 1–10 years for free persons committing sodomy, but imposed the death penalty for slaves committing sodomy. The law went into effect on February 27, 1801.
Thomas Jefferson Governor of Virginia In 1779,
Thomas Jefferson wrote a law in Virginia which contained a maximum punishment of
castration for men who engaged in sodomy. However, what was intended by Jefferson as a liberalization of the sodomy laws in Virginia at that time was rejected by the Virginia Legislature, which continued to prescribe death as the maximum penalty for the crime of sodomy in that state.
Andrew Jackson In 1831, Congress established penalties in the District of Columbia for a number of crimes, but not for sodomy. It specified that "every other felony, misdemeanor, or offence not provided for by this act, may and shall be punished as heretofore[.]" At the time, Maryland and Virginia had a penalty of 1–10 years for committing sodomy. It went into effect on March 2, 1831.
Benjamin Harrison In 1892, Congress passed a law for the District of Columbia that states that "for the preservation of the public peace and the protection of property within the District of Columbia." Labeled in the law as vagrants were "all public prostitutes, and all such persons who lead a notoriously lewd or lascivious course of life[.]" All offenders had to post bond of up to $200 for good behavior for a period of six months. The law went into effect on July 29, 1892. On March 1, 1917, the
Articles of War of 1916 are implemented. This included a revision of the Articles of War of 1806, the new regulations detail statutes governing U.S. military discipline and justice. Under the category Miscellaneous Crimes and Offences, Article 93 states that any person subject to military law who commits "assault with intent to commit sodomy" shall be punished as a court-martial may direct. On June 4, 1920, Congress modified Article 93 of the Articles of War of 1916. It was changed to make the act of sodomy itself a crime, separate from the offense of assault with intent to commit sodomy.
Franklin Roosevelt Assistant Secretary of the Navy In 1919, Democratic Assistant Secretary of the Navy
Franklin D. Roosevelt requested an investigation into "vice and depravity" in the sea services after a
sting operation in which undercover operatives attempt to seduce sailors suspected of being homosexual had already begun at the Naval base in Newport, Rhode Island. At least 17 sailors were jailed and court-martialed before public outcry prompted a Republican-led Senate committee to condemn the methods of the operation. Roosevelt denied he had any knowledge that entrapment had been used or that he would have approved of it.
Presidency In 1935, Congress passed a law for the District of Columbia that made it a crime for "any person to invite, entice, persuade, or to address for the purpose of inviting, enticing, or persuading any person or persons...to accompany, to go with, to follow him or her to his or her residence, or to any other house or building, inclosure, or other place, for the purpose of prostitution, or any other immoral or lewd purpose." It imposed a fine of up to $100, up to 90 days in jail, and courts were permitted to "impose conditions" on anyone convicted under this law, including "medical and mental examination, diagnosis and treatment by proper public health and welfare authorities, and such other terms and conditions as the court may deem best for the protection of the community and the punishment, control, and rehabilitation of the defendant." The law went into effect on August 14, 1935. Congress would later override his veto and implemented the act into law. The press recognized the revolutionary nature of the new executive order.
The Washington Post said that it established not a loyalty test but a "suitability test." Some in government referred to their new "integrity-security" program. Some of those the press expected to be excluded from federal employment included "a person who drinks too much," "an incorrigible gossip," "homosexuals," and "neurotics." Kameny also wrote to President
John F. Kennedy asking him to change the rules on homosexuals being purged from the government. The content of the letters included harsh criticism of the government's treatment of homosexuals and asserted that there were over three hundred members of the group. The letter was signed by the president of the Mattachine Society of Washington, Franklin E. Kameny. Although supportive of the idea, Kameny restrained from taking part in a march due to the threat of damaging his public image. In 1963, Kameny and Mattachine launched a campaign to overturn D.C.
sodomy laws.
Lyndon B. Johnson Senator of Texas On February 2, 1950, Senator
Lyndon B. Johnson voted for
Uniform Code of Military Justice.
Presidency On October 19, 1964,
Walter Jenkins, a longtime top aide to President Johnson, had been arrested by
District of Columbia Police in a
YMCA restroom. He and another man were booked on a disorderly conduct charge. After becoming a controversy prior to the
1964 presidential election, the American Mental Health Foundation wrote a letter to President Johnson protesting the "hysteria" surrounding the case: :The private life and inclinations of a citizen, Government employee or not, does not necessarily have any bearing on his capacities, usefulness, and sense of responsibility in his occupation. The fact that an individual is homosexual, as has been strongly implied in the case of Mr. Jenkins, does not per se make him more unstable and more a security risk than any heterosexual person. After reelection during his second term on October 3, 1965, Johnson signed the
Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, which added "sexual deviation" as a medical ground for denying prospective immigrants entry into the United States. The bill went into effect on June 30, 1968.
Presidency In August 1970,
Richard Nixon, on the issue of same-sex marriage, said "I can't go that far; that's the year 2000! Negroes and whites, okay. But that's too far!" In 1972, San Francisco's Gay Activists Alliance disbanded and formed the Gay Voters League, a group that campaigned for the reelection of President Richard Nixon.
Gerald Ford House Minority Leader On August 25, 1965, Rep.
Gerald Ford voted for the
Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965.
Presidency On March 5, 1976, when asked about the issue of gay rights, with respect to hiring, employment, and housing,
Gerald Ford said "I recognize that this is a very new and serious problem in our society. I have always tried to be an understanding person as far as people are concerned who are different than myself. That doesn't mean that I agree with or would concur in what is done by them or their position in society. I think this is a problem we have to face up to, and I can't give you a pat answer tonight. I just would be dishonest to say that there is a pat answer under these very difficult circumstances". In 1976, during that year's presidential campaign, President Gerald Ford was "
zapped" by activists in
Ann Arbor, Michigan over federal immigration rules. The protests forced President Ford to admit that he was not aware that homosexuality was used as a basis for exclusion in immigration rulings. He also was a member of the
Republican Unity Coalition, which
The New York Times described as "a group of prominent Republicans, including former President Gerald R. Ford, dedicated to making sexual orientation a non-issue in the Republican Party".
Jimmy Carter Post governorship of Georgia In February 1976, Carter said he opposed discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, but in June 1976 he withdrew his support of a gay rights plank in the Democratic Party platform. In September 1980, the
United States Department of Justice announced that immigration officials would no longer be allowed to ask whether an individual entering the United States was gay and therefore ineligible for admission. An individual would only be denied admission into the United States if the traveler self-identified as gay to the immigration official. In 2007, he called for ending the ban on
gays in the military. In March 2012, Jimmy Carter came out in favor of same sex marriage.
Ronald Reagan Post governorship of California The first chapter of what would become the national
Log Cabin Republicans (LCR) formed in 1978 to fight California's
Briggs Initiative, a ballot initiative that would have banned homosexuals from teaching in public schools. The chapter worked diligently and successfully convinced Governor Reagan to publicly oppose the measure.
Presidency On the
1980 campaign trail, he spoke of the gay civil rights movement: No civil rights legislation for LGBTQ individuals passed during Reagan's tenure. Additionally, Reagan has been criticized for ignoring (by failing to adequately address or fund) the growing
AIDS epidemic, even as it took thousands of lives in the 1980s. Reagan's Surgeon General from 1982 to 1989, Dr.
C. Everett Koop, claims that his attempts to address the issue were shut out by the Reagan administration. According to Koop, the prevailing view of the Reagan administration was that "transmission of AIDS was understood to be primarily in the homosexual population and in those who abused intravenous drugs" and therefore that people dying from AIDS were "only getting what they justly deserve." On August 18, 1984, President Reagan issued a statement on the issue of same-sex marriage that read: Reagan made the comment in response to a questionnaire from the conservative publishers of the Presidential Biblical Scoreboard, a magazine-type compilation of past statements and voting records of national candidates.
George H. W. Bush Vice presidency In 1988, the Republican Party's nominee, Vice President
George H. W. Bush, endorsed a plan to protect persons with AIDS from discrimination. On July 26, 1990, George H. W. Bush signed the
Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990. On November 29, 1990, Bush signed the
Immigration Act of 1990, which withdrew the phrase "sexual deviation" from the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) so that it could no longer be used as a basis for barring entry of immigration to the U.S. for homosexuals. In a television interview, Bush said if he found out his grandchild was gay, he would "love his child", but tell him homosexuality was not normal and discourage him from working for gay rights. In February 1992, the chairman of the Bush-Quayle campaign met with the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. Losing ground in the 1992 Republican president primary to President Bush's far-right challenger,
Pat Buchanan, the Bush campaign turned to the right, and President Bush publicly denounced same-sex marriage. The 1992 Log Cabin Republican convention was held in
Spring, Texas, a
Houston exurb. The main issue discussed was whether or not LCR would endorse the re-election of President
George H. W. Bush. The group voted to deny that endorsement because Bush did not denounce
anti-gay rhetoric at the
1992 Republican National Convention. Many in the gay community believed President Bush had not done enough on the issue of AIDS.
Urvashi Vaid argues that Bush's anti-gay rhetoric "motivated conservative gay Democrats and loyal gay Republicans, who had helped defeat Dukakis in 1988, to throw their support behind Clinton." On October 5, 1992, Bush signed the H.R. 6056 into law, which included the Republican rider to the appropriations bill.
Post presidency In 2013, former President George H. W. Bush served as a witness at a same-sex wedding of Bonnie Clement and Helen Thorgalsen, who own a general store together in Maine. In 2015
The Boston Globe reported that Bush "offered to perform the ceremony but had a scheduling conflict."
Bill Clinton Governorship of Arkansas In 1992, Governor Bill Clinton, as a candidate for president, issued a public statement of support for repeal of Arkansas's sodomy law. Also in 1992, the
Human Rights Campaign, America's largest LGBTQ rights organization, issued its first presidential endorsement in 1992 to Bill Clinton.
Presidency Bill Clinton's legacy on gay rights is a matter of controversy. LGBTQ rights activist
Richard Socarides credits Clinton as the first president to publicly champion gay rights, In December 1993, Clinton implemented a Department of Defense directive known as "
Don't Ask, Don't Tell", which allowed
gay men and women to serve in the armed services provided they kept their sexuality a secret, and forbade the military from inquiring about an individual's sexual orientation. The policy was developed as a compromise after Clinton's proposal to allow gays to serve openly in the military met with staunch opposition from prominent congressional Republicans and Democrats, including Senators
John McCain (R-AZ) and
Sam Nunn (D-GA). According to
David Mixner, Clinton's support for the compromise led to a heated dispute with Vice President
Al Gore, who felt that "the President should lift the ban ... even though [his executive order] was sure to be overridden by the Congress". Some gay-rights advocates criticized Clinton for not going far enough and accused him of making his campaign promise to get votes and contributions. Their position was that Clinton should have integrated the military by executive order, noting that President
Harry Truman used executive order to racially desegregate the armed forces. Clinton's defenders argue that an executive order might have prompted the Senate to write the exclusion of gays into law, potentially making it harder to integrate the military in the future. Later in his presidency, in 1999, Clinton criticized the way the policy was implemented, saying he did not think any serious person could say it was not "out of whack". On September 21, 1996, Clinton signed into law the
Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which defines marriage for federal purposes as the legal union of one man and one woman, allowing individual states to refuse to recognize gay marriages performed in other states.
Paul Yandura, speaking for the White House gay and lesbian liaison office, said that Clinton's signing of DOMA "was a political decision that they made at the time of a re-election." In defense of his actions, Clinton has said that DOMA was an attempt to "head off an attempt to send a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage to the states", a possibility he described as highly likely in the context of a "very reactionary Congress." Administration spokesman
Richard Socarides said, "... the alternatives we knew were going to be far worse, and it was time to move on and get the president re-elected." Others were more critical. The veteran gay rights and gay marriage activist
Evan Wolfson has called these claims "historic revisionism". Despite DOMA, Clinton, who was the first president to select openly gay persons for administration positions, is generally credited as the first president to publicly champion gay rights. and the second was
Executive Order 13087 in 1998 that outlawed discrimination based on sexual orientation in the federal civilian workforce. In November 1997, Clinton gave an address to a
Human Rights Campaign meeting, and thus becoming the first U.S. President to address a meeting for a gay and lesbian organization. Under President Clinton's leadership, federal funding for HIV/AIDS research, prevention and treatment more than doubled. And Clinton also pushed for passing hate crimes laws for gays and for the private sector
Employment Non-Discrimination Act, which, buoyed by his lobbying, failed to pass the Senate by a single vote in 1996. Advocacy for these issues, paired with the politically unpopular nature of the gay rights movement at the time, led to enthusiastic support for Clinton's reelection in 1996 by the Human Rights Campaign. The first openly gay U.S. ambassador,
James Hormel, received a
recess appointment from the President after the Senate failed to confirm the nomination. On June 11, 1999, Clinton declared June to be Gay and Lesbian
Pride Month, making him the first Democratic president to do so.
Post presidency In 2008, Clinton publicly opposed the passage of California's
Proposition 8 and recorded robocalls urging Californians to vote against it. In July 2009, he came out in favor of same-sex marriage. On March 7, 2013, Clinton called for the overturn of the Defense of Marriage Act by the U.S. Supreme Court.
George W. Bush In his 1994 campaign to become the
Governor of Texas, Bush pledged to veto any effort to repeal Texas's sodomy law, calling it "a symbolic gesture of traditional values."
Governor of Texas In 1997, Governor Bush signed into law a bill adding "A license may not be issued for the marriage of persons of the same sex" into the Texas Family Code. In a 1998 Texas Gubernatorial election political awareness test, he answered no to the questions of whether Texas government should include sexual orientation in Texas' anti-discrimination laws and whether he supports Texas recognizing same-sex marriage. In 1999, the Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Act, which would have increased punishment for criminals motivated by hatred of a victim's gender, religion, ethnic background or sexual orientation, was killed in committee by Texas Senate Republicans. Governor Bush was criticized for letting the hate crimes bill die in a Texas Senate committee. Bush spokesman Sullivan said the governor never took a position on the bill. According to Louvon Harris, sister of James Byrd, said that Bush's opposition to the bill reportedly revolved around the fact that it would cover gays and lesbians. Bush also expressed his support for bans on gay foster parenting and adoption, urging agencies to place children in "traditional homes—man and wife." During the 2000 campaign he did not endorse a single piece of
gay rights legislation. In a 2000 Republican presidential debate, George W. Bush said he opposes same-sex marriage, but supports
states' rights when it came to the issue of same-sex marriage. During the campaign he had refused to comment on Vermont's civil unions law. On August 4, 2000, Bush received the endorsement of the
Log Cabin Republicans, the GOP's largest gay group, for president. He also received the endorsement of the newly formed
Republican Unity Coalition. In a 2000 presidential debate with Al Gore, Bush stated he supported the
Defense of Marriage Act and the "
Don't ask, don't tell" policy. However, he stated that he opposed sodomy laws, a reversal of his position as governor of Texas.
Presidency George W. Bush, despite being opposed to LGBTQ rights when Governor of Texas, was relatively moderate in regards to LGBTQ rights as president, though opposed gay marriage and would later voice his support for civil unions. In his eight years of office, Bush's views on
gay rights were often difficult to ascertain, but many experts feel that the Bush White House wanted to avoid bad publicity without alienating evangelical conservative Christian voters. Thus, he did not repeal President Clinton's Executive Order banning discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation in the federal civilian government, but Bush's critics felt as if he failed to enforce the executive order. He retained Clinton's Office of National AIDS Policy and was the first Republican president to appoint an openly gay man to serve in his administration,
Scott Evertz as director of the
Office of National AIDS Policy. Bush also became the second president, after President Clinton, to select openly gay appointees to his administration. Bush's nominee as ambassador to Romania,
Michael E. Guest, became the second openly gay man U.S. Ambassador and the first to be confirmed by the Senate. He did not repeal any of the spousal benefits that Clinton had introduced for same-sex federal employees. He did not attempt to repeal
don't ask, don't tell, nor make an effort to change it. In 2003, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in
Lawrence v. Texas that sodomy laws against consenting adults was unconstitutional. President Bush's press secretary
Ari Fleischer refused to comment on the decision, noting only that the administration had not filed a brief in the case. In 2004, Bush said "What they do in the privacy of their house, consenting adults should be able to do." Previously, Bush said he supports states' rights when it came to marriage, however, after the
Massachusetts Supreme Court decision in
Goodridge v. Department of Public Health, Bush announced his support for a U.S. constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage on February 24, 2004. Due to his support of the
Federal Marriage Amendment (FMA), the
Log Cabin Republicans declined to endorse the reelection of
George W. Bush in 2004 The Palm Beach County chapter in Florida did endorse him, resulting in the revocation of their charter. On September 22, 2004, the Abe Lincoln Black Republican Caucus (ALBRC), a group of young urban Black gay Republicans, voted in a special call meeting in Dallas, Texas, to endorse President Bush for re-election. In an October president debate, Bush said he did not know whether homosexuality is a choice or not. In 2007, Bush threatened to veto the
Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2007, which would have included
sexual orientation in hate crimes, and
Employment Nondiscrimination Act of 2007. In December 2008, the Bush administration refused to support the U.N. declaration on
sexual orientation and gender identity at the United Nations that condemns the use of violence, harassment, discrimination, exclusion, stigmatization, and prejudice based on sexual orientation and gender identity.
Barack Obama Illinois state senator Obama supported legalizing
same-sex marriage when he first ran for the Illinois State Senate in 1996. When he ran for re-election to the Illinois Senate in 1998, he was undecided about legalizing same-sex marriage and supported including sexual orientation to the state's non-discrimination laws. During his time as a state senator he cosponsored a bill amending the Illinois Human Rights Act to include protections for LGBTQ people which prohibits discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity in the workplace, housing, and all public places and supported Illinois gender violence act.
U.S. Senator from Illinois Obama supported
civil unions, but opposed same-sex marriage when he ran for the U.S. Senate in 2004 and for U.S. President in 2008. During his time as senator, Obama co-sponsored the
Employment Non-Discrimination Act,
Matthew Shepard Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act, Tax Equity for Domestic Partner and Health Plan Beneficiaries Act, and Early Treatment for HIV Act. In 2006, Obama voted against the
Federal Marriage Amendment, which would have defined marriage as between one man and one woman in the U.S. Constitution. In 2007, Senator Obama said he opposed the 1996
Defense of Marriage Act and the
don't ask, don't tell policy when it passed and supported repealing it. He also said that homosexuality is not a choice, he supported adoption rights for same-sex couples, and he would work as president to extend the 1,000 federal rights granted to marriage couples to couples in civil unions. He also voted for the Kennedy Amendment to the
National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2008 that would expand federal jurisdiction to reach serious, violent hate crimes perpetrated because of the victim's sexual orientation and gender identity and the Tom Lantos and Henry J. Hyde United States Global Leadership Against HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria Reauthorization Act. but stated in a 2008 interview that he personally believes that marriage is "between a man and a woman" and that he is "not in favor of
gay marriage." In the
110th United States Congress, Obama received a score of 94% by the
Human Rights Campaign.
Human Rights Campaign, and the
National Stonewall Democrats.
Presidency First Term Barack Obama took many definitively pro-LGBTQ stances. In March 2009, his administration reversed Bush administration policy and signed the
U.N. declaration that calls for the decriminalization of homosexuality. In June 2009, Obama became the first president to declare the month of June to be LGBTQ pride month; President Clinton had declared June Gay and Lesbian Pride Month. Obama would do the same for every following June of his presidency. On June 17, 2009, President Obama signed a
presidential memorandum allowing same-sex partners of federal employees to receive certain benefits. The memorandum does not cover full health coverage. On October 28, 2009, Obama signed the
Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, which added
gender,
sexual orientation,
gender identity, and
disability to the federal hate crimes law. In October 2009, he nominated
Sharon Lubinski to become the first openly gay
U.S. marshal to serve the Minnesota district. On January 4, 2010, he appointed
Amanda Simpson the Senior Technical Advisor to the
Department of Commerce, making her the first openly transgender person appointed to a government post by a U.S. President. He has appointed the most U.S. gay and lesbian officials of any U.S. president. At the start of 2010, the Obama administration included gender identity among the classes protected against discrimination under the authority of the
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). On April 15, 2010, Obama issued an executive order to the Department of Health and Human Services that required medical facilities to grant visitation and medical decision-making rights to same-sex couples. In June 2010, he expanded the Family Medical Leave Act to cover employees taking unpaid leave to care for the children of same-sex partners. On December 22, 2010, Obama signed the
Don't Ask, Don't Tell Repeal Act of 2010 into law. On February 23, 2011, President Obama instructed the Justice Department to stop defending the Defense of Marriage Act in court. In March 2011, the U.S. issued a nonbinding declaration in favor of gay rights that gained the support of more than 80 countries at the U.N. In June 2011, the U.N. endorsed the rights of gay, lesbian, and transgender people for the first time, by passing a resolution that was backed by the U.S., among other countries. On September 30, 2011, the
Defense Department issued new guidelines that allow military chaplains to officiate at same-sex weddings, on or off military installations, in states where such weddings are allowed. On December 5, 2011, the Obama administration announced the United States would use all the tools of American diplomacy, including the potent enticement of foreign aid, to promote LGBTQ rights around the world. In March and April 2012, Obama expressed his opposition to state constitutional bans on same-sex marriage in
North Carolina, and
Minnesota. On May 3, 2012, the
Federal Bureau of Prisons has agreed to add an LGBTQ representative to the diversity program at each of the 120 prisons it operates in the United States. On May 9, 2012, Obama publicly supported same-sex marriage, the first sitting U.S. President to do so. Obama told an interviewer that: In the 2012 election, Obama received the endorsement of the following gay rights organizations: Equal Rights Washington, Fair Wisconsin,
Gay-Straight Alliance Network,
Human Rights Campaign, and the
National Stonewall Democrats. The
American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) gave Obama a score of 100% on the issue of gays and lesbians in the U.S. military and a score of 75% on the issue of freedom to marry for gay people.
Second Term On January 7, 2013, the Pentagon agreed to pay full separation pay to service members discharged under "
Don't Ask, Don't Tell." Obama also called for full equality during his second
inaugural address on January 21, 2013: "Our journey is not complete until our gay brothers and sisters are treated like anyone else under the law—for if we are truly created equal, then surely the love we commit to one another must be equal as well." It was the first mention of rights for gays and lesbians or use of the word
gay in an inaugural address. On March 1, 2013, Obama, speaking about
Hollingsworth v. Perry, the U.S. Supreme Court case about
Proposition 8, said "When the Supreme Court asks do you think that the California law, which doesn't provide any rationale for discriminating against same-sex couples other than just the notion that, well, they're same-sex couples—if the Supreme Court asks me or my attorney general or solicitor general, 'Do we think that meets constitutional muster?' I felt it was important for us to answer that question honestly. And the answer is no." The administration took the position that the Supreme Court should apply "heightened scrutiny" to California's ban—a standard under which legal experts say no state ban could survive. On August 7, 2013, Obama criticized the
Russian gay propaganda law. On December 26, 2013, President Obama signed the
National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2014 into law, which repealed the ban on consensual sodomy in the
UCMJ. On February 16, 2014, Obama criticized the
Uganda Anti-Homosexuality Act, 2014. On February 28, 2014, Obama agreed with the
Governor of Arizona Jan Brewer's veto of
SB 1062. Obama included openly gay athletes in the
2014 Olympic delegation, namely
Brian Boitano and
Billie Jean King (who was later replaced by
Caitlin Cahow). This was done in criticism of Russia's anti-gay law. Later in August 2014, Obama made a surprise video appearance at the opening ceremony of the 2014
Gay Games. On February 10, 2015,
David Axelrod's
Believer: My Forty Years in Politics was published. In the book, Axelrod revealed that President
Barack Obama lied about his opposition to same-sex marriage for religious reasons in
2008 United States presidential election. "I'm just not very good at bullshitting," Obama told Axelrod, after an event where he stated his opposition to same-sex marriage, according to the book. In 2015, the U.S. appointed
Randy Berry as its first Special Envoy for the Human Rights of LGBTQ Persons. In April 2015, the Obama administration announced it had opened a gender-neutral bathroom within the White House complex, located in the
Eisenhower Executive Office Building next door to the
West Wing. President Obama also responded to a petition seeking to ban
conversion therapy (inspired by the death of
Leelah Alcorn) with his pledge to advocate for such a ban. Also in 2015, when President Obama declared May to be
National Foster Care Month, he included words never before included in a White House proclamation about adoption, stating in part, "With so many children waiting for loving homes, it is important to ensure all qualified caregivers have the opportunity to serve as foster or adoptive parents, regardless of race, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, or marital status. That is why we are working to break down the barriers that exist and investing in efforts to recruit more qualified parents for children in foster care." He was the first president to explicitly say
gender identity should not prevent anyone from adopting or becoming a foster parent. On October 29, 2015, President
Barack Obama endorsed
Proposition 1 in Houston, Texas. On November 10, 2015, Obama officially announced his support for the
Equality Act of 2015. In June 2016, President Obama and Vice President
Joe Biden met with the victims and families of victims of the
Orlando nightclub shooting. Obama and Biden laid 49 bouquets of white roses to memorialize the 49 people killed in the tragedy impacting the LGBTQ community. On June 24, 2016, President Obama designated the
Stonewall National Monument in
Greenwich Village,
Lower Manhattan, as the first
national monument in the United States to honor the LGBTQ rights movement. On November 8, Brown became the first openly LGBTQ person to be elected governor in the United States. Brown is a
bisexual woman who has also come out as a survivor of
sexual assault and
domestic violence. Before being elected in her own right, Brown had assumed the governorship due to a resignation. During that time, she signed legislation to ban
conversion therapy on minors.
Donald Trump Donald Trump opposed expanding LGBTQ rights. As President, he rolled back LGBTQ rights and appointed anti-LGBTQ officials, but also gay officials such as
Scott Bessent as
Secretary of the Treasury and
Richard Grenell as
special presidential envoy for special missions. He opposed the
Equality Act, which has been one of the highest priorities of LGBTQ rights groups since same-sex marriage was enacted by the Supreme Court. Long before his 2016 campaign, Trump opposed the legalization of same-sex marriage; during his 2016 campaign, he pledged to appoint anti-LGBTQ Justices to the Supreme Court. His administration banned transgender people from serving in the military and attempted to legally redefine gender in order to undermine nondiscrimination protections for transgender, non-binary, and intersex people. His administration argued before the Supreme Court that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 does not protect gay or transgender Americans from discrimination (though the Court ultimately decided in favor of LGBTQ rights in this matter). His Cabinet rolled back non-discrimination requirements for homeless shelters, allowing them to discriminate against homeless transgender youth. His Education Secretary,
Betsy DeVos, rolled back protections for LGBTQ students. All LGBTQ references were removed from the websites of the White House, Department of State, and Department of Labor minutes after Trump took office. Trump did not allow refugees to enter the country on the basis of their fleeing from LGBTQ-related discrimination. Trump was the first president to speak at the Value Voters Summit hosted by the Family Research Council.
First presidency HIV/AIDS policy In 2017, Trump dissolved the
Office of National AIDS Policy (ONAP, founded in 1993) and the
Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS (PACHA, founded in 1995). His 2019 budget proposal did not include any funding for two existing programs run under the
Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program.
Transgender rights The Trump administration has attacked transgender rights on multiple fronts. • '''Students' bathroom access:''' On February 10, 2017, the Department of Justice dropped a defense of transgender students' access to bathrooms. Obama-era guidance had allowed students to use bathrooms corresponding to their gender identity. The right had been challenged by a Texas District Court, and the Department of Justice had previously asked the court to lift its stay, but the Department of Justice (under the new Attorney General
Jeff Sessions) withdrew its request. On February 22, 2017, Trump reversed a directive from the Obama administration that allowed
transgender students who attend public schools to use bathrooms that correspond with their
gender identity. Education Secretary
Betsy DeVos, questioned before the House Education and Labor Committee on April 10, 2019, about the previous rollback, acknowledged that she had been aware of the effects of the stress of discrimination on transgender youth; these effects include depression, anxiety, lower attendance and grades, and attempted suicide. In May 2019, the Supreme Court declined to hear a challenge to a Pennsylvania school regarding its bathroom policy, suggesting that schools may continue to set their own policies to accommodate transgender students. •
Student athletics: On May 15, 2020, the Department of Education's
Office for Civil Rights wrote a 45-page letter threatening to withhold federal funding from specific school districts in Connecticut and from the
Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference (CIAC) if they continued to allow transgender girls to compete on girls' teams. The Department of Education claimed that including transgender athletes on girls' teams is a violation of
Title IX. In September 2020, about $6 million, spread over two years and delivered by a Federal Magnet Schools Assistance Program Grant, was at stake for Connecticut. •
Military ban: Trump succeeded in implementing restrictions on transgender military personnel, an idea he first announced via Twitter. On July 26, 2017, Trump tweeted that transgender individuals would not be accepted or allowed to serve "in any capacity" in the U.S. military, citing medical costs and disruption related to transgender service members. This announcement took Pentagon officials by surprise. There were about 6,000 transgender military personnel on active duty, according to a 2014 study, and the Trump administration provided no evidence that they pose a problem. Many key military leaders advocated for continuing to support transgender servicemembers. They include "the chiefs of the Army, Navy and Air Force; the commandant of the Marine Corps; and the incoming commandant of the Coast Guard," as well as retired leaders like Vice Admiral
Donald C. Arthur, Major General
Gale Pollock, and Rear Admiral
Alan M. Steinman (who served as the Surgeon General or equivalent of the Navy, Army, and Coast Guard respectively and who coauthored a Palm Center report in April 2018). On August 25, 2017, Trump directed the
Pentagon to stop admitting any new transgender individuals into the military and to stop providing medical treatments for
sex reassignment, intended to take effect on March 23, 2018. On August 29, 2017, Secretary of Defense
James Mattis put a freeze on expelling transgender service members who are currently in the military, pending a study by experts within the Departments of Defense and Homeland Security. Federal courts temporarily delayed the implementation of the Trump administration's proposed ban by issuing four injunctions. On November 23, 2018, the day after Thanksgiving, the Trump administration formally requested the U.S. Supreme Court to issue an emergency ruling on whether transgender personnel may continue to serve, and on January 22, 2019, without hearing arguments or explaining its own decision, the Court allowed the Trump administration to move ahead with the ban. On March 12, 2019, the Department of Defense released a memorandum with
specifics of the ban, essentially allowing existing personnel to continue to serve if they had already come out as transgender prior to the memorandum, but disqualifying anyone who was newly discovered to have a transgender body, identity, or history. •
Employment: On October 4, 2017, the Attorney General published a memo considering "discrimination against transgender individuals" in employment and concluding that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 "does not prohibit discrimination based on gender identity
per se. This is a conclusion of law, not policy." On August 16, 2019, the Justice Department filed a brief with the U.S. Supreme Court arguing that "Title VII does not prohibit discrimination against transgender persons based on their transgender status," "gender identity," or "disconnect" between biological sex and gender identity. The brief related to a pending case,
Harris Funeral Homes v. EEOC. • '''Prisoners' rights:''' In May 2018, the Trump administration ordered the Bureau of Prisons to house transgender prisoners according to their "biological sex." Treating prisoners as members of the gender with which they identify "would be appropriate only in rare cases." This reverses guidance created by the Obama administration in 2012, and it conflicts with the
Prison Rape Elimination Act of 2003. In 2018, the Cibola County Correctional Center in New Mexico operated a unit for transgender women; the women were housed together regardless of the reason for their detention. The building served as a federal prison, county jail, Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention, and housing for asylum-seekers. Reporters were granted access for the first time in June 2019; there were 27 inmates at that time. •
Defining gender as sex: On October 21, 2018,
The New York Times revealed a
Department of Health and Human Services memo that planned to establish a definition of gender based on
sex assignment at birth across federal agencies, notably the departments of
Education,
Justice, and
Labor, which, along with Health and Human Services, are responsible for enforcing Title IX nondiscrimination statutes. The Justice Department would have to approve any new definition that Health and Human Services might suggest. The memo argued in favor of a definition of gender "on a biological basis that is clear, grounded in science, objective and administrable" and the government's prerogative to
genetically test individuals to determine their sex. Over the following days, thousands of protesters gathered in
Washington, D.C.;
San Diego;
Minneapolis;
Los Angeles;
Milwaukee;
Boston; and other cities across the country, and on November 2, nearly 100 lawmakers signed a letter to HHS Secretary
Alex Azar asking him not to implement this change. On July 8, 2019, the
State Department created the
Commission on Unalienable Rights to initiate philosophical discussions of human rights that are grounded in the Catholic concept of "
natural law" rather than modern identities based on gender and sexuality. Most of the twelve members of the commission have a history of anti-LGBTQ comments. •
Healthcare: Since 2016, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has explicitly interpreted the word "sex" in the nondiscrimination provisions of the Affordable Care Act (Section 1557) to recognize and include transgender people, entitling them to the same services to which everyone else is entitled, although a federal court injunction on December 31, 2016, prevented HHS from enforcing its nondiscrimination rule. Under the Trump administration, HHS lawyers began working on permanently reversing the rule, and on May 24, 2019, the proposed reversal was formally announced. On October 15, 2019, federal judge
Reed O'Connor vacated the nondiscrimination rule, saying that it violated the
Religious Freedom Restoration Act. His ruling meant that federally-funded healthcare insurers and providers may deny treatment or coverage based on sex, gender identity or termination of pregnancy, even if the services are medically necessary. On November 1, 2019, HHS announced that, effective immediately, recipients of taxpayer-funded grants from HHS are permitted to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity, as it will no longer enforce the 2016 rule known as 81 F.R. 89393. This change affects "HIV and STI prevention programs, opioid programs, youth homelessness services, health professional training, substance use recovery programs, and many other life-saving services," according to the National Center for Transgender Equality. In April 2020, HHS acknowledged that the pending rule to replace Section 1557 (which was then under review by the Justice Department) followed the federal court order that "vacated the gender identity provisions" of Section 1557. The replacement rule was revealed on June 12, 2020. •
Homelessness: On May 22, 2019, HUD proposed a new rule to weaken the 2012 Equal Access Rule, an existing federal nondiscrimination protection that requires equal access to housing regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity. (The previous day,
Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary
Ben Carson had told Congress that he had no plans to change this protection.) Under the proposed change, shelters receiving federal funding would be given leeway in "determining sex for admission to any facility" based on factors including the transgender person's "official government documents," the shelter operators' "religious beliefs," and any invented "practical concerns" or concerns about "privacy" or "safety." This could allow shelters to place transgender women in men's housing or to deny transgender people admission altogether. Within the proposed rule, HUD said that the treatment of transgender people would be considered valid as long as the shelter applied its own rules consistently and that this would not conflict with HUD's existing nondiscrimination policy. HUD has been moving in the direction of weakening this rule since 2017 when it withdrew proposals to require emergency shelters to post information about LGBTQ rights and updated its website to remove guidance for serving transgender people. In July 2020, HUD proposed a rule to allow shelters to turn away any women they judged to look physically masculine, examining "factors such as height, the presence (but not the absence) of facial hair, the presence of an Adam's apple, and other physical characteristics which, when considered together, are indicative of a person's biological sex."
Census and other data collection Early on, the Trump administration interrupted the government's efforts to begin counting LGBTQ-identified people. In March 2017, the
U.S. Census Bureau released its proposed questions for the 2020 census (the census is conducted once every ten years) and the
American Community Survey (conducted annually). For the first time ever, the proposed questions covered topics about sexual orientation and gender identity. However, the questions were immediately retracted. The Census Bureau claimed that the topic had been included "inadvertently" (in fact, it was included because nearly 80 members of Congress had asked for it the previous year). The Census Bureau added: "This topic is not being proposed to Congress for the 2020 Census or American Community Survey. The report has been corrected." Ultimately, questions about same-sex relationships were added back into the census, but this limited approach doesn't offer a way to attribute lesbian, gay, or bisexual identity to those who are not currently in any relationship or who are in a different-sex relationship, nor can it attribute transgender identity to anyone. The same month, the Trump administration released a draft of the annual National Survey of Older Americans Act Participants (NSOAAP), administered by Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Questions about sexual orientation and gender identity added in 2014 were removed from the 2017 draft. In April 2019, HHS indicated their intention to stop asking foster youth, parents and guardians to self-report sexual orientation to the Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting System. On March 27, 2017, Trump reversed a directive from the Obama administration (Executive Order 13673, "Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces") that had required companies with large federal contracts to prove their compliance with LGBTQ protections and other labor laws. The court ruled, however, that it did. On November 30, 2018, Trump signed the
United States-Mexico-Canada trade agreement which contained a footnote exempting the United States from complying with the agreement's call for an end to "sex-based discrimination". Near the end of Trump's term, on December 7, 2020, the administration finalized a rule allowing faith-based employers to discriminate against LGBTQ employees in their contracts with the federal government.
Other A major way the Trump administration enabled discrimination is by providing exemptions to antidiscrimination law on the basis of
"conscience" or "religious freedom." On December 5, 2017, when asked by a White House reporter if President Trump agreed that it would be okay for bakers to put up signs in their business windows saying "We don't bake cakes for gay weddings," as his
solicitor general had argued before the Supreme Court, White House Press Secretary
Sarah Huckabee Sanders said that the president believes in religious liberty and "that would include that." On January 18, 2018, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced the creation of the Conscience and Religious Freedom Division within its Office for Civil Rights (OCR). Its purpose was to enforce
federal laws that related to "conscience and religious freedom"; that is, to enable individuals and businesses to exempt themselves from obeying nondiscrimination laws. On January 23, 2019, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) said that Miracle Hill Ministries, a foster care agency in Greenville, S.C., could be exempted from an Obama-era nondiscrimination regulation. Miracle Hill would continue to receive federal funds and was allowed to refuse services to prospective foster parents who are non-Christian or LGBTQ, although it was required to refer the rejected applicants to another agency. HHS cited the
Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) as a basis for allowing federally funded Christian groups to discriminate against non-Christians. In August 2019, the U.S. Department of Labor, also referencing the RFRA, proposed a new rule to exempt "religious organizations" from obeying nondiscrimination law in their employment practices if they invoke "sincerely held religious tenets and beliefs" as their reason to discriminate. In June 2020, the Justice Department filed a brief with the Supreme Court in support of Catholic Social Services (CSS) of Philadelphia, which sought the right to decline same-sex couples as prospective foster parents within the public foster care system and to refer them to another agency.
International relations On October 3, 2017, the Trump administration voted against a UN resolution to condemn the
death penalty (which condemned the use of that penalty for homosexuality in particular), thus making the United States one of only 13 countries to vote against the resolution (including
Saudi Arabia where the death penalty for gay sex is practiced). However, this was in accordance with longstanding policy, as the Obama administration had also voted against it. Jessica Stern, executive director of the LGBTQ rights group
OutRight, said the group criticized the Trump administration's "many rights violations, its many abuses of power from LGBTI violations to xenophobia, but this particular instance is not an example of a contraction of support on LGBTI rights... It would be a mistake to interpret its opposition to a death penalty resolution to a change in policy."
Richard Grenell, the openly gay U.S. Ambassador to Germany, led a single meeting on February 19, 2019, with 11 activists from different European countries; it appeared that no U.S. individuals or groups were invited. The Trump administration claimed that this dinner party represented a new campaign to decriminalize homosexuality worldwide. However, the next day, the president seemed unaware of it. (In the official White House transcript of that interview, Trump asked the reporter to repeat the question, and finally responded, "I don't know, uh, which report you're talking about. We have many reports.") Grenell said the United States did not have a "new policy" but was rather simply making a "new push"; this push consisted of asking for support from European countries in treating U.S. economic aid to other countries as a bargaining chip. On May 31, 2019, Trump tweeted that Americans should "stand in solidarity with the many LGBT people who live in dozens of countries worldwide that punish, imprison, or even execute" people for their sexual orientation. He referenced his administration's "global campaign to decriminalize homosexuality." It was the only time during his presidency that he tweeted the word "LGBT" (excepting, one year later, a retweet of his press secretary's praise of his "LGBT community" record). It was also the only time he tweeted the word "Pride" in an LGBTQ context. Despite Trump's apparent call for international solidarity, that same week, his administration instructed U.S. embassies not to fly the Pride flag. Additionally, later in 2019, when Zambia sentenced two men to 15 years in prison for having sex, the U.S. ambassador to the country expressed his outrage. The United States did not support his position but instead recalled him from his role. In early 2020, it was reported that Grenell's consulting firm had been paid over $100,000 in 2016 to provide
public relations support to
Viktor Orbán's government in Hungary (a government widely recognized for its anti-LGBTQ policies), which Grenell had not disclosed under the
Foreign Agents Registration Act before working for the Trump administration. When Grenell resigned his ambassadorship on June 1, 2020, he left no one obviously in charge of any pro-LGBTQ "push" or "campaign," and, three months later, a senior advisor at the Council for Global Equality dismissed Grenell's defunct campaign as "a series of self-promoting Twitter photos." In August 2020, Grenell began serving as an advisor for the
American Center for Law & Justice, an organization that has long supported criminalizing homosexuality in African countries.
Vice President Mike Pence Mike Pence opposed the expansion of LGBTQ rights throughout his political career. In May 2016, as
Indiana governor, he said that states should dictate which bathroom transgender students may use. He said this in response to direction given by the Obama administration to allow students nationwide to use the bathroom corresponding to the gender with which they identify. A month later, on June 15, 2016, Trump announced Pence as his vice presidential running-mate. The decision was criticized by LGBTQ advocates, as Pence was known for opposing
same-sex marriage and supporting
"religious freedom laws" that allow individuals and companies to claim religious exemptions from providing services to LGBTQ people, including an Indiana law that he signed while governor. Secretary
Hillary Clinton, who ran against Trump in the
2016 presidential election, called Pence "the most extreme pick in a generation." In 1993, Pence published numerous anti-LGBTQ letters in the
Indiana Policy Review Foundation publication
Indiana Policy Review, allegedly including one that urged employers to not hire members of the LGBTQ community, claiming they are "promiscuous," carry "extremely high rates of disease," and are "not able bodied." In
2000, Pence's congressional campaign website stated that Congress should fund the Ryan White Care Act only after an audit confirmed that "organizations that celebrate and encourage the types of behaviors that facilitate the spreading of the HIV virus" would be ineligible for funding, and that "resources should be directed toward those institutions which provide assistance to those seeking to change their sexual behavior." The latter comment has been interpreted by some as a statement of support for
conversion therapy, an accusation that was not addressed until after Pence's election as vice president, when Pence's spokesperson called the accusation a "mischaracterization." However, conversion therapy was endorsed within the Republican Party platform adopted at the July 2016 convention. In a 2006 speech, he said that "the deterioration of marriage and family" causes "societal collapse" and that "God's idea" is to prevent same-sex marriage. Pence gave a speech for World AIDS Day 2018 without mentioning LGBTQ people. (The previous year, Trump had given the World AIDS Day speech with the same omission.)
Second presidency Upon taking office for a second non-consecutive term, Trump signed a
series of executive orders, described as a "shock and awe" campaign, that tested the limits of executive authority, with many drawing immediate legal challenges. On January 20, 2025, an
executive order was passed by president
Donald Trump the U.S. government removing all federal protections for transgender individuals, or recognition of transgender people, with transgender people being completely written out of the law. The U.S. Supreme Court determined that the prohibition imposed by Trump on gender-affirming medical care for transgender minors during his second term was maintained, and that parents were permitted to withdraw their children from classrooms when storybooks containing LGBTQ characters were being read. Additionally, the court affirmed Trump's restriction on transgender individuals serving in the military. In June 2025,
WorldPride, an international festival advocating for LGBTQ rights, took place in Washington, D.C. Activists from across the globe gathered to express their solidarity with the American community as the nation's far-right administration retracted its backing for LGBTQ rights.
Joe Biden On Joe Biden's first day in office, he signed an
executive order banning employment and housing discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. This executive order interprets the United States Supreme Court decision
Bostock v. Clayton County more broadly than the Trump administration had. The executive order also mandates that transgender children be allowed to use the locker rooms and bathrooms of their gender identity, and be allowed to participate in the sport of their gender identity too, and although it does not mandate all schools and states must follow the order, if they were to defy it, the Federal Government could deny funding to said states or schools. Currently, there are multiple states
considering bills which would bar transgender athletes from competing in the sport of their gender identity, and even one state,
Idaho, has enacted a bill which bans trans girls from playing in the sport of their gender identity, which is currently the subject of an ongoing court battle in the 9th Circuit (see
Hecox v. Little). Despite this, the Biden administration has not made any statements on said bills, and whether or not it will deny funding to states that have enacted them, or are considering enacting them. The court ruling expanded Title VII of the
Civil Rights Act of 1964 to ban employment discrimination against LGBTQ employees but did not explicitly ban discrimination outside of employment. The executive order signed by President Biden ordered all federal agencies to review existing regulations and policies that prohibit sex discrimination, and to revise them as necessary to clarify that "sex" includes sexual orientation and gender identity. Also on Biden's first day in office, his press secretary,
Jen Psaki, announced in a press conference that the President would soon reverse the government's ban on transgender people from serving openly in the military. Biden had originally said that reversing the ban would be an action taken "on day one," but this was delayed, perhaps because his nominee for
Secretary of Defense,
Lloyd Austin, had not been confirmed yet. This ban was reversed by executive order on January 25, 2021, allowing transgender people to serve in the military again. On March 26, 2021,
Rachel Levine became the U.S. assistant secretary for health and "the highest-ranking openly transgender official in U.S. history" (according to the
Washington Post). On May 10, 2021, the Department of Health and Human Services affirmed that gay and transgender people's access to healthcare was protected under the Affordable Care Act, reversing a Trump administration policy and restoring an Obama administration policy. In addition, it would order the federal government to curb federal funding for the practice of
Conversion therapy, and ask the
Federal Trade Commission to consider whether it constitutes an unfair or deceptive act. It would also set up programs to expand access to suicide prevention resources for LGBTQ youth. ==Political support for LGBTQ rights==