LGBTQ Americans and advocacy groups are sounding alarm bells over the selection of Sen. JD Vance as former President Trump’s running mate.
In addition to a history of anti-LGBTQ statements, the Ohio Republican is the primary sponsor of at least two pieces of federal legislation threatening to sharply roll back transgender rights, including one proposal that aims to ban gender-affirming medical care for minors nationwide.
That bill, the Senate version of Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s (R-Ga.) Protect Children’s Innocence Act, would charge health care providers who violate it with a Class C felony, punishable by more than a decade in prison. It would also prevent institutions of higher education from providing instruction about gender-affirming care and cut funding for health plans that cover treatment.
And an October bill introduced by Vance would ban “X” gender markers on U.S. passports, an option the State Department has offered since 2022.
“There are only two genders — passports issued by the United States government should recognize that simple fact,” Vance said in a statement at the time.
The first-term senator has also repeated the false and inflammatory claim that LGBTQ people are “grooming” children to abuse them, and after a deadly shooting at a Christian elementary school in Nashville, Tenn., last year, suggested the shooter’s gender identity may have been a motivating factor.