Several out Democrats delivered remarks at the Democratic National Convention and LGBTQ representation was visible on and off the stage at the United Center in Chicago. Many of the speeches delivered by Democrats — from President Joe Biden to Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker — also brought attention to the broader fight for LGBTQ rights.
The first night of the convention on Aug. 19 featured two out lawmakers from Harris’ home state of California: out lesbian California Senator Laphonza Butler, who pointed to parallels between her career and Harris’ political journey; and Congressmember Robert Garcia, who slammed former President Trump’s handling of the pandemic as he told a personal story of losing his mother and stepfather to COVID.
Notably, Butler — who, like Harris, went to a historically black college and is the lone Black woman in the upper chamber — praised the vice president for the way in which she got to know her family members, including her wife, Neneki Lee, and their daughter.
“The first thing my daughter asked when she heard that Kamala was running for president is if she could be vice president,” Butler said. “So no disrespect to Tim Walz, but she put her name in first.”
Meanwhile, Garcia recalled when Harris reached out to him to offer condolences as he faced personal losses during the pandemic. That traumatic experience, he said, was made even worse by Trump’s actions at the time.
“What we needed at that moment was national leadership,” Garcia said. “But instead, we got Donald Trump. While the schools closed and dead bodies filled the morgues, Donald Trump downplayed the virus. He told us to inject bleach into our bodies. He peddled conspiracy theories across the country. We lost hundreds of thousands of Americans and our economy collapsed.”
The following night featured the Democratic National Committee’s out secretary, Jason Rae, who spearheaded the energetic roll call on Aug. 20.
Human Rights Campaign president Kelley Robinson took the stage on Aug. 21 and sought to remind the crowd that LGBTQ Americans are everyday people who play key roles throughout society.
“Progress is happening, my friends,” Robinson said. “The 20+ million LGBTQ+ Americans are living proof of it. We are your friends and your neighbors; your classmates and your family. Like Daniel, a trans kid in Tucson who’s going to his very first prom. Like Eric from San Antonio, who sacrificed in combat and then came home to battle Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. Like Sandy and Chris, the first same-sex couple to get legally married in California 11 years ago in a ceremony officiated by Kamala Harris.”
Trump, Robinson said, “wants to erase us” by targeting LGBTQ healthcare, same-sex marriage, and books — “but we’re not going anywhere.” Robinson then led the crowd to chants of “We’re not going back!”
Among other speakers on that same day included out gay Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, who has gained a reputation for delivering strong performances in television interviews, including on Fox News. Buttigieg’s on-air appearances have often gone viral on social media, making him a top surrogate for the Harris-Walz campaign.
“I am Pete Buttigieg, and you might recognize me from Fox News,” he joked. “I believe in going anywhere, anywhere in service to a good cause, and friends, we gather in a very good cause, electing Kamala Harris and Tim Walz the next president and vice president of the United States.”
Like others, Buttigieg suggested that voters will be presented with stark contrasts when they vote in November.
“Donald Trump rants about law and order as if he was not a convicted criminal running against a prosecutor,” he said.
Buttigieg accused Trump of failing to deliver on his campaign pledges while in office, saying, “The only economic promise that [Trump] actually kept was to cut taxes for the rich.”
Buttigieg also ripped the GOP’s vice presidential nominee, Ohio Senator JD Vance, over his comments about the country being led by “a bunch of childless cat ladies.”
“At least Mike Pence was polite,” Buttigieg said. “JD Vance is one of those guys who thinks if you do not live the life he has in mind for you, you don’t count. Someone who said that if you do not have kids, you have ‘no physical commitment to the future of the country.’ You know, senator, when I deployed to Afghanistan, I did not have kids then. Many of the men and women who went outside the wire with me did not have kids either, but let me tell you, the commitment to the future of the country was pretty damn physical.”
Out Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel also delivered an impassioned speech in support of Harris, who she said fights “for families like mine.”
“Just as the same-sex marriage ban was overturned in California, so too was the abortion ban in Michigan,” she said. “By the way, I’ve got a message for the Republicans and the justices of the United States Supreme Court: You can pry this wedding band from my cold, dead, gay hand.”
Reminders of Project 2025 — the GOP’s plan to radically reshape the government under the next Republican president — have re-emerged throughout the convention. Out gay Colorado Gov. Jared Polis cited specific points of the lengthy document — “Page 451 says the only legitimate family is a married mother and father where only the father works,” he said — as he warned Americans about the potential threats to LGBTQ rights under a second Trump term.
“We are not weirdos telling families who can and cannot have kids, who to marry, or how to live our lives,” Polis said. “These Project 2025 people like Trump and Vance are not just weird. They are dangerous. They want to take us backwards, but we are not going back.”
LGBTQ issues were mentioned by keynote speakers, too. Walz, a former teacher and football coach who advised his school’s gay-straight alliance two decades before he became governor, sharply denounced GOP-led attacks on LGBTQ rights during his acceptance speech on Aug. 21. But as he recalled his rural upbringing in Nebraska, he also called on Americans to set aside negativity in the political arena and unite.
“Growing up in a small town like that, you learn how to take care of each other,” he said. “That family down the road — they may not think like you do, they may not pray like you do, they may not love like you do, but they’re your neighbors. And you look out for them and they look out for you.”
LGBTQ representation was also evident outside of the spotlight on the main stage at the convention. Longtime activist and Stonewall veteran Miss Major Griffin-Gracy delivered remarks during a separate LGBTQ event at the convention, while many of the delegates included out LGBTQ individuals from across the country, including out trans New York-based district leader Melissa Sklarz, Delaware State Senator and congressional candidate Sarah McBride, and others.
McBride was interviewed by CNN at the convention on Aug. 20 about her historic campaign for Congress and Harris’ own historic bid for the White House.
“Hope and history is in the air today,” McBride said. “It is so incredibly electrifying to be here as we are about to formally nominate Kamala Harris as the next president of the United States. The opportunities that I’ve had in Delaware are a reflection of the goodness of our state. We are a state of neighbors that is judging candidates based on their ideas and not their identities.”
