More than 1,100 LGBTQ celebrities, lawmakers and leaders have signed a petition released Wednesday by national LGBTQ rights groups endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris to run for president.
The letter includes signatures from actors Matt Bomer, George Takei, Billy Eichner, and Sophia Bush and her partner, Ashlyn Harris, a former US Women’s National Team soccer player. Foreign candidates, including Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wisc., and Reps. Ritchie Torres, D-N.Y., Mark Takano, D-Calif., and Becca Balint, D-Vt., also signed on, along with other notable figures. such as Jim Obergefell, the lead attorney on the Supreme Court that legalized same-sex marriage nationwide in 2015, and Judy Shepard, mother of Matthew Shepard, who was murdered in Wyoming in 1998.
Harris has a two-decade record of supporting gay rights, which is part of the reason LGBTQ advocacy groups, lawmakers and celebrities have spoken out in support of the president’s hopes. Some LGBTQ people, however, oppose his record on transactional rights and criminal justice issues.
During his tenure as the district attorney in San Francisco, Harris helped California become the first state in the country to ban the so-called gay/trans panic defense, which allowed those accused of murder to receive convictions. minors by saying they were alarmed after it received a victim’s comments about sex or gender identity, the letter says.
He was also an early supporter of marriage equality. He conducted one of the first public same-sex marriages in 2004. Then, in 2008, when he was a California attorney general, he refused to defend Proposition 8, an amendment of the state constitution that prohibits same-sex marriage. In 2013, after the court allowed an injunction against Proposition 8 to stand, Harris conducted the first same-sex marriage in the country.
The letter points out that the Biden-Harris administration has been “the largest LGBTQ+ administration in history” and has appointed a record number of LGBTQ people to government positions, including Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, the first Cabinet secretary of homosexuals, and Rachel Levine, assistant. Health secretary, the first person confirmed by the Senate and the highest person in the federal government.
“With these strong LGBTQ+ policies at risk because of Donald Trump, JD Vance, and the anti-LGBTQ+ Project 2025, electing Kamala Harris and defeating Donald Trump again is important for equality,” the letter says, and add that the next president. will have a lasting effect on the country by filling any vacancies in the High Court.
The letter was joined by advocacy groups LGBTQ Advocates for Transgender Equality, Alice B Toklas LGBTQ Democratic Club, Equality California, Human Rights Campaign, LGBTQ Victory Fund, LPAC and the National LGBTQ Task Force.
However, some LGBTQ people have criticized Harris’ record on transgender rights and other social issues.
As an attorney, she worked to prevent a trans woman from getting gender-broadcast surgery in prison in 2015. At the LGBTQ presidential conference in Cedar Rapids Iowa in 2019, Harris said she worked behind the scenes to get the Department of Corrections to California has changed. Its policy denies inmates such care, The Advocate reports.
“I pledge to you that there will always be these things done by these departments in these systems. And I will commit, as I always do, to deal with it,” Harris said at the meeting.
Harris has also faced criticism for supporting FOSTA-SESTA, a 2018 bill package intended to hold websites accountable if they knowingly facilitate, support or facilitate sex trafficking. The rules prompted Craigslist to shut down its classified ads section and resulted in many other sites cracking down on sex workers who use their platform to find clients.
LGBTQ people, especially transgender people, are more likely than the general population to participate in sex work for a variety of reasons. As a result, LGBTQ sex traffickers have been disproportionately affected by laws like FOSTA-SESTA, which is short for the Anti-Internet Sex Trafficking Act and the Noble Stop The Traders Act.
In 2019, when Harris was a senator and running for president, he told The Root that he supports degrading sex work but does not regret supporting FOSTA-SESTA.
Since announcing his candidacy on Sunday, Harris has also faced criticism for supporting the Biden administration’s policies on the Israel-Hamas conflict.
“Kamala, you will have our vote when you end the US support for the genocide in Gaza. It’s that simple,” wrote actress and activist Pattie Gonia on Monday on Instagram.
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