Votes Are Being Counted — So How Will This US Presidential Election Affect LGBT Rights?

After months of campaigning and a vicious election cycle, the 2024 US Presidential Election is well underway – voting is closed, and votes are now being counted.

At time of publishing, Republican nominee Donald Trump sits on 246 electoral votes, and Democratic nominee Kamala Harris sits on 187. A candidate needs 270 electoral votes to win.

Queer rights have been an important issue for many voters this election, with independent pollster PRRI releasing a survey earlier this year showing almost 70% of respondents saying LGBTQ rights will influence how they vote.

So what does the LGBTQIA+ community face with Donald at the helm, compared to Kamala?

Republican track record dire for LGBTQ+ Americans

During his term as president, Trump implemented an executive order, Promoting Free Speech and Religious Liberty, which stated that federal law had to respect conscience-based objections to comply with the First Amendment, indirectly allowing conservative Christian businesses to refuse service to queer people.

Later, he controversially banned transgender people from serving in the armed forces, although he eventually revoked the directive and implemented a new policy allowing existing trans soldiers to remain in the military, but banning new recruits from joining.

Trump’s running partner, JD Vance, has a history of opposing trans rights in his short time as senator, and in 2023 sponsored a bill that sought to impose criminal sanctions on doctors who performed gender-affirming care for minors. He also said he would vote no on the Respect for Marriage Act, which provided federal protections for same-sex and interracial marriages.

The 2024 Republican Party Platform addresses two queer issues specifically, vowing to cut funding for schools pushing “critical race theory, radical gender ideology, and other inappropriate racial, sexual, or political content”, and “keep[ing] men out of women’s sports.”

Millions of dollars has been spent on anti-trans advertisements in battleground states in the final months leading up to the election.

The ACLU has warned that a second Trump administration would rob LGBTQ+ people of protection against discrimination across a range of issues, and seek to erase trans people from public life by using federal laws to criminalise gender nonconformity.

Strong support for LGBTQ people from Harris/Walz

Kamala Harris has largely supported LGBTQI+ rights over the two decades she’s been in public office, sometimes adopting policies and platforms before other members of the Democrats.

As district attorney in 2003, she established a hate crimes unit that prosecuted violence against queer youth in schools, and trained prosecutors to counter the gay and trans panic defences in court.

As a senator in 2017 to 2021, Harris sponsored five Senate bills that prohibited discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity in gender, housing, and public accomodations, and barred federal funds from supported “conversion therapy” for queer teenagers.

However, as attorney general in 2015, Harris attracted backlash for opposing the requests of two prisoners, asking for urgent gender-confirmation surgery.

Her running partner, Tim Walz is similarly progressive, and helped form his school’s first gay-straight alliance as a high school teacher in the 90s. As governor for Minnesota, Walz banned conversion therapy for minors and declared the state to be a “trans refuge”, choosing not to enforce laws obstructing trans and gender-diverse children from gender-affirming care.