{"id":506381,"date":"2022-03-07T23:17:29","date_gmt":"2022-03-07T23:17:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/glaad.logalt.net\/tap\/jd-vance\/"},"modified":"2024-10-24T10:05:00","modified_gmt":"2024-10-24T14:05:00","slug":"jd-vance","status":"publish","type":"gap","link":"https:\/\/glaad.org\/gap\/jd-vance\/","title":{"rendered":"JD Vance"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u2014Said<\/a> Donald Trump did not lose the 2020 election. “\u2026Did Donald Trump lose the election? Not by the words that I would use.” In a related resurfaced statement, Vance said, “Yeah, I do,” when asked if he believed the 2020 election was stolen. The election was not stolen. Trump lost the election.<\/p>\n

\u2014Endorsed<\/a> a 2017 report<\/a> by the Heritage Foundation that proposed a sweeping conservative agenda to restrict sexual and reproductive freedoms and remake American families. The series of essays opposed opposed fertility treatments and praised abortion bans. He wrote the introduction and praised the volume as \u201cadmirable.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2014Wrote<\/a> the foreword to a forthcoming book by the head of Project 2025<\/a>, the vast rightwing, authoritarian presidential transition plan which Vance’s running mate Donald Trump<\/a> has tried to disavow<\/a>. Project 2025 is spearheaded and organized by the far-right the Heritage Foundation, and with 100 coalition partner organizations, many of which are well-known for pushing anti-LGBTQ policy, legal efforts, and harmful rhetoric, accompanied by Christian nationalism. In advance publicity materials Vance says of Kevin Roberts, president of the Heritage Foundation: \u201cNever before has a figure with [his] depth and stature within the American Right tried to articulate a genuinely new future for conservatism.\u201d\u00a0The same publicity material describes Roberts as \u201chead\u201d of Project 2025.<\/p>\n

\u2014Held up the nominations of dozens of diplomats assigned to serve in posts across the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America for more than a year over his questionnaire<\/a> that \u201casked would-be ambassadors if they would increase the number of \u2018gender-neutral bathrooms\u2019 in U.S. embassies, boost resources for \u2018gender dysphoria and gender transition care\u2019 and raise the \u2018Progress flag\u2019 <\/a>\u00a0during \u2018regional Pride celebrations\u2019,\u201d according to the Washington Post<\/em><\/a>. \u201cAt the height of his campaign, Vance placed holds on more than 30 nominees, forcing diplomats to consider contradicting President Biden\u2019s assertion that LGBTQ rights are human rights. Vance was the single biggest obstacle to confirming career ambassadors in the Senate, despite not sitting on the committee that oversees the nominations, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.<\/p>\n

\u2014Changed his name multiple times<\/a>. USA Today<\/em> reports, “Born James Donald Bowman in Middletown, Ohio\u2026. After his parents divorced, his middle name was changed from Donald, his father’s name, to David.\u2026 During his teenage years, Vance adopted the surname of his stepfather, becoming James Hamel.\u2026 As an adult, Vance decided to honor his maternal grandparents by legally adopting their surname when he married his wife, Usha, in 2014, becoming James Vance.\u2026 Despite these changes, Vance has always preferred to go by ‘JD,’ a choice he maintains in his official U.S. Senate biography<\/a>, which spells his first name as JD.” Vance mocked a X post about International Pronoun Day which encouraged respect for the words people choose to identify themselves, writing<\/a>, “I’ll just speak like a normal person instead.”<\/p>\n

\u2014Attempted to erase the counting of LGBTQ people in the U.S. census. Rubio, with fellow Republican Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, wrote a letter to the U.S. Census Bureau<\/a> that objects to adding questions on gender identity to the American Community Survey (ACS). The Buckeye Flame reports, “In their\u00a0letter<\/a>, Vance and Rubio accused the Census of trying ‘to politicize the survey by including highly polarizing and patently false topics, like gender identity,’ which they refer to as a ‘harmful ideology’.\u2026In its 2023 budget report, Census Bureau researchers said they needed to improve and expand ACS data on sexual orientation and gender identity ‘to meet critical, emerging needs for high-quality measures’ of the LGBTQ+ community.”<\/p>\n

\u2014Introduced<\/a> the\u00a0Passport Sanity Act<\/a>, a bill to\u00a0ban \u201cX\u201d gender markers<\/a>\u00a0on U.S. passports, an\u00a0option that the State Department rolled out<\/a> in April 2022. The bill was also never taken up in committee. NBC News reports, \u201c ‘The last thing the State Department should be doing is wasting its time and your tax dollars pushing far-left gender ideology,’ Vance said in a statement at the time. ‘There are only two genders \u2014 passports issued by the United States government should recognize that simple fact.’ \u201d<\/p>\n

\u2014Introduced the so-called \u201c<\/span>Protect Children\u2019s Innocence Act<\/span><\/a>,\u201d a piece of legislation riddled with lies about transgender healthcare. The act includes an array of far-right, anti-transgender buzzwords and \u201cbans\u201d a variety of medical procedures, none of which are a part of transgender healthcare for minors.\u00a0<\/span>The act, if passed, carries a Class C felony penalty (punishable by 3.5 to 15 years in prison) for these imagined procedures. \u201cUnder no circumstances should doctors be allowed to perform these gruesome, irreversible operations on underage children,\u201d said Senator Vance, who is not a medical professional.\u00a0 <\/span>The act also seeks to ban all taxpayer funding for such actions (citing the Affordable Care Act), and would \u201cprohibit institutions of higher education from providing instruction on \u2018gender-affirming care,\u2019 and would deem aliens who have performed \u2018gender-affirming care\u2019 on a minor ineligible to receive visas or admittance to the United States.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2014Stated<\/a> he would vote \u201cno\u201d on the Respect for Marriage Act to codify marriage equality. He was not yet a member of Congress. The bill was supported by Sen. Rob Portman, who has since retired from the Senate. The landmark legislation was signed into law by President Biden in 2022<\/a>. Portman was the first Republican senator to share support for marriage equality after his son came out as gay in 2013.<\/p>\n

\u2014Tweeted<\/a> false and vile rhetoric about people opposed to legislation that censors classroom discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity: \u201cI\u2019ll stop calling people \u201cgroomers\u201d when they stop freaking out about bills that prevent the sexualization of my children.\u201d There is no evidence that discussing LGBTQ people, history or families in schools \u2018sexualizes\u2019 anyone. Experts in child sexual abuse say false rhetoric about grooming diminishes understanding<\/a> about actual abuse and endangers all children. He made the same claim in an interview<\/a> with Tucker Carlson<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u2014Repeated<\/a> false rhetoric to inaccurately claim that bills censoring classroom conversation about LGBTQ people are about \u2018parents\u2019 rights.\u2019 An estimated<\/a> two million children have LGBTQ parents; LGBTQ parents and parents<\/a> who support LGBTQ people have spoken out<\/a> to say they do not want their children censored in classrooms.<\/p>\n

\u2014Endorsed by former president Donald Trump in Ohio\u2019s Republican Senate primary. The Trump<\/a> administration led more than 200 attacks in policy and rhetoric against LGBTQ Americans, including baselessly banning transgender people from military service. Vance had previously called<\/a> Trump an \u201cidiot,\u201d \u201creprehensible,\u201d and \u201cnoxious\u201d and privately<\/a> described Trump: \u201cI go back and forth between thinking Trump is a cynical asshole like Nixon who wouldn\u2019t be that bad\u2009(and may even prove useful) or that he\u2019s America\u2019s Hitler.\u201d Vance\u2019s college classmate revealed the messages on Twitter<\/a>, in which Vance also called the GOP \u201cthe party of lower-income, lower-education white people.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2014Campaigned<\/a> with and endorsed by Donald Trump Junior<\/a> and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene<\/a>, who have both verbally attacked and smeared LGBTQ Americans. Vance defended<\/a> Greene\u2019s appearance at a white supremacist conference with host Nick Fuentes<\/a>, who has spread racist, anti-Semitic and anti-LGBTQ conspiracy theories, claiming \u201cshe did nothing wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2014On his campaign website, claims<\/a> without evidence that American political leaders are \u201cusing America\u2019s military as a social justice side project. Our troops don\u2019t need to focus on diversity or equity or any other progressive buzzword.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2014Baselessly tweeted \u201cWhat\u2019s happening in Ukraine has nothing to do with our national security.\u201d Stated<\/a> on Steve Bannon\u2019s podcast as Russia, days before Russia invaded: \u201cI\u2019ve got to be honest with you, I don\u2019t really care what happens to Ukraine one way or another.\u201d Backtracked five days later, stating Russia\u2019s assault on Ukraine is \u201cunquestionably a tragedy\u201d while praising former President Trump, falsely claiming he helped contain Russia\u2019s aggression, and who called Russian President Putin \u201ca genius\u201d in the early days of the invasion of Ukraine. The State Department warned of the potential of LGBTQ people being targeted in Ukraine before the invasion: \u201ctargeted killings, kidnappings\/forced disappearances, unjust detentions, and the use of torture, would likely target those who oppose Russian actions, including Russian and Belarusian dissidents in exile in Ukraine, journalists and anti-corruption activists, and vulnerable populations such as religious and ethnic minorities and LGBTQI+ persons. Specifically, we have credible information that indicates Russian forces are creating lists of identified Ukrainians to be killed or sent to camps following a military occupation.\u201d\u00a0 Putin signed legislation<\/a> in 2013 to ban the \u201cpromotion of nontraditional sexual relations to minors,\u201d which, writes Human Rights Watch, coincided with an uptick in often-gruesome vigilante violence against LGBT people in Russia. Amnesty International<\/a> found Russian authorities complicit in the abduction, torture and murders of gay men in the former Soviet republic of Chechnya<\/a> during the Trump presidency.<\/p>\n

\u2014Claimed<\/a> a week before Russia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine that President Biden is risking war with Russia because Pres. Putin doesn\u2019t believe in transgender rights. \u201cWe did not serve in the Marine Corps to go and fight Vladimir Putin because he didn\u2019t believe in transgender rights, which is what the U.S. State Department is saying is a major problem with Russia.\u201d Politifact<\/em>, an independent factchecking site, rated Vance\u2019s claim untrue\u2014\u201cpants on fire\u201d: \u201cThe State Department noted the threats against transgender people as one issue among many in a report on human rights. It gave much more space to the danger posed by Russia\u2019s military policies in its most recent annual threat assessment. The risk of war in Ukraine is not affected by Putin\u2019s attitude toward transgender rights.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2014Tried and failed to make fun of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) for \u201cinventing\u201d new terms to describe LGBTQ people\u2019s identities. \u201cI\u2019m sorry but what the hell is two-spirit?\u201d Vance asked in a tweet<\/a>. \u201cWould love if progressives just stopped inventing words.\u201d Native American, First Nation, and Canadian Aboriginal people have held LGBTQ and gender non-conforming members of their communities in high respect throughout history, referring to them as \u201ctwo spirit<\/a>\u201c people.<\/p>\n

\u2014Said<\/a> the \u201cchildless left\u201d is responsible for America\u2019s woes, and singled out Vice President Kamala Harris, the first out Senate-confirmed Cabinet Secretary, Pete Buttigieg, Senator Cory Booker (NJ), and Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (NY). In the same address, which was to a conservative think tank, Vance praised the far-right, anti-LGBTQ<\/a> president of Hungary, Viktor Orb\u00e1n<\/a>, for encouraging married couples to have children. Buttigieg and his husband announced the birth of their twin children in September 2021.<\/p>\n

\u2014Attacked<\/a> conservative Supreme Court justices after the court ruled that LGBTQ employees should be protected from job discrimination in Bostock v. Clayton County.<\/em><\/a> \u201cThe conservative legal movement has accomplished two things: libertarian political economy (enforced by judges) and betrayal of social conservatives and traditionalists,\u201d Vance tweeted (tweet since removed).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":507,"featured_media":910162,"template":"","categories":[139163,138754],"tags":[138968,137331,122004],"region":[138565,138600],"hashtag":[138636,138632,138634],"class_list":{"0":"post-506381","1":"gap","2":"type-gap","3":"status-publish","4":"has-post-thumbnail","6":"category-elections","7":"category-gaps","8":"tag-election-2024","9":"tag-jd-vance","10":"tag-ohio","11":"region-national","12":"region-ohio","13":"hashtag-anti-transgender","14":"hashtag-politics","15":"hashtag-trump"},"aioseo_notices":[],"apple_news_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t