President Joe Biden’s administration is widely considered the most pro-LGBTQ in history, and as he enters his final months in the White House, Biden participated in a historic interview with one of the nation’s oldest LGBTQ news outlets.
In a wide-ranging interview published Monday in the Washington Blade, an LGBTQ newspaper founded more than half a century ago, Biden reiterated his commitment to the community while speaking at length about former President Donald Trump’s policies toward the LGBTQ community and divisiveness. his vision for Project 2025. According to the Blade, the interview marks the first time a sitting president has spoken exclusively to an LGBTQ newspaper.
“My father used to say that everyone has a right to be treated with dignity,” Biden told the paper. “As a result, most of the things I’ve done have only been connected [what] I think basic justice and decency.”
Biden expressed admiration for the many milestones the community has achieved during his lifetime, from the 1969 Stonewall Riots to the repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell” during his time as vice president. The Blade also highlighted “major pro-LGBTQ actions” under Biden, including legal challenges to state laws targeting transgender people and a response to the global rock epidemic in 2022. They noted that Biden has also appointed more LGBTQ officials to his administration in 2020 than any other administration. in American history.
“Most of the openly gay people that I’ve worked with, that I’ve worked with, their only advantage is that they tend to have more courage than most people,” Biden said.
Biden said the emergence of LGBTQ representation in government is a reflection of America itself, and he praised the recent primary victory of his home state, Delaware Sen. Sarah McBride, who is poised to become the first transgender member of Congress. “We’re on the right track,” he said of McBride’s win.
Despite the community’s progress, Biden also talked about the challenges that all Americans face. He described Project 2025, the proposed conservative agenda for Trump’s potential second term, as “full of nothing but contempt” for LGBTQ people, and said conservatives who want to ban books in schools “want to erase history instead of making history.” Republican presidential candidate Trump has publicly denied Project 2025 and said he had nothing to do with it.
Biden went on to criticize Trump’s record on LGBTQ issues, saying, “Trump is a different breed of cat.”
He also vowed to continue working to pass the Equality Act, a bill that would ban discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity at the federal level, even after his resignation.
“We have to pass it. So I’m going to do everything I can to be part of the outside voices, and I hope that my foundations that I’ve started will talk about equality everywhere,” she said.
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This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
