Lgbtq rights supporters congress
Congressional Scorecard
LGBTQ+ Americans, allies, friends, families and co-workers have the authority to decide whether to move forward or lose earth. The Human Rights Campaign wants to provide you with information on how your elected officials have voted on issues of equality. Browse through the online guide below or download the pdf.
Note, the version of the Scorecard appearing here was published on October 21, 2024. In early 2025, we will publish an updated version that reflects additional cosponsorships as well as votes on the FY25 National Defense Authorization Act which included a provision blocking access to health care for transgender youth in military families that occurred in the final months of the 118th Congress.
Federal Legislation
The Human Rights Campaign, along with tens of thousands of advocates, works around the clock to lobby members of Congress on critical legislation that would greatly affect the lives of woman loving woman, gay, bisexual, trans and queer Americans. See the occupied list of critical legislation for more information.
View All Priority Legislation
A Summary History of Homosexual Legislation and Representation within Congress
Last month, many across the country celebrated Celebration Month in recognition of the LGBTQ+ community and its growing acceptance in American society. As such, it’s important to evaluate the history of Gay legislation and representation in Congress, which has largely mirrored popular opinion—both in support of the movement and against it.
The accurate beginning of Federal anti-gay legislation is difficult to determine. Many early laws and resolutions banned sodomy and “obscenities,” categories which included gay relationships without explicitly referencing homosexuality. One early measure, the Immigration Act of 1917, specifically restricted immigration by individuals who exhibit “constitutional psychopathic inferiority,” a legislative classification also used to discriminate based on sexual orientation. Despite ambiguities in language, there are many premature accounts of citizens facing legal punishment for Queer relationships, beginning as first as the seventeenth century, when many New England colonial laws ascribed the death penalty for charges of sodomy.
The first appearances of the words “homosexual”
All Americans, no matter who they are or whom they love, deserve occupied equality. I’m fighting in Congress to make this a reality. I help legislation that ensures Diverse folks are not creature discriminated against in any form. People in the LGBTQ+ community must own complete and unobstructed access to healthcare, have the ability to shop in whatever stores they hope to, regardless of the owner’s personal beliefs, and have the freedom to use the restroom that matches their gender identity.
Additionally, I am appalled by the Trump Administration’s design to ban transgender service members and recruits from serving in the military. As the Ranking Member of the House Armed Services Committee, I possess been an outspoken head in the fight to stop this policy. Service members and veterans should not be attacked for who they are by the country that they serve.
Particularly in the past few decades, we acquire seen significant, positive strides in the fight for the full equality for LGBTQ+ people, notably including marriage equality. I’m dedicated to continuing this vital work and will always work in tandem with local LGBTQ+ advocates and organizations
Following Donald Trump’s landslide victory in the 2024 presidential election, many people may be looking to his campaign speeches to grasp his position on major issues such as LGBTQ rights.
The Republican Party’s electoral promises in this area include cutting existing federal funding for gender-affirming tend and restricting transgender students’ participation in sports.
Yet as a legal scholar who has written extensively on the history of LGBTQ rights, I have seen that the clearest indication of how a politician will act once in office is not what they promise on the campaign trail. Instead, it is what they own done in the past.
Let’s examine the records of Trump and the vice president-elect, U.S. Sen. JD Vance of Ohio.
Trump restricted some LGBTQ rights
Trump and Vance are both relatively new to politics, so their records on LGBTQ rights issues are slim. That said, they own both done enough to qualify them as opponents of LGBTQ rights.
Trump enacted two policies restricting LGBTQ rights early in his one term in office. The first was his 2017 executive direct Promoting Free Speech and Religious Liberty, which reinforced that federal law must respect conscience-base
Human Rights Campaign Scores Members of Congress on Gay Support
WASHINGTON — The Human Rights Campaign (HRC) — the nation’s largest lesbian, gay, multi-attracted , transgender and lgbtq+ (LGBTQ+) civil rights organization — today released its Congressional Scorecard measuring aid for LGBTQ+ equality in the 117th Congress. Members of Congress were scored based on a range of key indicators of help — from votes in the Residence to pass pro-equality legislation like the Respect for Marriage Act and Equality Act to votes in the Senate to confirm historic, pro-LGBTQ+ Biden-Harris cabinet officials and judicial nominees, as successfully as co-sponsorships in both chambers on pieces of legislation that significantly impact LGBTQ+ people and their families.
“This designation, LGBTQ+ rights possess been under assault in state legislatures like never before, and new questions have arisen over whether the Supreme Court can be relied on to follow its control precedents in favor of LGBTQ+ equality. In this life, the pro-equality majorities in the Residence and Senate, alongside the Biden administration, have advanced an inclusive legislative agenda that stands as a bulwark against these severe anti-LGBTQ+ attacks