Trump claims he ‘did great with the gay population’ – statistically, he really didn’t
47th US President Donald Trump. (Getty)
47th US President Donald Trump. (Getty)
Donald Trump has claimed he “did great with the gay population” during the 2024 US elections – statistics say otherwise.
The 79-year-old US president made the spurious statement during a conference at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida on Saturday (29 November).
A clip from the conference showed Trump overhearing that members of the MAGA organisation Gays for Trump were in the crowd.
After spotting the group’s members, he remarked: “You don’t look gay,” before adding: “We did great with the gay population, as you know.”
What we do know is that, despite the president’s claim, he did not in fact do well with LGBTQ+ Americans during the 2024 US presidential election.
Exit polls published by CNN immediately following Trump’s win in November last year report that just 12 per cent of LGBTQ+ people voted for Trump, while 86 per cent voted for Democratic political rival Kamala Harris.
Conversely, 53 per cent of voters, including those who did not vote or voted for a third party, said they did not support Donald Trump.
Donald Trump has always been unpopular with LGBTQ+ people
Trump has been consistently unpopular among LGBTQ+ people throughout his political career largely thanks to his vehemently anti-LGBTQ+ policies.
In 2016, just 14 per cent of queer voters showed support for the Republican during his first electoral race. That percentage remained the same during the 2022 US election, with 53 per cent of LGBTQ+ voters opposing Trump.
Even Gays for Trump founder Peter Boykin has expressed doubts over Trump’s actions against the community, saying in January that, while he still supported the president, he believed he was talking to the “wrong people” on queer issues.
“The reason why people like Donald Trump was because he wasn’t a social conservative,” Boykin claimed. “He really needs to get the hell away from this social conservative crap that they’ve been doing lately.”
The Trump Administration’s anti-LGBTQ+ actions include a blanket ban on trans people in the US military, the closure of a life-saving LGBTQ+ suicide prevention hotline, and the removal of vital information about HIV and LGBTQ+ related resources from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other health websites.
During his first term, the US president worked to erase hard-fought non-discrimination protections for LGBTQ+ people, allowing several federal government programmes, including Social Security, Medicare, housing, and more, to deny LGBTQ+ people welfare on their sexuality or gender identity alone.
His government plans to heavily restrict access to life-saving gender-affirming care for trans youth under leaked health proposals shared by NPR in October.
His actions as the 47th US President have only worked to embolden LGBTQ+ people’s disdain for him, with 71 per cent of LGBTQ+ adults saying they think Trump has negatively affected LGBTQ+ rights in the US, compared to just 6 per cent that say he has positively affected them.
Interestingly, 37 per cent of LGBTQ+ Republicans think the current GOP administration is being too unkind to trans people, while 20 per cent believe that extends to LGBTQ+ people more broadly.
