CNN tonight hosted nine back-to-back town halls with 2020 Democratic presidential candidates.
The candidates took questions on lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer issues from a live studio audience.
Here’s the key takeaway from each candidate’s town hall:
Asked if he would put strong measures in place to increase oversight over health care access to LGBTQ asylum seekers if elected president, businessman Tom Steyer said, “Of course we will.”
He took a shot at President Donald Trump and his treatment of migrants in US Immigration, Customs and Enforcement detention facilities.
Steyer continued: “When I think about why I started the need to impeach campaign two years ago, yeah, he’s a criminal, it’s true that he more than has earned impeachment, but it goes much beyond this and it goes to exactly this kind of issue. The actual President of the United States committing crimes against humanity, like this, in our name, is something that we should end right now. Certainly the first day of my presidency.”
The concern about mental health problems and high suicide rates among vulnerable people within the LGBTQ community was a huge focus for many of the Democratic candidates at Thursday’s CNN town halls in Los Angeles. Tom Steyer argued that the alarming statistics themselves should have the power to move public opinion toward the “social acceptance of people.”
Steyer, a billionaire hedge fund founder, argued that the president needs to “show exactly where their heart is” through their behavior.
Steyer touched on the number of LGBTQ people who face discrimination on a daily basis and have no protection under federal law. And he said he was stunned to learn that half of transgender youth attempt suicide.
“If that doesn’t explain to you that the very dire situation that they feel themselves to be in, then you must have a heart of stone,” Steyer said. “Anyone who doesn’t want to do whatever it takes to protect the young people, really must search their soul to find out what their deepest values are. As an American that would seem as basic as you can get—in terms of protection, equality, justice. My goodness. I don’t see that there’s another side to the conversation.”
WATCH HERE:
Julián Castro called on his successor as head of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, Ben Carson, to resign over disparaging remarks the Trump appointee made about transgender people.
The former HUD secretary was referencing a Washington Post report in which Carson is said to have warned colleagues that “big, hairy men” were attempting to make their way into women’s shelters.
In response to the initial report, Castro tweeted: “19 Black trans women have been killed this year because comments like Ben Carson’s normalize violence against them. As HUD Secretary, I protected trans people, I didn’t denigrate them.”
Former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julián Castro said, as president, he would make foreign aid contingent on how the rights that other nations afford to the LGBTQ community.
Castro’s stance, if implemented, could mean cuts in foreign aid to a number of countries that have long received American money for a host of reasons, including geo-political and poverty.
Castro added: “I don’t think it’s enough for us to just say words. We have to take action. … And I would do that as president.”
Other candidates, including former Vice President Joe Biden, said they would factor in LGBTQ rights into foreign aid decisions.
“I would in fact curtail aid, curtail foreign assistance to countries who in fact engage in, engage in this kind of behavior,” Biden said.
WATCH HERE:
Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar said she would recognize a third gender marker option on a federal level.
“Yes… I will,” she said. “And I think there’s also — you know, I think that there is a lot of work we need to do, all over the country, with driver’s licenses as you know, not every state has some of the provisions that California have in place and just work on a state-by-state basis to make those changes.”
Why this matters: Members of the non-binary community, or people who reject traditional gender binaries such as “man” or “woman,” would be able to choose X on important documents, such as birth certificates.
At least five states allow non-binary people to choose X as their gender on their birth certificates.
Klobuchar went on to say presidents should play a big role in recognizing how people identify themselves.
Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar said Thursday that so-called conversion therapy, a widely discredited practice that seeks to change to sexual orientation of gays, lesbians and bisexuals, should be illegal because it “makes no sense at all.”
“Yes,” Klobuchar said when asked whether she will ban these practices. “We know this isn’t the right thing to do.”
So-called conversion therapies, sometimes referred to as reparative treatments, centers on the debunked assumption that sexual orientation can be changed by a series of procedures. The practice is widely decried and leads to significant childhood traumas.
The questions came from Seth Owens, who was forced into conversation therapy when his parents discovered his sexual orientation. He went on to be the valedictorian of his high school and was accepted to Georgetown University.
Former Rep. Beto O’Rourke also said Thursday that conversion therapy “should be illegal” because it is “tantamount to torture.”
Former Rep. Beto O’Rourke said Thursday that conversion therapy, a widely discredited practice that seeks to change the sexual orientation of gays, lesbians and bisexuals, “should be illegal” because it is “tantamount to torture.”
So-called conversion therapies, sometimes referred to as reparative treatments, centers on the debunked assumption that sexual orientation can be changed by a series of procedures. The practice is widely decried.
“So we’re going to make sure that whatever the penalty is, it is steep enough to dissuade anybody from entering into this practice or being able to torture kids with the kind of impunity that we have seen so far,” O’Rourke said. “And we’re also going to recognize that these kind of practices, in addition to the immediate torture that that child or that person feels also adds to other challenges that we have.”
A series of states have made conversation therapy illegal.
In a recent study by The Williams Institute at UCLA’s School of Law, scholars estimated that some 16,000 LGBTQ youth, ages 13 to 17, would receive conversion therapy from a health care professional before the age of 18 and another 57,000 youth will get that treatment from a religious or spiritual advisor.
That is happening despite the fact that polls have found that more than 50% of Americans support making conversion therapy on youth illegal.
The Williams Institute estimates that some 698,000 LGBT Americans have received conversion therapy at some point in their lives. You can read their report on the topic here: https://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/Conversion-Therapy-LGBT-Youth-Update-June-2019.pdf
WATCH HERE:
Beto O’Rourke said Thursday that religious institutions should lose their tax-exempt status if they oppose same-sex marriage.
“There can be no reward, no benefit, no tax break for anyone or any institution, any organization in America that denies the full human rights or the full civil rights of every single one of us,” the former Texas congressman said at CNN’s Equality Town Hall in Los Angeles.
He added: “And so as president, we are going to make that a priority and we are going to stop those who are infringing upon the human rights of our fellow Americans.”
It was the same question that New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker had refused to offer a yes-or-no answer to earlier in the town hall.
At a time when income inequality is at the highest point in the 50 years, Kamala Harris touted her plans Thursday night to address the rise in homelessness among LGBT youth –a long-standing problem in the community that has been aggravated by soaring housing costs.
“It is one of the biggest issues that we are not talking enough about,” the California senator said when asked about LGBTQ homelessness.
“And it is not just in San Francisco and New York. It’s in places like Manchester, New Hampshire.”
The California senator touted her Rent Relief Act, which would provide a tax credit for people who spend 30% or more of their income on rent and utilities. Harris has also joined forces with California Rep. Maxine Waters on her proposal aimed at ending chronic homelessness. The legislation would direct more than $13 billion toward building supportive housing over the next five years and funding more federal vouchers for Americans at risk of losing their homes.
LGBTQ advocates have pressed Democratic candidates to pay more attention to the increasing numbers of young LGBTQ people who are either on the brink of homelessness or living on the streets. Los Angeles, for example, saw a 24% jump in youth homelessness this year—and some estimate that LGBTQ youth make up as much as 40% of that total.
Here in LA, where CNN’s Equality Town Halls are taking place, the LA LGBT Center in Hollywood is taking a novel approach as part of their effort to help at-risk members of the LGBTQ community reach full employment. Earlier this year, they opened a culinary arts program in partnership with LA chefs who are teaching at-risk LGBT students – both youth and seniors – the art of French cooking.
CNN profiled one of the culinary program’s recent graduates, 25-year-old Gabriel Rondon, who identifies as trans and moved to LA from Texas because he didn’t want to conform to the culture in his small town. He found himself in a hopeless and terrifying position after he was evicted, because he couldn’t afford his rent. He found his passion in the culinary program and hopes to open his own non-profit restaurant some day—one that would serve anyone who is hungry, even if they were unable to pay.
A member of the audience interrupted California Sen. Kamala Harris Thursday night and pleaded for assistance in addressing the deaths of more than a dozen transgender people.
The audience member shouted questions to Harris as she stood on stage at the town hall in Los Angeles:
Last year, the Human Rights Campaign tracked the murders of at least 26 transgender people. This year, that tally is already at 18.
Harris took a moment to speak directly to the audience member.
She said “there has to be serious consequence and accountability when it happens which means there needs to be a safe place for the members of our transgender community to go when they have been exposed to that kind of harm and we know there’s not always a safe place.”
Harris noted that as San Francisco district attorney, she established a hate crimes unit within her office, in part to give transgender and LGBTQ people a safe place to report crimes against them. Harris also touted her record as California attorney general, both in joining efforts to abolish gay and transgender “panic defenses” in criminal trials; and in pressing for same-sex marriage. She noted that as the state attorney general, she refused to defend Proposition 8, which banned same-sex marriage in the state. (Ultimately, when gay marriage became legal, she presided over some of the first marriages of same-sex couples at San Francisco City Hall).
WATCH HERE:
California Sen. Kamala Harris said that she, as president, would make ending HIV/AIDS within a generation a priority, telling an audience on Thursday that she learned about the impact of the impact of the virus from her first campaign manager.
“We need to deal with it in the context of having a commitment. My commitment: Within a generation we will end HIV/AIDS,” Harris said.
Harris, in response to a question about the impact HIV/AIDS have on black Americans, went on to say she would “pay attention to who has access, who has the ability, who has the resources to benefit from all that is available to prevent, right, or to mitigate the effects” of HIV/AIDS.
Harris reflected on how much she learned about racial discrepancies around HIV/AIDs from Jim Rivaldo, her former campaign manager who also worked for Harvey Milk, the famed first elected official in California who identified as gay. Rivaldo died in 2007 after a lengthy battle with AIDS, hepatitis C, liver cancer and diabetes, according to The Bay Area Reporter.
He was “an extraordinary person who always would talk about Bay Area, about the coalition and he would always talk about the need to recognize that within the community there are real hierarchies based on race,” Harris recalled.
Elizabeth Warren said on Thursday night that she was wrong, in 2012, to say “I don’t think it’s a good use of taxpayer dollars” to pay for a transgender inmate’s gender confirmation surgery.
Asked by Chris Cuomo if she regretted that remark, the Massachusetts senator answered simply, “Yup.”
It’s not the first time Warren has been asked about the comment. In January, her presidential campaign in a statement to ThinkProgress, spelled out her new position.
“Senator Warren supports access to medically necessary services, including transition-related surgeries,” the campaign said. “This includes procedures taking place at the VA, in the military, or at correctional facilities.”
Elizabeth Warren tackled the difficult question of how Democrats could achieve the passage of the Equality Act, which has been passed by the Democrat-led House but has stalled in the Republican-controlled Senate, by touting the growing power of the LGBTQ vote.
Keeping it real on the fact that the Equality Act is going nowhere as long as Mitch McConnell is the Senate majority leader, Warren first noted that America is going to have to elect more Democrats to the Senate if they want to see passage. (The legislation would protect members of the LGBTQ community from discrimination in the workplace, in housing, in healthcare and many other parts of their life).
“So I’m willing to continue to push Mitch McConnell right now,” Warren said. “But my number one goal is to make sure he is not the majority leader come January 2020,” she said to applause.
The Human Rights Campaign estimates that there are now at least 11 million LGBTQ voters across America. They also worked with the data-analytics firm Catalist to identify some 57 million so-called “equality voters” who support an agenda of inclusion. You can read more about their data here: https://assets2.hrc.org/files/documents/SuperTuesdayVotersSnapshot100819.pdf
Elizabeth Warren has a plan for responding to people who come up to her at rallies to say, “my faith teaches me that marriage is between one man and one woman.”
The question came from an audience member, channeling a phrase often invoked by marriage equality opponents who, as he put it, describe themselves as “old fashioned.”
Then she twisted the knife: “If you can find one.”
WATCH HERE:
Pete Buttigieg said that using faith as a reason to discriminate against LGBTQ people “makes God smaller” and is an “insult to faith.”
The South Bend, Indiana, mayor often talks about his personal faith – he is Episcopalian – and his sexuality. On Thursday, he was asked whether he can point to any teaching in faith that allows “restaurant owners can deny service based on so-called religious liberty.”
Buttigieg then reflected on his own view of faith.
“I have to say, when religion is used in that way, to me, it makes God smaller,” he said. “It, to me, is an insult not only to us as LGBTQ people, but I think it’s an insult to faith to believe that it could be used to hurt people in that way.”
Pete Buttigieg said he would overhaul rules prohibiting gay men who have had sex within the last year from donating blood – recalling a poignant moment when his office led an annual blood drive.
Buttigieg continued: “So when I’m president, I will direct the FDA to revise the rules based on evidence, based on individual risk factors, and without regard to the prejudice that has driven the current policy.”
Pete Buttigieg heralded protesters who interrupted his entrance to the CNN Equality Town Hall by calling for greater attention to the violence against transgender women of color.
It was hard to hear exactly what the protesters were shouting, but at least one said. “People are dying,” before they were escorted out. The South Bend, Indiana, mayor opened his remarks by saying that he shared the concerns of protesters, who contended that the press has not paid enough attention to the uptick in violence against black transgender women.
Buttigieg added that the protest was a reminder of how much diversity there is within the LGBTQ community.
“I’m very mindful of the fact that my experience as a gay man—as a white gay man—there are dimensions of what it’s like to be a black gay woman that I also do not understand. But I also think the diversity within the LGBTQ-plus community is part of what we have to offer right now.”
The statistics about the level of violence against black transgender women are difficult to measure, but the Human Rights Campaign has closely tracked the incidents and you can read more about recent victims of deadly violence at their website.
In 2018, the Human Rights Campaign tracked the deaths of at least 26 people; so far this year they say at least 19 transgender people have either been fatally shot or killed.
WATCH HERE:
Pete Buttigieg responded to a question about the struggle to be “the right kind of gay” on Thursday by saying directly that “there is no right or wrong way to be gay, to be queer, to be trans.”
Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, came out in 2015 and is the first top tier gay presidential candidate. Buttigieg, as the questioner noted, has faced questions about whether he is an “an adequate representative of the queer community.”
Buttigieg said on Thursday that his coming out experience – one that happened later in life than many others and when he was already mayor – is different, making him “very mindful of the fact that my experience as a gay man, but as a white, cisgendered gay man is there are dimensions, for example, of what it’s like to be a black gay woman that I also do not understand.”
That diversity in the LGBTQ community, Buttigieg said, is a strength:
Buttigieg added: “There is no right or wrong way to be gay, to be queer, to be trans, and I hope that our own community, even as we struggle to define what our identity means, defines it in way that lets everybody know that they belong among us.”
Pete Buttigieg, mayor of South Bend, Indiana, vowed to fight for the Equality Act, which he said is needed to protect LGBTQ people from discrimination.
Buttigieg went on to say he would sign an Equality Act to protect LGBTQ people if he’s elected president.
“I will fight for that, and I will sign it the moment that it hits my desk,” he said.
Buttigieg said the principle of equality is “being tested right now in the courts under the Civil Rights Act.”
Why this matters: The US Supreme Court heard this week a trio of cases revolving around a federal statute, Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which prohibits job discrimination “because of sex.”
After two hours of often-testy questioning on Tuesday, there was no clear majority to side with two gay men fired from their jobs, as a skydiving instructor and county child welfare services coordinator, and a transgender woman who lost her position as a funeral home director.
The only one in the five-justice conservative wing who expressed some interest aligning with the four liberals was Justice Neil Gorsuch. Yet while Gorsuch said it might be “close” that Title VII’s text covers gay or transgender individuals, he worried about the “massive social upheaval” that could come from such a ruling.
