Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.), an openly gay man, said the LGBTQ community faces dangerous territory in California’s current political climate. The interview was published Friday.
“It’s a really dangerous time for our community,” Garcia said in an interview with LGBTQ Nation about the Supreme Court’s conservative leanings. “That’s why we need to be honest, work hard, and focus on winning the White House, flipping the House, and making sure we do everything we can to organize in these states.”
Garcia, a member of the pro-LGBTQ Congressional Equality Caucus, was elected to Congress in the 2022 midterm elections.
“We need more radical gay people in Congress,” Garcia said in an interview. “I’m proud and openly queer. We have 10 gay members in Congress. We need more. We need more people who are aggressive and will stand up for their community. They’ll talk about trans rights, they’ll talk about health care, they’ll talk about attacks on their community, and they’ll do it proudly and openly.”
Data released Thursday by LGBTQ media advocacy group GLAAD revealed that support for equal rights for the LGBTQ community has declined from the previous year among non-LGBTQ adults surveyed by the group. From 2023 to 2024, support fell from 84 percent to 80 percent, according to GLAAD’s annual report, “Accelerating Acceptance.”
“While acceptance of LGBTQ people remains at majority levels, this year’s data is a loud alarm bell about threats to this progress and the freedoms all Americans cherish,” GLAAD president and CEO Sarah Kate Ellis said in a statement Thursday. press release.
In recent years, right-wing figures have stepped up attacks on the transgender community, seeking to ban gender-affirming care for minors and bar transgender athletes from playing on teams that align with their gender identity.
An earlier report by the Williams Institute at the University of California, Los Angeles found that 93 percent of transgender youth ages 13 to 17 live in states with laws or proposed legislation that “prohibit access to gender-affirming care, participation in sports, use of restrooms and other single-sex facilities, or affirmation of gender through the use of pronouns.”
