New Republic - In late March, a group of Republicans in California sparked controversy for their plan to host an event dubbed “A Normal Gay Social.” The party referenced something JD Vance said before the 2024 election: “I wouldn’t be surprised if me and Trump won … the normal gay guy vote,” Vance told podcast host Joe Rogan, “because they just wanted to be left the hell alone.” Normal gays, he explained, opposed “crazy stuff,” like prescribing puberty blockers to transgender minors.
In the end, Trump drew only 12 percent of the LGBTQ vote, a two-point drop from 2020 and 10 points lower than Mitt Romney in 2012. Yet Vance’s remarks highlight the GOP’s seemingly contradictory relationship to queer citizenship. While there is a long history of gay, lesbian, and transgender conservatives, national Republican candidates tend not to acknowledge them. Furthermore, the GOP has aggressively pushed sexual and gender minorities out of public life with bans on books, Pride celebrations, school curricula, and transgender therapies. Legislative efforts to ban, or render meaningless, the chief marker of “normality”—gay marriage—are moving forward in Michigan and several other states.
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