Amid Pride Month, a new Gallup poll reports that “moral acceptance” of LGBTQ+ identities in the United States is backsliding: Only 62% of Americans support same-sex marriage, compared to nearly 70% in 2022 and 2023, and approval of gender changes has plummeted to 38% from a 46% high in 2021.

How did this decline occur? According to Gallup, Republicans are “largely responsible,” with only 5% siding with the right to transition genders, and party attitudes on “gay and lesbian relations” at the lowest since 2011.

“It means that we have to be even more vigilant, and to show and to counter the competing messages around why marriage equality is wrong,” said Janson Wu, senior vice president of program development and sustainability at The Trevor Project. “And we know that now — [with the] over 20 years of experience that loving and committed same-sex couples have been marrying, have been raising children, have been contributing to communities — we’ve all been better and stronger for that.”

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GOP backlash to Pride Month has been especially prevalent this year, with several state governors choosing to rechristen June as “Nuclear Family Month” or “Strong Families Month.” In Arkansas, Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders selected “Fidelity Month” in direct opposition to LGBTQ+ festivities, intending the name as a celebration of “God, family, community, and country.”

“I’ve seen these declarations, and frankly, I think they’re hurtful. They’re petty,” said Polly Crozier, director of family advocacy at GLAD Law, GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders. “They’re trying to put some families ahead of others. I think they are really unfortunate. I think that so many people see this as just frankly ridiculous and a waste of time and that there’s really a stronger value in our communities that every child is equal, every family is equal.”

President Donald Trump’s administration has frequently targeted trans Americans in his second term, with one highly-publicized Pentagon policy last year banning transgender troops from military service. Now, in Rhode Island, the Department of Justice is requesting hospital records of minors who have received gender-affirming care, which, according to Crozier, is “important, life-saving, necessary care.”

“Many people have filed lawsuits against these incredibly improper subpoenas,” Crozier said. “Many hospitals have maintained their programs and are still doing the care, despite these threats. So I think fighting back works, and we’ve got to keep fighting.”

In Massachusetts, with Pride Month celebrations in full swing, a memorial service was held for one of the state’s towering LGBTQ+ pioneers, the late U.S. Rep. Barney Frank, who was the first member of Congress to voluntarily come out as gay. Nevertheless, Grace Sterling Stowell, executive director of BAGLY, the Boston Alliance of LGBTQ+ Youth, assessed his legacy as a mixed one, due to his stripping of transgender protections from the 2007 Employee Non-Discrimination Act.

“He did so much good for our community and moved the work forward in so many ways that it was also particularly painful the times when he advocated for a strategy that many of us didn’t agree with,” Stowell said. “And for all of us in the trans community, that was very painful to feel like we’ve been thrown under the bus yet again.”

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Guests

  • Janson Wu, senior vice president of program development and sustainability at The Trevor Project
  • Grace Sterling Stowell, executive director of BAGLY, the Boston Alliance of LGBTQ+ Youth
  • Polly Crozier, director of family advocacy at GLAD Law, GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders

Stories featured on this week’s roundtable