CHARLOTTE, N.C. — A gathering of roughly 100 Donald Trump supporters on Tuesday evening was intended to woo LGBTQ voters. But among the few gay men in attendance, LGBTQ issues were not a top priority.
“I’m not voting because of marriage equality, LGBTQ rights,” said Gage West, 23. “I’m voting because I want more money in my wallet. I want my community safe, and I want to be able to raise a family and know that they’re going to be safe in the future.”
In the half-empty hotel ballroom where the event took place, there were no rainbow flags, preferred pronouns were mocked and gay men were vastly outnumbered by their straight counterparts.
The event was one of several similar gatherings held in swing states this month by LGBTQ conservative group the Log Cabin Republicans, dubbed the “Trump UNITY” tour.
Lara Trump, co-chair of the Republican National Committee and daughter-in-law of the former president, was among the speakers. Though nowhere in her approximately 25-minute speech did she bring up LGBTQ issues.
Instead, she spoke about why she decided to take on a role in the RNC, claimed “there was something nefarious” about the 2020 election results without giving any evidence, and shared remarks that didn’t appear to align with the event’s theme of unity.
“Right now we are in a fight of good versus evil,” she said, referring to the upcoming election. “We are fighting for the future, not just of the country, but the entire world.”
Several LGBTQ attendees at the event, nearly all of whom were white gay men, told NBC News they were unbothered by LGBTQ issues being mentioned only briefly or not acknowledged at all by the evening’s speakers.
Trump UNITY events have been held in the last two weeks in major cities of battleground states, including Georgia, Wisconsin and Michigan. Headliners have included conservative influencers, Republican officials and Trump family members Lara Trump, Donald Trump Jr. and Marla Maples, the former president’s second wife.
Charlotte’s event featured Andrew Wheeler, who led the Environmental Protection Agency during the Trump administration; former acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker; and former acting Director of National Intelligence Ric Grenell, who is openly gay and has spoken at all of the Trump UNITY events. Prior speakers have also included Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., and former Rep. Aaron Schock, R-Ill., who voted in favor of anti-LGBTQ legislation while he was in Congress and came out as gay years later.
Trump has not attended any of the LGBTQ-led events himself and his campaign has not publicly announced any plans to do so. Throughout the campaign, he has worked to court other groups of voters, attending events catered to women and Asian American, Black and Latino voters.
The Trump campaign did not return multiple requests for comment.
On the few occasions LGBTQ issues were mentioned Tuesday night, speakers praised Trump’s appointment of Grenell to a Cabinet position — making Grenell the first openly gay person to hold such a role — and lauded the same-sex weddings held at Trump’s Palm Beach resort, Mar-a-Lago, in recent years.
Trump fundraiser Bill White, who also spoke at the Charlotte event and is openly gay, pushed back on naysayers who question the former president’s commitment to the LGBTQ community. He challenged critics to attend one of Trump’s rallies, where Village People’s “Y.M.C.A.” frequently blasts out of the speakers.
“What does the guy do at every rally?” White said at the Charlotte event. “He puts his hands in the air and does his dance moves to the unofficial gay national anthem for crying out loud.”
White then recorded the Charlotte audience dancing to the song, which he said he would later share with the former president.
When asked what they hoped a second Trump presidency might accomplish for LGBTQ Americans, gay Trump supporters said they believed society and the government were already free of prejudice against the LGBTQ community.
Don Webber, 57, who works for a financial services company, said the LGBTQ community needs to “get away from that victim mentality.”
“We’re past that. We’ve reached that level of equality,” Webber said. “To me, and perhaps it’s my age, my focus is more on my kids and the grandkids, the economy, the safety of our borders.”
Rob Smith, a conservative social media influencer who has built a following off being a gay Black Trump supporter, and spoke at the event on Tuesday, agreed.
“We are federally protected from discrimination — that is a fact. We have the right to get married. We have the right to serve openly in the military,” Smith, 42, told the crowd. “So, I think that fundamentally the problems that this country are facing are far greater than any small affinity group.”
Federal legislation that would amend the Civil Rights Act to include anti-discrimination protections for Americans on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity, known as the Equality Act, was blocked by Republicans in Congress in 2019 when Trump was president.
Smith dismissed the Equality Act push as “ridiculous.”
Charles Moran, president of the Log Cabin Republicans, acknowledged that Tuesday’s night audience was comprised of mostly straight people, estimating gays made up about 30% of attendees.
“It’s not just about gays and lesbians. It’s about the communities that care about equality,” Moran said. “And, again, suburban women, youth voters — these are core constituencies of the 2024 election cycle. We don’t just have to pander and run to gays.”
Still, Moran and other event organizers said they believe Trump could secure up to 50% of gay voters in the upcoming election, without providing figures explaining their reasoning. Millions of American adults identify as lesbian or gay, according to Gallup.
In a Human Rights Campaign poll conducted in August, 74% of LGBTQ voters say they plan to or are leaning toward voting for Vice President Kamala Harris, 7.5% for Trump and the remainder for third party write-ins.
Brandon Wolf, a spokesperson for the advocacy group, which has endorsed and is fundraising for Harris, denounced the Trump UNITY events and accused the former president of leading “the most anti-LGBTQ+ administration in history.”
“Some people really like proximity to power, and Donald Trump is someone who peddles power in exchange for things constantly,” Wolf said. “It’s unfortunate that you have groups like the Log Cabin Republicans who are willing to sell out the community in exchange to be able to cozy up to someone like Donald Trump.”
As president, Trump banned transgender Americans from enlisting in the U.S. military. His administration also ended some discrimination protections for LGBTQ people in school and in health care settings. Both policies were reversed during the Biden administration.
If elected again, Trump has vowed to reinstate his former policy barring trans people from enlisting in the military, to abolish gender-affirming care for transgender minors — which he equated to “child abuse” and “child sexual mutilation” — and to roll back Title IX protections for transgender students “on Day One.” In recent weeks, he has also repeated false claims that students are undergoing transition-related surgeries during the school day. His campaign has aired ads in recent weeks slamming Vice President Kamala Harris’ prior support for inmates receiving transition-related medical care in federal prisons.
Harris has actively supported gay rights throughout her career and publicly backed same-sex marriage years before Democratic leadership did so. She is seen by queer advocates as having one of the most, if not the most, LGBTQ-friendly policy record of any presidential candidate. Still, when asked in an interview with NBC News on Tuesday whether she believes trans Americans should have access to gender-affirming care, Harris appeared to dodge the question, first saying she would follow the law and then saying: “That is a decision that doctors will make in terms of what is medically necessary.”
Sam Alleman, the Harris campaign’s LGBTQ engagement director, said in a statement that Harris is the “only leader in this race” fighting for LGBTQ people and that the “campaign is not taking a single vote for granted.”
“Our community knows better than to support someone who has spent every chance he got as president, tearing us down,” he said. “Donald Trump’s shallow, eleventh-hour outreach to LGBTQ+ voters is a desperate attempt to distract voters from his plan to roll back discrimination protections for LGBTQ+ Americans and give the government control over our bodies.”
Prior to the UNITY tour, the Log Cabin Republicans fundraised for the former president twice in the spring. Former first lady Melania Trump was paid more than $230,000 for attending the events, according to one of the former president’s recent financial disclosure forms. In his speech on Tuesday, Grenell said that none of the speakers were paid to speak at the Trump UNITY events.
The remaining LGBTQ-led events will be held in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. Gatherings scheduled in Arizona and Nevada were removed from the group’s social media accounts this week, which Moran said was due to “scheduling conflicts.”
