Some prominent speakers on the first night of the Republican National Convention leaned into anti-LGBTQ rhetoric, doubling down on the party’s 2024 platform, which calls for keeping “men out of women’s sports” and ending “gender insanity leftist”.
His Monday speeches especially targeted trans and gender non-conforming people.
“Let me state this clearly: There are only two genders,” said Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga.
Rep. John James, R-Michigan, criticized transgender women in women’s sports, a popular talking point among conservatives.
“Our daughters were sold on hope and are now being forced onto biological male playing fields and locker rooms,” James said.
Minutes earlier, Senator Ron Johnson, Republican of Wisconsin, referred to another prominent conservative target, including in Florida’s so-called Don’t Say Gay bill: teaching gender ideology or sexual orientation in schools.
“This fringe agenda includes biological males competing against girls and the sexualization and indoctrination of our children,” he said as the audience booed.
Monday’s speeches come against the backdrop of a series of anti-LGBTQ incidents, including anti-Pride flag rhetoric and the cutting of Pride Month banners.
Anti-LGBTQ legislation has increased in recent years. Last year, at least 75 anti-LGBTQ laws — including those targeting gender-affirming care and school sports — were enacted in 23 states, according to an NBC News analysis of American Civil Liberties Union data.
Before the convention, party members published their platform, which states that Republicans will “end the gender insanity of the left.”
“We will keep men out of women’s sports, ban taxpayer funding for gender reassignment surgeries and stop taxpayer-funded schools from promoting gender transition, reverse Biden’s radical rewrite of the Title IX Education Regulations, and restore protections for women and girls”, says the document. he said.
Biden’s campaign criticized North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, the Republican candidate for governor, in X for speaking out, pointing to his past comments about LGBTQ people, which he did not repeat in Monday’s speech.
“There is no reason for anyone anywhere in America to tell any child about transgenderism, homosexuality — any of that crap,” Robinson said in 2021.
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