How Trump, Biden compare on LGBTQ+ issues

This week:?Nine examples of 2020 election denial fallout … Fact-checking Gov. Doug Burgum on Joe Biden’s natural gas pipeline actions … Our deep dive into a ballot measure to repeal Alaska’s new ranked choice voting system … Conservative pundits, publications share deceptively edited video of Biden in Italy … Biden hits Trump for high murders, leaves out pandemic unrest

Where Trump, Biden stand on LGBTQ+ issues

A week from today, President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump will meet for the first presidential debate.

PolitiFact will help voters prepare for the June 27, 9 p.m. ET event with a series of stories outlining the expected talking points and comparing the candidates’ on important issues.

Our first story focuses on their records on LGBTQ+ issues.

Biden kicked off Pride Month this year with a message to LGBTQ+ Americans, posting "your president and my entire Administration have your back."

Former President Trump has been quiet on social media when it comes to LGBTQ+ issues and railed against trans women’s participation in sports at a recent campaign rally in Vegas.

If it wasn’t already clear, these top two presidential candidates hold distinct views on LGBTQ+ issues.

Throughout his presidency, Biden has used his office to express support for LGBTQ+ people, celebrate Transgender Day of Visibility and Pride Month, and regularly make social media calls about the issues LGBTQ+ people face. His administration has worked to establish antidiscrimination protections for sexual orientation and gender identity, as well as greater access to gender-affirming care.

As a result, he has earned the endorsement of major LGBTQ+ advocacy groups such as the Human Rights Campaign.

Trump’s record includes dismantling discrimination protections and placing restrictions on transgender servicemembers.

LGBTQ+ issues were a small part of Trump’s presidency, but his 2020 campaign included "Trump Pride'' outreach targeting LGBTQ+ supporters. In 2020, Log Cabin Republicans, which represents LGBTQ+ conservatives, endorsed him. The group cited Trump administration programs that addressed the ongoing HIV epidemic and a campaign to end worldwide criminalization of homosexuality. Trump also appointed the first openly gay Cabinet secretary, Richard Grenell, who served as acting director of national intelligence.

Although Trump has been more accepting on some LGBTQ+ issues than his Republican counterparts, most of his stances, especially regarding transgender Americans, stand in?contrast to Biden’s.

Marriage equality

Both Trump and Biden had evolved on the issue of marriage equality before arriving at a similar stance that supports gay rights.?

Biden first publicly declared his support for same-sex marriage in a 2012 ‘Meet the Press" appearance, saying that marriages "at their root are about" love "whether they are marriages of lesbians or gay men or heterosexuals."

In December 2022, Biden signed the Respect for Marriage Act, federally recognizing same-sex and interracial marriages, and creating legal protections if the Supreme Court were to overturn its 2015 precedent on marriage equality. Across his administration, several departments including the State Department, Department of Veterans Affairs and the Social Security Administration, updated policies to extend benefits to same-sex couples.?

And although Biden has suggested he supported gay couples since his youth, his earlier policy decisions reflect otherwise. As a U.S. senator in 1996, Biden voted in favor of the Defense of Marriage Act, which defined marriage as only between a man and a woman. In his 2008 vice presidential campaign, Biden expressed his support for equal benefits for same-sex couples, but not for legal marriage.?

In interviews prior to his presidency, Trump opposed same-sex marriage and said he supported "traditional marriage." In 2016, he said he would consider appointing justices who would overturn the Supreme Court’s 2015 decision in Obergefell v. Hodges, which legalized same-sex marriage across the U.S., but changed his position shortly after he was elected when he described the issue as "settled."

Advocating for or against same-sex marriage was not a significant part of Trump’s presidency or political platform, which, as some noted, set him apart from other Republicans at the time.

LGBTQ+ members of the military

Biden has implemented policies allowing LGBTQ+ people to serve openly in the military. Trump aimed to restrict military participation by trans people.?

In a July 2017 tweet, Trump declared that "the United States Government will not accept or allow transgender individuals to serve in any capacity in the U.S. Military." This policy aimed to reverse a 2016 Obama era policy allowing trans people to serve openly.

In 2023, Trump claimed that he "banned transgender" people from serving in the military, and we rated it Mostly True. That’s because after his policy was announced, it faced numerous legal challenges that delayed its implementation. In April 2019, the ban went into effect allowing active transgender members to serve openly only if they had already received a diagnosis of gender dysphoria. Active members who received a diagnosis after the policy’s implementation date would have to serve under the sex assigned to them at birth. And people diagnosed with gender dysphoria or who had already undergone a transition could not enlist.

This policy continued until January 2021, when Biden rescinded it in an executive order a few days after taking office, and the policy allowing military participation for out trans people was published by the Defense Department in March 2021. Biden’s administration has also overseen an expansion of support for trans veterans and provided gender-affirming medical care for service members.?

Trump has promised to reinstate a "ban" on transgender people in the military if he is reelected.

That said, Biden’s current stance on LGBTQ+ members of the military represents a slight shift from his earlier years as a lawmaker. In 1993, he ended up voting in favor of a defense spending bill even though it implemented the "don’t ask don’t tell" policy requiring LGBTQ+ service members not to disclose their sexual orientation and prohibiting officers from asking.?

During Biden’s tenure as vice president, President Barack Obama signed a law repealing "don’t ask, don’t tell," a decision Biden has celebrated.

Keep reading for how the candidates compare on gender-affirming care and LGBTQ+ discrimination protection.

— Grace Abels

WATCH: You can watch PolitiFact reporter Grace Abels and The 19th reporter Orion Rummler discuss their coverage of LGBTQ+ policy and misinformation on Instagram. Check out the conversation.

Fact-checks of the week

• RFK Jr. distorts court ruling. Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., celebrated an appellate court decision in favor of Los Angeles school employees who opposed COVID-19 vaccination mandates. "The ranks of the conspiracy theorists now include the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, which just ruled Covid vax mandates unconstitutional because the vaccine does not stop transmission," Kennedy wrote in a June 12 Facebook post. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals on June 7 ruled only that the lawsuit filed against the Los Angeles Unified School District could move forward. It overturned a lower court decision to dismiss the lawsuit, which was brought by the nonprofit Health Freedom Defense Fund, which advocates against vaccine mandates, and employees who opposed the district’s COVID-19 vaccination mandate. Two law experts told PolitiFact the court did not directly address the constitutionality of vaccine mandates. We rated Kennedy’s claim False .
• Deceptively edited video of Biden at G-7. Social media posts, including from The New York Post, The Daily Mail and "Jesse Watters Primetime," claimed that video showed President Joe Biden wandering away from other world leaders at the G7 Summit in Italy at an event in which skydivers landed carrying flags of each country in attendance. The claim is False . Longer video and video from other angles clearly shows Biden was speaking to skydivers on the ground before the Italian prime minister tapped him for a group photo. The New York Post edited a video posted on X by RNC Research to cut one skydiver out of the frame.?
• Missing context in Biden’s murder claim. President Joe Biden wrote in a campaign email that his predecessor, Donald Trump, “oversaw the largest increase in murder in U.S. history.” We rated this claim Half True. Murders increased by nearly 30% in 2020, the largest single-year jump in FBI data, but more context is needed. In the final year of the Trump administration, the COVID-19 pandemic and the killing of George Floyd caused a lot of economic and social upheaval. Experts say these events contributed to the sharp rise. Murder rates continued to increase at the start of the Biden administration, but began to drop in 2022.

Lies and consequences: 9 examples of 2020 election falsehoods fallout

A 2022 movie and book called "2,000 Mules" outlined what they maintained was credible evidence of a widespread effort by people — "mules" — illegally depositing ballots into ballot?

The film made a splash in conservative circles , where clips of the movie’s creator, Dinesh D’Souza, populated social media . Journalists from outlets including PolitiFact , roundly debunked its claims .

On May 31, with months until the next presidential election, Salem Media Group Inc., the company that produced the book and film, issued an apology — specifically for falsely representing Georgia voter Mark Andrews as having engaged in illegal voting.

"It was never our intent that the publication of the 2000 Mules film and book would harm Mr. Andrews," Salem’s statement said, before announcing that the company had removed the film from its platforms and would no longer distribute the book or the movie.

The about-face didn’t come from nowhere. Andrews had sued Salem over the movie, arguing he’d been falsely accused of election crimes and the accusations led to threats against Andrews and his family. Salem settled the lawsuit for a "significant" undisclosed amount.

With its settlement and apology, Salem joined a growing list of groups and people who’ve faced legal consequences, often from defamation lawsuits, for spreading election fraud falsehoods.

"Defamation law has been one of the rare successful tools in combating rampant, democracy-harming lies," said RonNell Andersen Jones, a University of Utah law professor and First Amendment scholar. "Courts declaring that these were lies — and ordering those who told the lies to pay substantial damages — is a win in our ongoing battle for shared objective truth in a democracy."?

Here are more examples of the fallout from spreading 2020 presidential election misinformation.?

1. Gateway Pundit, a conservative news website, declared bankruptcy amid defamation lawsuits: The Gateway Pundit’s parent company, TGP Communications, filed for bankruptcy in April, citing what it called "lawfare attacks," seemingly a reference to the lawsuits.?

PolitiFact and other news organizations have rebutted election falsehoods The Gateway Pundit promoted. The website is facing at least two defamation lawsuits — one brought by Georgia election workers and another by Eric Coomer, a former executive at Dominion Voting Systems, an election equipment company. Both lawsuits argue that The Gateway Pundit published false stories accusing the plaintiffs of election crimes.

In a statement posted online, Gateway Pundit founder Jim Hoft denied fault . When contacted by PolitiFact, Hoft said his organization is "very proud" of its record; he also criticized PolitiFact and its coverage.?

2. MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell ordered to pay $5 million: In 2021, Lindell launched a "Prove Mike Wrong" challenge, offering $5 million to anyone who could disprove that data he provided showed Chinese interference in the 2020 presidential election. Software developer Robert Zeidman took the challenge and found the data didn’t prove election interference. When Zeidman did not win the challenge, he filed for arbitration. An arbitration panel ruled in April 2021 that Lindell owed Zeidman $5 million plus interest. A federal judge affirmed that decision Feb. 21.?

Dominion Voting Systems and Smartmatic , an election software company, both of which were the target of false election fraud claims, are also suing Lindell.

3. Fox News settled Dominion Voting Systems defamation lawsuit for $787.5 million: Dominion Voting Systems sued Fox News for $1.6 billion , arguing the network defamed Dominion by broadcasting multiple false claims that its voting technology had rigged the 2020 presidential election.?

The lawsuit settlement in April 2023 came hours before the trial’s opening arguments were set to begin. In a statement, Fox acknowledged "the court’s rulings finding certain claims about Dominion to be false."

A few months later, the state of Oregon and New York City’s pension funds sued Fox Corp . for failing to uphold its duty to shareholders by persistently broadcasting 2020 presidential election falsehoods that opened the network to defamation lawsuits. That lawsuit is ongoing, as is another defamation lawsuit brought by Smartmatic .

Check out the rest of the lawsuits and settlements following the 2020 election.??

— Madison Czopek

Alaska voters gave themselves the power to rank candidates. Why do some people want to repeal that?

Four years after about 51% of Alaskans voted to adopt a new election system and two years after the new system debuted, some people in the state want to hit the undo button.

A measure that aims to repeal Alaska’s system, which was first used in 2022 and includes open primaries and ranked-choice voting, will appear on the November ballot if it survives a legal challenge.

If a majority of voters approves the ballot measure, Alaska will revert to primaries controlled by the Republican and Democratic parties — where the parties can choose whether to allow ballot access to independent voters who are unaffiliated with either party — and general elections where voters cast ballots for a single candidate.

Proponents of Alaska’s open primary and ranked-choice voting system said it makes elections more competitive and improved representation because candidates across the political spectrum have been elected. Critics said the new system lacks transparency and confuses voters.

Whatever the ballot measure’s fate, Alaskans will use this system for the 2024 election to decide the state’s sole U.S. House seat and dozens of state legislative races. Meanwhile, voters in two more states will consider ballot measures to adopt ranked-choice voting systems.

Here’s what to know about how Alaska’s open primary and ranked-choice voting system:

Alaska adopted an open top-four primary system . That means two things for primary elections:

• All candidates, regardless of political party, appear on one ballot.
• The four candidates in each race with the most votes advance to the general election.

Voters can choose one candidate per race. When there are fewer than four candidates in a race, all of them move on to the general election, regardless of the votes cast.

Then, in general elections, voters have ranked-choice voting, ranking candidates in order of preference rather than choosing a single candidate. They do this by filling in ovals on the ballot for their first-, second-, third- and fourth-choice candidates, from any political party.

If one candidate receives more than 50% of first-choice votes in the initial count, that candidate wins.

If no candidate meets that threshold, the counting extends to additional rounds. The candidate with the fewest first-choice votes in round one is eliminated. Voters who ranked the now-eliminated candidate first will have their votes reallocated to their second-choice candidate. This vote redistribution process continues until one candidate exceeds 50% of the vote.

Unlike most states , a majority of Alaska voters are not affiliated with the two major political parties. As of April 2022, state voter registration data showed about 62% of voters were registered as "nonpartisan," "undeclared" or with a minor political party. About 24% of Alaskan voters were registered Republicans and 13% were registered Democrats.

Alaska was the second state after Maine to adopt ranked-choice voting in federal and statewide elections. Dozens of U.S. cities, including New York City, also use ranked-choice voting in municipal elections, according to FairVote , a nonpartisan national group supporting ranked-choice voting.

Alaska and four other states — California, Louisiana, Nebraska and Washington — hold what the National Conference of State Legislature calls "multi-party primaries" in which all candidates, regardless of party affiliation, are listed on the same ballot. Alaska’s system is more commonly referred to as an "open top-four primary."

This fall, voters in Nevada and Oregon will vote on ballot measures to adopt election systems with ranked-choice voting for federal and some statewide races.

Read more about who’s behind the repeal efforts and why part of the argument against the new system doesn’t add up.

— Sara Swann

Quick links to more fact-checks & reports

• North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum exaggerated President Joe Biden’s actions on Nord Stream 2 and natural gas exports.
• Claims that a new video shows former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi took “responsibility” for not calling the National Guard on Jan. 6, 2021, rate False .
• To ban or not to ban: Trump’s and Biden’s mixed messages on TikTok.
• Check out the Biden Promise Tracker , with new updates on the progress of Joe Biden’s campaign promises on contraception coverage , tariffs on Chinese personal protective equipment , and the Community Oriented Policing Program .

Do you smell smoke??

Here's your Pants on Fire fact-check of the week:?Despite a screenshot of Ancestry.com claiming that Joe Biden died in 2018 in Guantánamo, Cuba, the president is in fact still alive.

See what else we've rated Pants on Fire this week.?

What are you listening for in next week's debate? Send me an email at [email protected] .

Special thanks to our summer interns, Duke University student journalists Mia Penner and Ranjan Jindal , who helped compile the stories in this week's newsletter. Their reports on the Biden Promise Tracker are listed in the quick links section.

Thanks for reading!

Katie Sanders

PolitiFact Editor-in-Chief