Dems will be agreeable at LGBTQ forum

It will be a presidential “debate” where nobody disagrees with each other— which by itself would be historymaking even if the topic weren’t LGBTQ issues.

Nine Democratic candidates for the White House will compete to see who can be the most proLGBTQ rights in Thursday night’s 4½hour forum in Los Angeles, which will be shown starting at 4:30 p.m. on CNN.

It wasn’t always this way. The evolution from Republicans’ use of samesex marriage as a wedge issue in the 2004 presidential race to Democrats’ embrace of LGBTQ people as a key demographic has happened in nanoseconds in political time.

None of the Democrats at Thursday’s forum will question whether legalizing samesex marriage was a good idea. None will criticize genderneutral bathrooms. None think transgender people should be banned from the military.

Some may introduce themselves by including their preferred pronouns. That’s what one Democratic candidate did at a recent campaign stop in Oakland, saying, “My name is Beto O’Rourke. Pronouns — he, him.”

That’s a huge change from as recently as five years ago, when polls showed voters

were roughly evenly split on samesex marriage, said Geoff Wetrosky, campaigns director for the Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest LGBTQ advocacy group and a cosponsor of Thursday’s forum.

The only top candidates who won’t be there Thursday evening are Bernie Sanders, who is recovering from a heart attack, and Andrew Yang, who cited scheduling conflicts. Those who will: Joe Biden, Cory Booker, Pete Buttigieg, Julián Castro, Kamala Harris, Amy Klobuchar, Tom Steyer, Elizabeth Warren and O’Rourke.

Instead of shunning gay issues, several candidates have organized debate watch parties in gay bars this year. Many rushed out LGBTQthemed policy papers in time for Pride month in June.

In 2016, it was a big deal when Hillary Clinton marched in a Pride parade in New York days after the mass shooting at Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando, Fla. This year, 10 Democrats attended the Capital City Pride Festival in Des Moines in firstcaucusinthenation Iowa.

“Now, it’s like you have to do it. It was like a cattle call,” said Lucas Acosta, a spokesman for the Human Rights Campaign.

The candidates not only recognize that there are 11 million LGBTQ voters nationwide, but also that they have a 70% turnout rate and that 82% backed Democrats in 2018, according to exit polls.

Plus, there are what the Human Rights Campaign has identified as 57 million “equality voters” — people who “prioritize LGBTQinclusive policies” when casting their ballots. Those voters helped to swing several of the seven GOPheld House seats in California that Democrats flipped, according to the group. They account for an estimated 23% of the registered voters in Iowa, 43% in earlyvoting Nevada and 57% in California.

Organizers expect those voters to be even more fired up after enduring nearly three years of the Trump administration’s policies. Many are angered by President Trump’s ban on transgender people openly serving in the military. Others are upset by the Department of Education’s refusal to allow transgender students to use bathrooms and locker rooms based on their gender identity. They’re concerned that Trump appointed two justices to the Supreme Court who don’t have a history of being friendly to the community.

Others are still reeling that Trump chose as his vice president Mike Pence, who has a long history of supporting antiLGBTQ legislation.

“The LGTBTQ community is at a crossroads, and we need to choose a leader who can defeat Donald Trump and Mike Pence,” Wetrosky said.

So how do you choose a candidate when they all agree? Buttigieg isn’t necessarily the favorite just because he’s openly gay, for the same reasons that neither Booker nor Harris has the African American vote locked up and Castro is not the automatic pick of Latinos.

For some, choosing a favorite will be based on the candidates’ more subtle tells. For example, all of the 2020 Democrats support the Equality Act, which would give federal civil rights protection to LGBTQ people. In 28 states, people can now be fired, denied services or evicted because of their gender identity or sexual orientation. The Democraticmajority House passed the measure, but it’s going nowhere in the GOPled Senate.

“It’s a matter of priorities,” Acosta said. “Is passing the Equality Act a day one priority or a day 200 priority?”

Others will listen for candidates’ grasp of issues that get less publicity, such as the high rate of homelessness among LGBTQ youths. Their plight won’t necessarily be solved by building more housing. They’re often living on the street because they’re damaged, having been bullied in their hometowns or shunned by their families.

“We know (the candidates) support the Equality Act,” said Rick Zbur, executive director of the LGBTQ advocacy group Equality California. “The question is, how much do they understand the needs and challenges the community faces?”

One topic sure to come up is the alarming statistic cited by advocates that at least 26 transgender people, most of them black women, were slain nationwide last year. Zack Mohamed, an advocate with the Transgender Law Center in Oakland, said it is “with both hope and heartbreak that I now expect candidates to speak to the violence.”

“Hope, because for far too long their voices were silenced,” Mohamed said. “And heartbreak, because we should be talking about how to uplift and center black trans women all the time, not just when they are murdered or attacked.”

While Thursday’s focus will be on the candidates, advocates hope viewers also come away with a greater understanding of the bias that is still directed at LGBTQ people. A Reuters/Ipsos poll in June found that 45% of respondents believed that LGBTQ people were covered by federal antidiscrimination laws. They are not.

“There’s a huge education gap,” Acosta said, “that we’re trying to close.”