A “record number” of LGBTQ candidates are running for Congress, “motivated in part” by laws in GOP states shoring up parental rights and protecting women and girls’ sports, Axios Congressional reporter Sophia Cai reported Tuesday.
Approximately 104 LGBTQ candidates are running for House or Senate seats in the 2022 midterm elections — a nearly 20 percent increase compared to 2020, when 87 LGBTQ candidates campaigned, Cai wrote.
“Some of those campaigns have already ended, but as of last week, 57 candidates are still actively running, according to data,” the report reads.
Cai wrote that candidates at the state level “say discriminatory laws have motivated them to seek a seat in their legislatures.” These supposed “discriminatory laws,” however, are put forth by Republicans to keep radical gender ideology from infiltrating schools and creating a divide between parents and their children.
A prime example is Florida’s Parental Rights in Education Act, which expands parents’ oversight of their children’s education and prohibits the teaching of gender identity and sexual orientation from kindergarten through third grade. Democrats and corporate media allies quickly dubbed it the “Don’t Say Gay” bill and claim it targets vulnerable gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and intersex children. In reality, the legislation does not mention any particular sexuality.
The Biden administration, Democrats, and pro-transgender clinical organizations have also been pushing sex change surgeries, puberty blockers, and cross-sex hormones — labeled “gender-affirming care” — for minors who believe they are a different sex. Additionally, Democrats have pushed to allow males identifying as females to play women and girls’ sports and share female spaces, despite well-documented biological advantages and overall safety concerns.
Democrats have gone so far as to promote letting children attend drag shows ( see here, here, here, here, and here). In response, Republicans in several states have already begun crafting laws to criminalize exposing children to drag shows. GOP lawmakers have also created and passed laws in many states criminalizing “gender- affirming care” for minors and banning males from female sports.
According to the Axios report, LGBTQ voters “are among the fastest-growing parts of the electorate” and have high election turnout, though there are only 11 “out” LGTBQ Congress members.
Indeed, recent Gallup polling suggests the number of people who self-identify” as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (LGBT), or “something other than heterosexual,” has increased to 7.1 percent of the 329 million population in the United States. A Pew Research Center Survey published in June found that five percent of Americans from 18 to 30-years-old identify as “transgender” or “nonbinary.”