White House dismisses Pride Month as WorldPride gathers in Washington
President Trump's administration has not formally recognized Pride Month this year, but has doubled down on LGBTQ-related actions some advocates deem hostile — even as one of the world's largest Pride celebrations takes place in the nation's capital.
Speaking with reporters on Tuesday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Trump has 'no plans' to issue a proclamation recognizing June as Pride Month.
Trump declined to issue Pride Month proclamations throughout his first term but briefly acknowledged Pride in a 2019 social media post touting his administration's efforts to decriminalize homosexuality globally and recognizing the'outstanding contributions LGBT people have made to our great nation.'
This year, Trump has not acknowledged Pride Month publicly. But the Education Department on Monday said it would instead recognize June as 'Title IX Month' in a nod to the administration's efforts to use the 1972 civil rights law to bar transgender students from girls' and women's school sports, restrooms and locker rooms.
'This is going to come as maybe tough news for the Trump administration to stomach, but June is Pride Month, whether they choose to acknowledge that or not,' said Brandon Wolf, national press secretary for the Human Rights Campaign, the nation's largest LGBTQ advocacy group. 'And Pride is, and always has been, a protest, whether they choose to acknowledge that or not.'
Pride Month marches and celebrations began in June 1970, one year after demonstrators demanded equal rights for LGBTQ Americans at the Stonewall riots in New York. Three decades later, former President Clinton issued the first presidential proclamation designating June 'Gay and Lesbian Pride Month,' the scope of which was expanded under former President Obama to include bisexual and transgender people.
Former President Biden issued Pride Month proclamations each of his four years in office.
This year's Pride festivities are not only being brushed off by the White House, however.
On Tuesday, Rep. Mary Miller (R-Ill.), whom Trump endorsed as a 'champion of our America First agenda' in her most recent re-election bid, introduced a resolution declaring June 'Family Month' in a rebuke of Pride.
'By recognizing June as Family Month, we reject the lie of 'Pride' and instead honor God's timeless and perfect design,' she told the conservative news outlet The Daily Wire.
A group of Republican lawmakers, including Miller, also railed this week against a post by the children's television show 'Sesame Street' that acknowledged Pride Month. They accused the nonprofit TV network PBS, on which 'Sesame Street' has long aired, of 'grooming' children, an accusation that opponents of LGBTQ rights have long used to associate LGBTQ identity with predatory behavior.
'This hostile rhetoric, the lengths to which they've gone to punish people for existing as LGBTQ, all of it is a testament to just how much our power scares them,' said Wolf, noting that Washington's pushback against Pride comes as the city hosts WorldPride, an international LGBTQ Pride event that's expected to draw millions to D.C.
Within the administration, Trump's Defense Department's actions have made perhaps the biggest splash during the first week of Pride Month.
On Tuesday, Military.com reported that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered Navy Secretary John Phelan to rename an oil tanker named for the assassinated gay rights activist Harvey Milk, with an official announcement expected next week and planned intentionally for Pride Month.
Milk, a Navy lieutenant who served during the Korean War and in 1977 became the first openly gay man elected to public office in California, spearheaded an effort to mobilize California voters to oppose a 1978 ballot measure that would have banned gays and lesbians from teaching in public schools.
The proposal to strip the ship of Milk's name drew widespread media attention and criticism.
'I don't agree with it,' Retired Adm. James Stavridis, once floated as a possible candidate for Secretary of State during the first Trump administration, said Friday on 'The Michael Smerconish Program.' He questioned why 'we need to rename this ship' at 'this moment' during Pride Month.
The Navy is also considering renaming other ships named after prominent civil rights leaders, according to CBS News, including Harriet Tubman, Thurgood Marshall and Lucy Stone. This week, Senate Republicans blocked a Democrat-led resolution that would have expressed the upper chamber's belief 'that the Department of Defense should not seek to remove these names.'
This week, the military also ordered transgender service members to self-identify and start a voluntary separation from the armed forces by Friday, also during Pride Month.
In an email, Alex Wagner, an adjunct professor at Syracuse University's Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, said Hegseth's recent actions targeting Pride Month and LGBTQ people at the Pentagon 'have made him look petty and silly.'
Wagner, who served as assistant secretary of the Air Force under former President Biden, helped organize the Defense Department's first Pride event in 2012 while serving in the Obama administration.
'There is absolutely no question, in my mind and in my experience, that the greatest engine for social justice and civil rights in American history is the U.S. military, and it's provided opportunity for everyone, no matter where they come from and no matter what they look like, to succeed,' Wagner said in an interview. 'To denigrate the service of those who sought a career serving the country … is evidence of someone who has not the right experience, not the right insight.'
Hegseth, a frequent critic of efforts to promote diversity, equity and inclusion, has opposed recognizing or celebrating specific identities or differences in the military.
'I think the single dumbest phrase in military history is, 'our diversity is our strength,'' Hegseth said in a February address at the Pentagon.
The former Fox News personality and Army veteran also ended the Defense Department's recognition of cultural and heritage months, including Pride Month, Black History Month and Women's History Month, shortly after his Senate confirmation.
In guidance titled 'Identity Months Dead at DoD,' Hegseth stated, 'Efforts to divide the force – to put one group ahead of another – erode camaraderie and threaten mission execution.'
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