Following President-elect Donald Trump’s rout of Kamala Harris, many LGBTQ organizations were left reeling. Still, they vowed to continue advocating for their ultimate goal of equality for all LGBTQ people.

They emerged battered but unbowed following Tuesday’s election, which was characterized as a populist revolt against inflation and higher prices for consumer goods, foreign interference in global conflicts, unchecked immigration, and liberal viewpoints. The latter issue was motivated, in part, by angst about increased LGBTQ visibility and allegations that schools were “indoctrinating” youth into identifying as LGBTQ.

“The LGBTQ community has been here before, as have all other marginalized communities, and the pain is real today,” Sarah Kate Ellis, the president and CEO of GLAAD, said in a statement. “But as we saw from the Lavender Scare to the Stonewall riots, from the HIV epidemic to the defeat and victory for marriage, every breakdown can lead to a breakthrough. We must see this moment of crisis as another catalyst for change.”

While acknowledging that change would be slow, Ellis expressed confidence that LGBTQ people would take care of one another, and attempt to be a positive influence in the world, shaping culture and “changing hearts and minds” while continuing to make steady progress on equality. 

“GLAAD was founded nearly forty years ago with the knowledge that LGBTQ people and our stories would create a better world,” Ellis said. “Our work has renewed importance and urgency. LGBTQ people belong and are essential to the promise of America as a beacon of equality and acceptance.”

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The election was particularly brutal for transgender individuals, who found themselves and their existence used as a cultural “wedge” issue by the Trump campaign and Republican-aligned groups.

Many of the attack ads run by Republicans focused on decrying the presence of transgender athletes in women’s sports; attacking Kamala Harris for supporting gender-affirming care for incarcerated individuals, including undocumented immigrants; and for supporting surgical interventions on transgender youth. (Surgery is rarely performed on most minors experiencing gender dysphoria, with specialists either recommending a pause on medical interventions or pursuing non-invasive interventions like puberty blockers or hormone therapy.)

“This is a gut punch, and our hearts are heavy,” Rodrigo Heng-Lehtinen, executive director of Advocates for Trans Equality, said in a statement. “This election did not go as we hoped, and like so many in our community, we are disappointed. However, we fought like hell, and we are proud of what we accomplished…. While this outcome is not what we wanted, we are not ceding ground to anti-equality forces.”

Heng-Lehtinen vowed that the organization would begin “a new chapter of resistance” in response to Republican plans to take successful anti-transgender policies passed at the state level and make them national policy.

As Trump has previously stated, one of his top priorities is to pass a national ban prohibiting transgender female athletes from competing in women’s sports. (Barring transgender men may prove more difficult under the 1970s-era Title IX law, which has led to cisgender women being allowed to compete on male-dominated sports teams at schools or in intramural clubs where there is no women’s team equivalent.)

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While Trump has primarily offered fact-free musings on the campaign trail alleging that schools are performing transition surgeries on children behind their parents’ backs, Republican allies of the president-elect in Congress, including U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), have moved forward with proposed federal legislation to criminalize and imprison doctors who prescribe gender-affirming treatments to minors.

“We anticipated this moment, and we are prepared,” Heng-Lehtinen concluded. “We are dismayed, but we are not defeated, and we will dust ourselves off to continue fighting.”

Beyond the transgender community, LGB individuals — who avoided the brunt of most of Trump’s vitriol — still found themselves maligned by Republican attack ads and accused of all manner of ills.

Attack ads against Harris lamenting LGBTQ inclusion in the military derided America’s Armed forces as “weak and gay,” while other ads alleged that LGBTQ advocacy groups — and by extension, Democrats supporting such groups — were “soft” on “pedophiles,” reviving decades-old tropes of gay men as sexual deviants and child molesters.

Despite claims to pollsters that most Americans support same-sex relationships and allowing same-sex legal adults to marry, it should not be shocking that many gays and lesbians would look warily on such claims, given the ease with which conservatives (and even some liberals) employed harmful stereotypes attacking the LGBTQ community writ large. 

“The election results are beyond devastating,” Fran Hutchins, executive director of Equality Federation, said in a statement. “This is a painful and difficult moment for everyone who cherishes the freedom to be authentically yourself, for everyone in the LGBTQ+ community, for those of us who hold multiple identities, and for everyone who cares about us.”

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Condemning Trump for “dehumanizing” LGBTQ people, Hutchins vowed that advocates would continue organizing and would not shy away from fights over equality or remove themselves from the political arena altogether.

“One election does not decide our future,” Hutchins said. “The greatest opportunities to improve the lives of LGBTQ+ people will continue to be in the states — where the work is hard, but the impact is great.”

While saying her organization was “heartbroken” by the election results, Kelley Robinson, president of the Human Rights Campaign, urged LGBTQ people to be resilient and look to the long-term for solace.

“We know our community is feeling scared, angry, and worried about what’s next for them and their families,” Robinson said in a statement. “We see you — there’s no question that we will face more challenges in the years to come in as part of our fight for full LGBTQ+ equality. But our ancestors taught us that resilience is our superpower.”

She continued, “The path ahead will be challenging, but we are prepared. We will use every tool at our disposal — from advocacy to education to litigation to campaigns — to protect our communities and advance progress where we can. We will build power by building each other up, with a dedication to forging a better path for our future. To every LGBTQ+ person feeling scared, I see you. I feel you. And I need you to hear this: You are not alone. You are loved. You are worthy. And you have an entire community standing with you, today and every day.”

Janelle Perez, executive director of LPAC, a political action committee dedicated to advancing the political representation of LGBTQ women and nonbinary candidates, called Trump’s win a “profound loss for the country we believe in — a place where every one of us, regardless of who we are, is treated fairly and our fundamental rights are upheld.”

Tony Hoang, the executive director of Equality California, which Republicans accused of being a “pro-pedophile” organization, warned that the next Trump administration would likely be worse — and more aggressive — in terms of rolling back what little protections exist for LGBTQ people in various facets of life.

“During Trump’s first term in the White House, we witnessed a concerted effort to undermine and eliminate protections for LGBTQ+ people across the federal government,” Hoang said in a statement. “Based on his own campaign promises — and the detailed policy proposals of Project 2025 — we can expect the second Trump administration to go even further in its vile attacks against LGBTQ+ people.”

Hoang also expressed the belief that a majority of Americans don’t actually support an across-the-board dismantling of LGBTQ protections, and said that Equality California would continue to champion pro-LGBTQ initiatives, which remain fully intact at the state level for now.

“We refuse to return to a life of fear or hide our identities behind closet doors,” Hoang said. “No matter who occupies the White House, we remain committed to fighting for our families, our freedoms, and our future…. Our light is too bright to hide, and our community is too strong to break.”

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