WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden blasted “dangerous anti-LGBTQ” laws passed in state legislatures across the country during a speech at a White House Pride celebration on Saturday.
Biden pointed to a Florida law that prohibits the teaching of gender identity and sexual orientation in public schools. Without mentioning 2024 Republican presidential candidate Governor Ron DeSantis by name, Biden praised those protesting “hateful bills like Don’t Say Gay,” using the term coined by critics by DeSantis.
The White House previously denounced Florida’s bill when it was first signed into law by DeSantis last year, a key victory in the Florida governor’s agenda to reshape education in the state. The Florida Board of Education then expanded the law in April to ban the teaching of gender and sexuality through 12th grade.
In his speech, Biden acknowledged that “too many people in the LGBT community are worried and afraid for their future and their safety.”
“So today I want to send a message to the whole community, especially to transgender kids,” he said. “You are loved, you are heard, you are understood and you belong.”
Biden specifically criticized legislation targeting transgender youth and called for a national response to anti-trans bills.
“When families across the country are faced with excruciating decisions to move to another state to protect their child from dangerous anti-LGBTQ laws, we must act,” he said.
“We must push back against the hundreds of callous and cynical bills and laws introduced in states targeting transgender children, terrifying families and criminalizing doctors and nurses,” Biden added. “These bills and laws attack the most basic values and freedoms we have as Americans.”
The recent surge in anti-LGBTQ legislation being enacted in states across the country has pushed the issue to the forefront of the culture wars as the 2024 presidential campaign kicks off.
Former Vice President Mike Pence told the Des Moines Register on Wednesday that he would support federal legislation banning gender-affirming care for transgender minors.
“If there was a decision in Congress to protect children from this radical gender ideology and to ban chemical or surgical bridging treatments for children under 18, you bet I would support it,” Pence said. .
Biden, in his speech on Saturday, also addressed the “growing threat” of book bans.
Biden touted his administration’s decision to appoint a federal coordinator to fight the banning of books in schools, which “may violate federal civil rights laws when they target LGBTQ students or students of color and create hostile classroom environments”.
In the speech, Biden reiterated his call for passage of the Equality Act, an LGBTQ civil rights bill that has stalled in Congress amid widespread Republican opposition.
“When a person can be married off in the morning and kicked out of a restaurant for being gay in the afternoon, something is still wrong in America,” Biden said.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Biden takes aim at ‘anti-LGBTQ’ laws during White House Pride speech