The Rest of the Biden Team
All the President’s LGBTQ+ advocates
Press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre isn’t the only amazing LGBTQ+ member (or staunch ally) among President Joe Biden’s team. In a difficult political climate, when the right is painting the community as toxic, Vice President Kamala Harris has been embracing the LGBTQ+ community and shining a light on issues important to us. She and husband Doug Emhoff have continued to highlight LGBTQ+ issues in unexpected ways, like surprising the crowd by showing up at D.C.’s Capital Pride festival — and hosting the first celebration at the VP’s residence in honor of LGBTQ+ Pride month (and also the first time in history a drag queen has performed there — that we know of).
Harris and Emhoff continue to hold listening events and sharing supportive stories of trans kids. Pete Buttigieg showed us how critical a secretary of transportation can be, while his husband Chasten Buttigieg helped push back on right-wing slander (all while raising a child). Admiral Rachel Levine continues to impress as the highest ranking trans person in the U.S. — and when she’s attacked, its rarely on principle (like women before her, it’s all about her appearance). White House Office of National AIDS Policy Director Harold Phillip, both gay and living with HIV, came in strong — despite a two year decline in HIV advancement due to COVID — and declared that repealing, or at least modernizing, HIV criminalization laws is a top priority (and the president agrees, stating that HIV criminal statues subvert the goals of ending the HIV epidemic).
And then, of course, there’s Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, who moved from being director of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s division of HIV/AIDS prevention to the White House’s MPX (monkeypox) deputy response coordinator. While being challenged by Christians who painted him as a Satanist (for wearing the same luxury harness as Hollywood stars) and a pervert (for attending San Francisco’s famed Folsom Street Fair), Daskalakis persevered. Like the rest of Biden’s team, Daskalakis puts his head down and britches on and gets to work, even among the protests and social media clamor.
Maia Kobabe
Author of 2022’s Most Attacked LGBTQ+ Book
Over the past year, Maia Kobabe’s has been at the center of the culture war. The unassuming but wonderfully written and illustrated memoir is the American book facing the most attempts to remove or restrict access to it, with conservatives and bigots calling it