NEW YORK (AP) — President Joe Biden will court LGBTQ+ voters at two events in New York City, a day after his much-criticized move against Donald Trump during the first debate of the presidential campaign.
Biden is expected to speak Friday at the grand opening of a visitors center at Stonewall National Monument, which was the scene of a defining moment in the gay rights movement. The incumbent Democrat will next headline an evening Pride Month fundraiser with LGBTQ+ advocates.
Even before the debate, Biden was scrambling to build support within the Democratic community, having lost ground among Black and Hispanic adults and other demographic groups that helped propel him to victory in 2020. He will need strong support from these groups to win re-election in November.
According to Gallup data collected in 2024, about four in 10 LGBTQ+-identifying adults approve of Biden’s handling of the job as president. That’s in line with the share of the general population who approve of the president’s job performance. About seven in 10 LGBTQ+ voters supported Biden in the 2020 election, according to AP VoteCast, a comprehensive survey of voters and nonvoters.
Biden’s position on LGBTQ+ issues has evolved over his decades of public service.
As a U.S. senator, he voted for the Defense of Marriage Act in 1996, which banned federal recognition of same-sex relationships.
Then, more than a decade later, as vice president in 2012, Biden declared on “Meet the Press” that he supported gay marriage, overshadowing his boss, President Barack Obama, who had yet to take a position on the issue. Obama said shortly thereafter that he supported gay marriage.
As president, Biden has acted to protect the rights of gays and transgender people, including restoring anti-discrimination provisions that were gutted by then-President Trump. Biden also ended a ban on transgender people serving in the military.
Two years ago, the president signed legislation to protect gay unions, especially if the Supreme Court overturns his landmark 2015 decision that same-sex couples had the right to marry. Earlier this week, Biden potentially pardoned thousands of former U.S. service members convicted of violating a now-repealed military ban on consensual gay sex.
Trump, on the other hand, has criticized what he calls transgender “insanity” and has said he will move quickly to reinstate the ban on their military service if he is re-elected. He has also criticized gender-affirming care for transgender minors, along with their ability to play on sports teams.
Cait Smith, director of LGBTQ+ policy at the Center for American Progress, a liberal-leaning think tank in Washington, said Biden has a deep connection to the community.
“He has a pretty long history of dealing very quickly with the community and with where our needs are, even with the kind of gridlock that we have in Congress,” Smith said.
Winnie Stachelberg, a longtime LGBTQ+ rights advocate, said Biden has always been about “meeting people where they are.”
“He wasn’t just in the right place on policy. He was a partner, a friend and a collaborator on community issues,” said Stachelberg, a former political director for the Human Rights Campaign, which advocates for LGBTQ+ civil rights. “Both are important, but it’s really critical to have someone who understands community, in addition to someone who is an effective policymaker and president.”
Stonewall’s new visitor center occupies half of the original Stonewall Inn, which once included two adjacent buildings in New York’s Greenwich Village in lower Manhattan. In the late 1960s, it was a gay bar where a young LGBTQ+ crowd went dancing at a time when dancing with or kissing a same-sex partner could get people arrested.
Police raids were common and usually met with little to no resistance. But when officers entered the Stonewall Inn for the second time that week on June 28, 1969, they were met with shouts of “gay power!” followed by the throwing of coins, bottles and more from customers and a crowd gathering outside.
The protests and clashes with police continued over the next few nights, leading to a new, more exuberant and militant wave of LGTBQ+ rights activism than had previously existed in the US in the months and years that followed. Within a year, a slew of new groups had formed to demand rights and recognition, and what would become annual Pride marches began on the anniversary of Stonewall.
The site of the uprising, including the two buildings that made up the original Stonewall Inn, was designated a National Historic Landmark in 2000. In 2016, then-President Obama created the site as the first U.S. national monument dedicated to LGBTQ+ history.
The original Stonewall Inn closed shortly after the raid. A new version of the bar has occupied one of the two buildings since the 1990s, but the space that is now the visitor center has been adapted to various other uses and has lain vacant in recent years.
Overseen by the National Park Service and the LGBTQ+ advocacy group Pride Live, the $3.2 million visitor center was funded primarily by private donations, with the exception of $450,000 from the park service’s charitable arm, which receives private and federal money.
Biden arrived in New York after rallying his supporters at a post-debate event in Raleigh, North Carolina. He has other fundraisers on Saturday on Long Island in New York and Red Bank, New Jersey, before returning to the Camp David presidential retreat in Maryland.
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Superville reported from Raleigh, North Carolina. Associated Press writer Linley Sanders in Washington contributed to this report.
