Former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, who is widely considered a presumptive Democratic nominee for President in 2028, is urging cisgender gay, lesbian, and bisexual people to stand firmly with the transgender community, who are currently facing numerous attacks from Republicans across the country.
In a recent interview with YouTuber Andrew Callaghan, Buttigieg offered a strong rebuke to those seeking to divide the LGBTQ+ movement, stressing that a unified front is essential.
Buttigieg’s comments came during a broad discussion with Callaghan that covered topics ranging from AI and military service to the New York mayoral race. They specifically addressed LGBTQ+ issues, including the recent controversy over the removal of all mentions of transgender people from the website for the Stonewall National Monument, despite the pivotal role transgender activists played in the 1969 uprising.
When Callaghan asked how he felt about the removal of “the T from the Stonewall website,” Buttigieg responded definitively: “It’s terrible.”
He immediately highlighted the historical debt owed to transgender activists, stating, “I mean, look, you know, if you look into the history of what made it possible for people like me to have rights—like we do to get married—like, a lot of that was advocates and activists who were transgender in the ’60s or ’70s… who stuck up for everybody’s rights.”
Buttigieg then addressed the political temptation for some cisgender LGBTQ+ people to distance themselves from the transgender community for social or political expediency. He acknowledged the calculated nature of the attempted division but condemned it.
“So I get the politics of it,” he said. “I get that it would be politically convenient, honestly, for people to pull up the ladder after them and leave out others, but that’s not OK. People have to stick together.”
Ultimately, the former presidential candidate positioned solidarity as a fundamental moral imperative that extends beyond the queer community itself: “Anywhere somebody is getting beat up or having, literally or figuratively, because of who they are, I think everybody else has to stick up for them.”
