Meet JD Vance, Trump's Anti-LGBTQ Running Mate

Former President Donald Trump has chosen U.S. Senator J.D. Vance as his vice presidential running mate.

A self-described populist best known for his support for pro-natalist domestic policies, the Ohio Republican echoes his party’s shift toward right-wing populism and a more nationalist and isolationist approach to foreign policy.

On social issues, Vance is nearly indistinguishable from Mike Pence, though he is more outspoken and confrontational about his conservative beliefs and values than the former vice president.

A graduate of Yale Law School and author of Hillbilly Elegya memoir detailing his upbringing in Appalachia, was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2022.

A critic of Trump in 2016 who went so far as to compare the former president to Hitler, Vance, 39, has since become one of the candidate’s most loyal supporters, presenting himself as the voice of cultural conservatives, rural voters and working-class people.

Vance often trolls and attacks his political opponents on social media, portraying them as evil, depraved, stupid, or indifferent to the working class and hostile to religion or culturally conservative values.

Vance is known for advocating pronatalism in public policy, in which the government creates various financial and social incentives to encourage people to marry and reproduce. He is among many Republicans who frequently praise right-wing Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán for his domestic policies, particularly those aimed at reducing LGBTQ visibility and restricting immigration.

Orbán justifies his policies as an attempt to increase his country’s birth rate and maintain a singular, unified culture rooted in religious conservatism and traditionalist views of the family.

In keeping with these ideas, Vance has previously criticized the “childless left” for failing to “invest” in America by having children and promoting “national pride” and conservative social values. He argues that family formation and unfettered reproduction—which, though he does not say so, would require the societal rejection, or even banning, of birth control and abortion—are necessary to ensure stronger families.

Vance attacked people who did not have children, including U.S. Sen. Cory Booker and U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, both of whom are single, as well as Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, the father of a pair of adopted twins, and Vice President Kamala Harris, who has two stepchildren.

Vance argued that parents with children should have more say in electoral politics and the functioning of government than those without. He even appears to have suggested that only parents with children should be allowed to vote, with people with multiple children potentially getting multiple votes.

“Let’s give every child in this country the right to vote, but let’s give control of that right to the parents of those children,” Vance said at a conference hosted by right-wing politicians. “Doesn’t that mean that non-parents don’t have as much of a say as parents? Doesn’t that mean that parents have more of a say in how democracy works? Yes.”

As a result, Vance is a staunch opponent of the visibility of same-sex couples and LGBTQ people.

While his predecessor, Rob Portman, voted for the Respect for Marriage Act, Vance said in 2022 that he would have voted against the legislation, which requires the federal and state governments to recognize the validity of same-sex marriages legally performed in the states without an explicit ban on such unions. (The law was passed to circumvent a potential U.S. Supreme Court decision overturning the court’s 2015 decision.)mountain mountain (decision and reinstatement of the ban on same-sex marriages.)

Vance lashed out at conservative Supreme Court justices after the court ruled 6-3 in 2020 that LGBTQ employees are protected from workplace discrimination by Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, lamenting on social media: “The conservative legal movement has accomplished two things: libertarian political economy (as applied by the judges) and the betrayal of social conservatives and traditionalists.”

Vance introduced the “Protecting the Innocence of Children Act,” which bans all types of gender-affirming health care while spreading what LGBTQ advocates say is misinformation about treatments such as puberty blockers, hormone therapy or gender-confirming surgery, the latter of which is rarely performed on minors.

The bill also prohibits taxpayer funds, including Medicaid dollars, from being used to cover the cost of gender confirmation care, and proposes up to 15 years in prison for anyone who helps a minor obtain gender confirmation treatment.

Vance has expressed support for “Don’t Say Gay”-style bills, like the one passed in Florida, with fewer restrictions, prohibiting teachers from answering questions, allowing discussions or incorporating material related to LGBTQ identity in schools.

He called those opposed to such bills “groomers“who wish to ‘sexualize’ children, supported banning books with LGBTQ content and claimed that banning LGBTQ-related topics is a way to advance ‘parental rights.'”

Vance also appears to oppose open military service for LGBTQ people, attacking military leaders and the Biden administration for “using the United States military as a social justice side project” and opposing diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives in the armed forces.

Vance, like Trump, opposes U.S. support for Ukraine in its ongoing war with Russia. He has made comments sympathize with Russia and its authoritarian president, Vladimir Putin.

Among those comments was a claim that the Biden administration was risking war with Russia over its support for Ukraine simply because Putin opposes transgender rights. Politifact called this claim “pants on fire,” meaning that it is so false that it has no basis in reality.

Vance also ridiculed and questioned the existence of transgender and non-binary individuals, accusing Ocasi-Cortez of “inventing” the term “two-spirit” to refer to Native Americans and non-binary indigenous peoples.

“I’m sorry, but what does it mean to be two-spirited?” Vance asked in a post on X“I wish progressives would stop making up words.”