Save Rainbow Families, Vote for Kamala Harris
Picture of my absentee voting ballot sticker.
I’m terrified for my family.
As a gay, married man who is on his first journey to fatherhood via surrogacy, I am extremely scared for the outcome of the 2024 U.S. presidential election.
In the near future, my husband and I want to move back to the U.S. from Sweden. Depending on this election, and what Project 2025 atrocities come to pass if Trump is president again, we may not be able to move back with our child.
The U.S. may not be safe for rainbow families if Trump is elected.
I am writing to all those undecided voters. If you know any queer people, especially queer people who want to become parents, please vote for Kamala Harris. Or, if you are a person who was raised by a single parent, a grandparent, or any non-traditional family, please vote for Kamala Harris as you and your non-traditional family are also not welcome in a Trump America.
Kamala’s most impressive and ardent campaign message is clear: Reproductive freedom.
This is for women, but it is also for queer people and anyone who wants to pursue building a family through IVF or surrogacy. The U.S. is the world leader when it comes to assisted reproductive technology (ART). Based on the Center for Disease Control (CDC)’s latest national statistics, there were 413,776 cycles of IVF in 2021 alone (1).
No other country comes close to this in terms of the volume, medical expertise, legal support, and ethical framework for ART. A considerable number of those who pursue ART with an American gestational carrier (GC) are from outside the U.S. (https://www.babymoonfamily.com/original-articles/international-gestational-surrogacy-unitedstates), so reproductive freedom in the U.S. impacts the entire world.
As we know, IVF has already come under threat in Alabama as Republicans and the State Supreme Court had embryos classified as ‘unborn children’ (2). While other states have quickly tried to place protections for their own IVF and ART practices, there have been discussions about Trump and Republicans using an American law from over 150 years ago to ban abortion nationwide.
This tactic would involve the Comstock Act of 1873 (3), which criminalizes the shipment of any products that are affiliated with abortions. Because medications and medical equipment can only reach its clinic or hospital destination through the mail, this would effectively prevent any medical center in the U.S. from being able to perform abortions. If embryos are further classified as children or if they are otherwise able to force IVF and ART into this category covered by the Comstock Act, then Trump and his Republicans could also bring down fertility services required by same sex couples to have children.
Terrifying as that is, Project 2025 is even worse for rainbow families.
I felt disgusted giving my name and email address in order to download this 922 conservative opus of hate, but I had to for this article (4).
Project 2025 is the conservative manifesto and game plan for a second Trump presidency. While he has tried to distance himself from the document, many of the people who wrote it have worked with Trump, and he needs all their support to get elected.
I couldn’t stomach reading the entire 922 page document, but I did some strategic keyword searches to get the general impression of Trump and his conservatives’ plans for LGBTQ+ intended and current parents.
It’s important to notice that ‘IVF’ and ‘assisted reproductive technology’ were nowhere to be found in the document. Despite Trump proclaiming himself the ‘father of IVF’ (5), this science plays no part in the sweeping Project 2025 agenda.
The next keyword search I did was for ‘LGBTQ.’ This came up 6 times in the 922 pages, and it was always negative. The document refers to ‘the bullying LGBTQ+ agenda’ as if it is a harmful policy to support sexual minorities in any way. The text also states a desire to reverse Biden’s focus on LGBTQ+ equity as well as Obama’s collaboration with LGBTQ organizations for federal grants. Without mincing words, Project 2025 wants to remove funding and policies that advocate for any form of LGBTQ+ equity.
Finally, I did a search for ‘family.’ Given that BabyMoon Family and my own mission is to support queer people who want to create families, this seemed like an appropriate search to see how conservatives in Project 2025 describe families and their plans for them.
The word ‘family’ is foundational to the Project 2025 document. It appears on almost 10% of the 922 pages, and the raison d’etre for the conservatives appears to be to ‘Restore the family as the centerpiece of American life and protect our children.’
However, the Project 2025 ‘family’ only includes one type of family: A heterosexual married couple and their biological children.
The document has repeated, explicit attacks on queer parents and rainbow families. Here are some of the most egregious quotations and my brief assessment:
‘There is no government program that can replace the hole in a child’s soul cut out by the absence of a father.’
This is a direct attack on queer mothers, and an indirect attack on any family structure that doesn’t include a traditional ‘father-figure.’
‘Finally, conservatives should gratefully celebrate the greatest pro-family win in a generation: overturning Roe v. Wade, a decision that for five decades made a mockery of our Constitution and facilitated the deaths of tens of millions of unborn children. But the Dobbs decision is just the beginning. Conservatives in the states and in Washington, including in the next conservative Administration, should push as hard as possible to protect the unborn in every jurisdiction in America.’
In line with the Comstock Act plans discussed above, the conservatives make it clear that abortion should be banned across the country.
Social science reports that assess the objective outcomes for children raised in homes aside from a heterosexual, intact marriage are clear: All other family forms involve higher levels of instability (the average length of same-sex marriages is half that of heterosexual marriages); financial stress or poverty; or poorer behavioral, psychological, or educational outcomes.
Like many aspects of Project 2025, this is factually and scientifically inaccurate. A recent study that I have reviewed on BabyMoon Family shows that the children of queer parents are actually better off than the children of heterosexual parents, in a number of domains related to emotional and mental well-being (https://www.babymoonfamily.com/original-articles/gay-fathers-better-than-straight-parents).
Rather, the Secretary should proudly state that men and women are biological realities that are crucial to the advancement of life sciences and medical care and that married men and women are the ideal, natural family structure because all children have a right to be raised by the men and women who conceived them.
Clearly stated, married men and women are the ideal, natural family structure.
If you are in any way different in terms of how you define family or the reproductive choices you navigate to create your family, Trump and Project 2025 do not support your existence. It is actually considered a threat to the fabric of the country and the future of the civilization, which is hilariously dramatic.
However, there is nothing hilarious about this election.
There is only one, sane choice: Kamala Harris.
Kamala respects diversity, reproductive freedoms, and will continue to support all types of families. She herself was raised by a single mother and has celebrated this and all types of non-traditional families (6). She started this narrative at her DNC speech in 2020, and the messaging throughout this election has even been more pronounced in terms of supporting LGBTQ issues and policies (7).
Trump and Project 2025 want to do what Italy has recently done, and make it impossible for rainbow families to exist or be created (https://www.babymoonfamily.com/original-articles/italy-attacks-surrogacy-rainbow-families).
Don’t hurt queer people who only want to have a family.
Don’t hurt people who come from any non-traditional family.
Don’t hurt people who form their own chosen family.
These families are valid. They exist, and to deny them that existence like Trump and the Project 2025 conservatives do only serves to hurt America and the world.
I’m proud to be an American. I don’t want to see the country and families like mine ruined or exiled because of Trump. I hope my rainbow family can safely move back to the U.S., and I hope that BabyMoon Family and all rainbow families can continue to prosper and grow in a United States that embraces this diversity under the leadership of our very first Madam President.
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