Three-quarters of LGBTQ+ people plan to vote for Kamala Harris in the presidential race, but even if shes elected, some say there will still be work to be done to push her on issues like the genocide in Palestine and immigration if elected. They imagine an administration thats imperfect but is wildly more safe for them than an anti-LGBTQ+ Trump presidency.Im voting for Harris, but I am doing so acknowledging the shortcomings from the current administration on transgender people, says Erin Reed, an independent journalist who closely covers transgender political issues and has endorsed Harris. Related This election could be the most important moment in the history of LGBTQ+ rights With your vote, you can refute the maelstrom of tyranny Trump promises. Reed hopes Harris will promote research on the impact of anti-trans laws, use the Justice Department to handle human rights abuses, continue pushing on Title IX policy protecting trans youth in schools, and use her platform to be vocal about her support for transgender people. Your LGBTQ+ guide to Election 2024 Stay ahead of the 2024 Election with our newsletter that covers candidates, issues, and perspectives that matter. Subscribe to our Newsletter today Reed notes that the next president will choose Supreme Court justices and appoint federal judgesand that many issues related to transgender rights are decided by the courts. She trusts a Democrat much more than a Republican to appoint judges friendly to transgender rights.She also points out that a president will have the power over the federal budget and that dozens of anti-LGBTQ+ provisions were inserted into the last budget, blocked by Democrats and the Biden administration. She believes Harris would be less likely to allow such riders to go through than Trump, but that legislators and activists will need to advocate for Harris to take a stand for trans people, just as they did with Biden.Whenever we have a budget fighttheres going to be a budget fight in December immediately after the electionthese bills are going to come back, she says. With all of these senators being targeted with anti-trans ads, we could see more balking on transgender issues. So yes, I do still think that were going to need to push and I do still think were going to organize. Reed is concerned about Harriss lack of support for Gaza, as are many LGBTQ+ voters. Approximately 83% of Democrats support a permanent ceasefire and de-escalation of violence by Israel, and most LGBTQ+ people vote Democrat. The No Pride in Genocide movement is strong within the community, with tens of thousands taking action for a ceasefire, a divestment from weapons manufacturers, and an embargo of U.S. arms to Israel.Nearly 30,000 signed a petition for the Human Rights Campaign to support a ceasefire and this June dozens of protests by LGBTQ+ people disrupted Pride events calling for divestment from weapons manufacturers and companies with Israeli ties. Still, with a majority of LGBTQ+ voters supporting Harris, like Reed, Palestine doesnt seem to be enough of a priority to sway their voteIsrael/Palestine ranked eighth on a list of important issues for LGBTQ+ voters in a March poll by Pathfinder and GLAAD. For those for whom it is an important issue, it seems clear they will protest Harris to stop funding Israel as they have with Biden. Reed feels that Trumps anti-democracy and anti-immigrant policies take precedence. Shes worried he will usher in fascism, seriously harm transgender peoples lives, mass deport immigrants, and gut the government and military of anyone who doesnt agree with him. With Harris, she trusts democracy will be safe and that trans people will be safer.I dont think for one moment that Donald Trump would not use the office of the presidency to pull funding for schools that approve or that allow transgender people to live their lives, she says. This is something that hes said many times, and Democrats are not going to be willing to do that.Tanya Neslusan, executive director of the Massachusetts LGBTQ+ rights organization MassEquality, is enthusiastically voting for Harris and is one of the electors who will cast Massachusettss 11 electoral college votes (half of whom are LGBTQ+). As a mixed-race woman of Indian descent, she is excited for the possibility of representation in the White House. Having that representation is extremely important to me, she says. When I graduated from college in the mid-90s, I didnt see anyone who looked like me in politics even though thats what I always wanted to do my entire life, she says. As a woman of color, there just were not enough people there that I felt that it would be an insurmountable battle.If Harris wins, she adds, It gives not only little girls who look like me someone to look up to, but it also shows the kids who dont look like me that anyone can be in a position of power.She also points out that more progressive policies on housing, healthcare, economic and reproductive justice, criminal justice reform, and voter access impact LGBTQ+ people of color in particular. All issues that impact any marginalized people impact all of us, Neslusan says. Neslusan feels Harris shares her values, though she fears Harris will usher in increased immigrant enforcement policies and stricter guidelines for asylees that may negatively impact asylum seekers. Still, she believes Harris will be a strong supporter and protector of LGBTQ+ peopleespecially in comparison to Trump.There is the abject terror of being a part of the LGBTQ+ community and seeing what happened with the last Trump administration and wanting to fight that, Neslusan says. With what weve seen laid out in Project 2025, we cannot afford to gamble given Trumps record.She points out that having Harris and Walz in the White House will allow her not only to pass federal protections but also block any anti-LGBTQ+ bills from Congress. However, the burden falls to Congress more than the president to create pro-LGBTQ+ legislation for her approval, she says, as executive orders can be repealed by a future president. Nevertheless, Neslusan does hope Harris will pass executive orders to prevent the anti-LGBTQ+ bills around the country as a stopgap, just as Biden signed multiple LGBTQ+ anti-discrimination executive orders. Among dozens of other pro-LGBTQ+ actions, the Biden-Harris administration repealed the ban on transgender service members, created an X gender marker option on federal documents like passports, prohibited anti-LGBTQ+ discrimination in healthcare by organizations receiving federal funding, and reaffirmed the right of transgender people to go to shelters that align with their gender identity.I think really the presidents role is to stop the hemorrhaging and keep this shift steady, but at the same time, having a more inspirational, progressive figurehead in place on our issues I think will really help stem the tide of some of these things, she says, and it will be good to have somebody in office who I trust will veto harmful measures to our community.Aaron Aceves, a creative writing professor in Austin and author of This Is Why They Hate Us, is one of the nearly one-in-five LGBTQ+ people planning not to vote for either Harris or Trump. I feel that the Democratic Party and their policies are negligibly different from the Republican partys policies, he says. Every time Ive voted for a Democrat, which has happened twice before with Hillary and Biden, Ive always hoped that there would be less deportation and the dissolution of detention centers on the border, but that just does not happen and it doesnt seem like theres any change.He says this time he wants his vote to be for something instead of against something, though he hasnt decided which third-party candidate will get his vote.Harris is trying really hard right now to court the right and shes going in that direction, more so even than Biden, and more so even than Hillary, he says, making me believe that she would be even stricter on immigration and harsher on treatment of immigrants. Aceves points out that the alarming number of anti-trans laws have happened under the Biden administration, noting that they have been introduced and passed at the state level, not the federal government. President Biden did issue a sweeping executive order expanding protections for gender identity and sexual orientation, but it has been challenged in the courts for months.I get why we want to beat Trump, but were not really beating the system that he upholds, Aceves says. Hes sort of this lightning rod for our anger, and we think if we beat him we beat everything that he stands for, but we dont. When he lost the presidential election, nothing really changed, but we got to say, Hey, at least its not Trump.Aceves rejects the popular argument that protesting will be more protected under Harris compared to Trump, largely based on his experience on his college campus during the encampment movement of the spring pushing universities to divest from Israel and weapons manufacturers. When we protested at the university I teach at I was picking students up from the ground as they were thrown by police, and this is under Biden, he says. We have a democratic presidency and theyre enacting violence on students protesting a genocide. I dont think it can be worse.While university leaders were the ones ordering the arrests, the president did not intervene, showing such suppression of free speech can happen no matter who is president. Aceves wishes Biden had made a public statement asking university presidents to stop sending militarized police after students.Acevesthe author of a book challenged in Virginia, Florida, and elsewheredoesnt think a Harris administration will help with book banning since the number of bans has risen astronomically even under Biden, similar to the police violence issue. While the bans come from local and state entities potentially out of reach of federal intervention, Biden did appoint an anti-book ban coordinator in the Department of Education last September, though there have been no news reports of results of the coordinators work, and book bans have continued to surge even more in the last year. Gaza is one of the defining issues for Acevess vote and he says he cannot support a candidate who supports the genocide of Palestinians. This is a key issue for many LGBTQ+ voters, many of whom are turned off by Harriss support of Israel. Reed says its one of the issues she hears about as important to LGBTQ+ and young voters.I just cant vote for the person whos allowing this to happen currently, Aceves says.Ultimately, the majority of LGBTQ+ voters support Harris because they believe she will support the community moreLGBTQ+ equality and anti-LGBTQ+ laws are the main issue motivating LGBTQ+ voters choice according to an August survey conducted by Human Rights Campaign (HRC) and research firm Community Marketing & Insights (CMI). LGBTQ+ voters seem to be motivated most by making sure Trump isnt in chargeworries about abortion bans, anti-LGBTQ+ laws, and conservative Supreme Court justices are top of the fears of a Republican in office. Reproductive rights are among the top two issues for LGBTQ+ voters in both the Pathfinder/GLAAD and HRC/CMI polls, along with LGBTQ+ rights and inflation.Many in the LGBTQ+ community expect a Harris administration to be safer for LGBTQ+ rights and abortion rights, but still will want to organize on those issues and others. For many, a Harris-Walz White House offers an absence of fear more than a presence of hope or excitement.I think that whenever we vote for a president, were not voting for somebody who we always love and completely agree with, were actually voting for a system that we organize under, and God, I would rather organize and report on and work on fixing things under a Harris administration than a Trump administration, Reed says.Subscribe to theLGBTQ Nation newsletterand be the first to know about the latest headlines shaping LGBTQ+ communities worldwide.