Joe Biden has hailed the role of transgender and gay soldiers in the US military, saying “they can shoot straight”.
In the first ever interview by a US president with an LGBTQ newspaper, Mr Biden celebrated the milestones achieved in his term, including the record-breaking number of LGBTQ officials represented in his administration.
The wide-ranging interview with the Washington Blade, one of the country’s oldest LGBTQ news outlets, was held in the Oval Office on Sept 12 but published this week.
Discussing his support for the community, Mr Biden said he “spoke up” for gay service members even prior to the repeal of the military’s “Don’s Ask, Don’t Tell” policy – which meant that armed forces personnel could not be openly gay – while he was Barack Obama’s vice president.
Days after assuming the presidency in 2021, Mr Biden also used one of his first executive orders to reverse the Trump administration’s ban on military service for transgender soldiers.
According to the Blade, Mr Biden lowered his voice for emphasis as he added: “They can shoot straight. They can shoot just as straight as anybody else.”
The outlet recounted that during the interview, Mr Biden glanced down at a cheat-sheet listing his administration’s advancement of LGBTQ rights and said: “I forgot half the stuff I had done”.
He added: “But you know, I’m just really proud of a lot of things we did”.
Mr Biden was praised by activists for appointing a record-breaking number of LGBTQ officials to high-level positions.
They include his transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg, and his press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, the first openly gay officials to serve in their respective positions. Mr Biden has also nominated 11 LGBTQ federal judges.
“Everyone was nervous,” Mr Biden told the Blade, but he said: “I wanted an administration that looked like America”.
“All the LGBTQ+ people that have worked for me or with me have reinforced my view that it’s not what your sexual preference is, it’s what your intellectual capacity is and what your courage is,” he said.
Mr Biden also highlighted the prospect of his home state of Delaware making history by sending Congress its first transgender member in November’s elections.
Sarah McBride, a close friend of the Biden family, is favoured to win the race for Delaware’s only seat in the House of Representatives.
It was a sign that “we’re on the right track,” Mr Biden said.
However, Mr Biden warned that Donald Trump “was a different breed of cat” who had been “anti-LGBTQ … across the board”.
He said that many “good Republicans … who don’t have a prejudiced bone in their body” are being “intimidated” by the more hard-right elements of their party.
“If you take a position, especially in the MAGA Republican Party now… they’re going to go after you,” he said.
He continued: “Trump is a different breed of cat. I mean, I don’t want to make this political, but everything he’s done has been anti, anti-LGBTQ, I mean, across the board.”
