Dr. Jill Biden speaks onstage during the Human Rights Campaign’s 2024 Los Angeles Dinner at Fairmont Century Plaza on March 23, 2024 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Monica Schipper/Getty Images)
First lady Jill Biden didn’t hold back when giving a speech at LGBTQ+ advocacy group the Human Rights Campaign’s Los Angeles fundraising dinner on Saturday (23 March).
Dr. Jill Biden used her time at the podium to slam right-wing, fear-mongering attacks on the LGBTQ+ community, saying: “Just last night we had to fend off more than 50 anti-gay amendments that Republicans tried to force into the government funding bill.
“These were extreme measures aimed directly at this community, measures that would have limited health care, eroded protection for same sex couples and more.”
She added: “And they serve only one purpose: to spread fear.”
The First Lady also highlighted the importance of reelecting her husband in November, saying that “MAGA extremists” are trying to “unwind all the progress we’ve made” on LGBTQ+ rights and equality.
“Thanks to our president, marriage equality is now a law, he ended the ban on bisexual and gay men donating blood, he made it possible for trans Americans to serve openly and honourably in the military and he’s standing firmly against conversion therapy,” she said.
This isn’t the first time that Dr. Jill Biden has come out swinging for LGBTQ+ rights.
In October 2023, she condemned the recent raft of book bans that had taken place in the US. Book-banning targeting LGBTQ+ authors and titles has been found to have been rising in the US, with the American Library Association (ALA) documenting 1,269 attempts to censor or ban 2,571 titles in 2022.
At LGBTQ+ charity PFLAG’s annual convention, Dr. Jill Biden stated “in America, we don’t ban books.”