Log Cabin Republicans, a leading group for gay conservatives, abandons transgender advocacy

By Steve Contorno, CNN

(CNN) — Log Cabin Republicans, a leading organization for gay conservatives, will no longer advocate for transgender people, a significant break within the LGBTQ movement as the GOP makes opposition to trans rights a political and policy priority.

The influential group added support for transgender issues to its platform more than a decade ago amid growing cultural acceptance. But Log Cabin Republicans President Ross Hemminger told CNN that in recent years his members have grown increasingly uncomfortable with the focuses of the trans community, including gender-affirming care for minors and the participation of trans girls and women in sports.

“It has gone to places we never in good conscience could get behind,” Hemminger said.

The decision announced Thursday to drop the “T” from the group’s “LGBT” mission comes as gay and lesbian Republicans face renewed threats to the rights they have spent decades fighting to secure, with those challenges largely emerging from within Hemminger’s party.

Earlier this year, a coalition of conservative groups launched an initiative aimed at challenging the legal foundations of same-sex marriage and preventing gay and lesbian couples from adopting children.

Meanwhile, a growing number of Republican officials have called for new restrictions on surrogacy births, a move that would limit family-building options for LGBTQ+ couples. Debate on the right over the issue broke out last month after Fox News personality Guy Benson and his husband announced the birth of a daughter via surrogate. It’s the couple’s second child.

Several Christian conservative figures criticized Benson on X, with some likening surrogacy to trafficking babies. Allie Beth Stuckey, the host of an influential podcast that featured Vice President JD Vance earlier this year, wrote that “the idea of purposely creating that little girl to be motherless is too much to bear. It’s cruel.”

“Allie Beth is a wildly talented communicator. She’s also a f**king idiot,” Hemminger said. “Those people have always been out there. They may be louder at times. I don’t think they have more people than our side.”

CNN has reached out to Stuckey for comment.

Hemminger said Log Cabin Republicans is seeking to distance itself from the transgender rights movement in hopes of strengthening its position to fight for its gay and lesbian members.

“There’s a big difference between talking about two people’s rights to be married and whether your 12-year-old girl should be playing volleyball against biological men,” he said.

Not everyone agreed with the approach. Sarah Hunt, a former board member of Log Cabin Institute, wrote on X she was “disappointed” by the announcement. She pointed to Caitlyn Jenner, a transgender woman and vocal supporter of President Donald Trump who is among the country’s most recognizable LGBTQ+ figures.

“Until now, LCR’s legacy has been inclusion and building a big tent,” she wrote.

The Human Rights Campaign also criticized Log Cabin Republicans, saying in a statement that “the vast majority of us understand that all our freedoms are intertwined.”

“Splitting up the LGBTQ+ community and pitting us against each other is exactly what anti-equality forces want to see happen,” spokesperson Delphine Luneau said in a statement. “Sacrificing one part of a community in the false hope that it will somehow protect the rest of it has never worked throughout history, and it’s a tactic that should be rejected again today.”

Opposition to gay rights has largely faded from Republican campaigns since the Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage nationwide in 2015. Under Trump’s direction, the GOP removed objections to same-sex marriage in its party platform when he won the nomination in 2024. Since taking office, Trump has elevated several gay men to powerful positions in his administration, including Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Richard Grenell, a special presidential envoy for special missions.

Log Cabin Republicans has benefited from its proximity to the Trump administration. First Lady Melania Trump, the recipient of the organization’s top honor in 2021, headlined a fundraiser for the group in 2024, and its former president, Charles Moran, now serves in the US Department of Energy.

But CNN reported in June that some groups are eager to revive old cultural battles once Trump is no longer presiding over the GOP. They have been energized in part by the growing pushback to trans rights as well as Justice Clearance Thomas’ explicit calls to reconsider the ruling that legalized same-sex marriage nationwide, which he made in a concurring opinion when the court overturned the constitutional right to an abortion in 2022. Last year, the Supreme Court declined to revisit the issue.

“We’ll obviously have future nominees and party leaders who are more conservative on those issues than Donald Trump,” Hemminger said. “It’s not anything that scares us.”

This story has been updated with additional details.

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