Nancy Pelosi brands anti-LGBTQ+ Republicans ‘losers’ amid attacks on queer people simply existing

Nancy Pelosi, the former speaker of the United States House of Representatives, has called Republicans enforcing anti-LGBTQ+ legislation “losers,” in a scathing new interview.

She claims Republicans are losing on a number of key political issues and are using anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric as political fodder in an attempt to garner votes.

More than 300 anti-LGBTQ+ bills have been introduced in the US this year.

“They’re losers. They’re losing on guns: we still don’t have the legislation we want, but the public is not really with them with all these mass shootings going on,” Pelosi told Advocate.

Pelosi added that Republicans are losing favour particularly among young people and female voters right across the US.

“People have had enough. Young people are taking that issue on more and more each day. They’re growing more tired about all the inaction,” she added.

“They’re losing on women’s right to choose, which is a losing issue for them and was during the last midterm election[s].

“So now they turn to the trans and drag communities because they think that that has some salience. I don’t know, does anybody really think that drag is a threat?

“Of course not, so they’re going to lose on that too.”

Tennessee became the first US state to ban drag and drag queens. Other states, such as Florida and Arkansas, have also begun to move in that direction.

Pelosi insisted the Republicans won’t win with these tactics and believes they’ll lose the culture war they are waging against LGBTQ+ communities.

The language used by Republicans is are fuelled by “hate”, she acknowledged.

“It is frightening because it’s about hate. When we did the hate crimes legislation, now this was a number of years ago, and we had the majority, we couldn’t get the bills to come to the floor, and to be able to vote on it on the floor,” she continued.

“People came to me and said: ‘If you take out trans, you can pass the bill in one minute’. I said, ‘If we take our trans, we’re not passing the bill, because I’m not taking out trans’. That’s just the way it is.”

Pelosi added that people need to understand democracy is at stake in the coming elections, and called for “more women, more people of colour, and more LGBTQ people” to run for office.

But even when people of marginalised communities do run they are often silenced.

Montana house representative Zooey Zephyr, the first transgender state legislator, was banned from speaking in the chamber, and barred from the house floor, after telling her colleagues they’d have “blood on their hands” if they passed a bill banning trans kids from being able to access gender-reaffirming healthcare. The bill was passed a few days later.

Zephyr took her case to court earlier this week in a bid to be return to the debate but district court judg, Mike Menahan, said he didn’t have the authority to reinstate her.

Pelosi has long been an advocate for the LGBTQ+ community. She mobilised groups to help communities affected by HIV/Aids, constructed the Employment Non-Discrimination Act which protected LGBTQ+ people in the workplace and was a vocal supporter of marriage equality.

“A lot of people are mistakenly under the impression that marriage equality happened like that. I say, no it didn’t. It was all that mobilisation, on HIV/Aids, on hate crimes. All these things have made America, more Americans, aware of expanding freedom in our country.”