Jonathan Van Ness calls out Trump campaign for using them in TV ad: ‘Iconic, but mostly upsetting’
Jonathan Van Ness has spoken out after appearing in a Trump ad. (Getty)
Jonathan Van Ness has spoken out against Donald Trump after appearing in a Trump ad, which Van Ness called “kind of iconic, but mostly upsetting”.
The Queer Eye star – who uses they/he/she pronouns – saw themselves in the “surreal” advert for the Republican nominee, which attacked Kamala Harris and “they/them” pronouns in a bid to divide onlookers on queer and nonbinary identities.
Van Ness – who came out as nonbinary in 2019 – was featured in the Make America Great Again Inc advert where she speaks to Vice President Harris, alongside a further clip of Harris speaking to drag queen Pattie Gonia (who is “considering legal action” over the same advert). “Crazy liberal Kamala is for they/them,” the narrator says in the clip. “President Trump is for you.”
Taking to Instagram on 7 October, the Fab Five member reacted to the advert: “I saw myself in a Trump TV ad today and it’s surreal. Kind of iconic, but mostly upsetting. In this commercial, Trump vilifies immigrants, trans people, and queer people generally.
She continued: “History shows us that blaming specific groups of people to get a majority of society to view them as threats rather than humans is what can come just before an ultra-conservative and or religious governments taking over their society.”
They added: “Don’t think that these white nationalist Christian politicians aren’t a threat to you and vote like it.”
Van Ness also pledged their support to Harris in the upcoming election. “As a non-binary person, whenever I’m presented with a binary choice, I’m immediately leery. But in this election, it’s really about moving forward” and “trying to trust each other again,” they said.
They noted that the alternative would be “going backwards to a time where women needed their husband to open a checking account and where segregation was also a matter of ‘states rights.'”
Van Ness said Trump is an “authoritarian dictator who has absolute immunity from the Supreme Court” and urged their own followers to “choose hope over fear” and “faith over blame”.
PinkNews contacted a representative of Donald Trump for a comment on the matter.
