Transgender conservatives are rare. Transgender conservatives featured in Cosmo (Caitlyn Jenner aside) are rarer.
In an April 17 piece published on cosmopolitan.com, senior political writer Rebecca Nelson interviewed three members of the niche community on topics ranging from President Trump to bathrooms. Some of their responses were surprising.
On the subject of voting, there was definite diversity in the group. Donna Milo, an early supporter of Trump, commented: “The country's going to hell in a handbasket. So I thought, Well, we need somebody who’s gonna rattle things up.”
Jordan Evans was dismayed by the GOP candidate and did not vote for him, while Jennifer Williams voted for Kasich. But Williams would have voted for Trump if there had been any debate over Clinton’s winning New Jersey. “I don't think [Clinton] was a totally, a full, legit supporter of the LGBT community,” Williams explained. “I didn't find her trustworthy in any sense of the word.”
When it came to a discussion of transgender bathroom usage, the three interviewees again expressed conflicting opinions. But Milo’s view was refreshingly honest.
“It wasn't clear in Obama's executive order, it left room for people, anybody who says they identify as transgender, to do whatever the heck they want,” Milo commented, noting that grown men could claim to be transgender in order to prey on women. “And I don't think that was right. I believe that we have protections under the law, under our Constitution, that protect us as human beings.”
“Excessive regulation affects trans people way more than what bathroom they can use,” Milo continued. “Why [would] people think that there's a party that's better because it gave a trans person a job, or a gay person a job, while gay people and trans people are losing their businesses because of poor economic practices of that party?”
Despite the GOP’s general opposition to expansions of LGBT “rights,” Williams and Milo added that they had never felt unwelcome in the Republican party.
In fact, after running for Congress unsuccessfully in 2010, Milo was invited to a dinner hosted by the leader of Florida’s GOP. “I heard what you stand for, what you're trying to accomplish,” the politician encouraged Milo. “We need people like you. We are called a racist party, we are called an exclusive party, and we are not. We want people that have your ideals. And that's what we stand for.”
The GOP may be called exclusive, but LGBT members of the Republican party have revealed that they are more despised by their community of gender and sexual minorities.
In October, Wall Street Journal reporter Jason Bellini interviewed a gay couple at a Trump rally in Cincinnati who were called “paid a—holes” and told to “drink bleach” for their support of our current President.
Peter Thiel and Caitlyn Jenner, two of the most prominent LGBT Republicans, have been equally reviled.
