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As a senator, Trump’s VP nominee took a particular interest in Pride flags and gender-neutral bathrooms.
Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance used the responses to a questionnaire regarding LGBTQ+ and various diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility (DEIA) issues to freeze the nominations of 30 potential ambassadors, according to a leaked memo provided to the Washington Post.
Vance asked nominees how they would advance selected “priorities/goals” from the U.S. State Department Strategic Plan for DEIA. Those who answered in the affirmative reportedly had their nominations frozen even though Vance does not sit on the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations which is responsible for the initial vetting of ambassador nominees.
The questionnaire asked if they would increase the number of “gender neutral bathrooms” and to explain their plans to increase resources for gender dysphoria and transition care issues, how the nominee would implement Pride Month celebrations and display Pride flags at U.S. embassies and consulates, how they would implement President Biden’s stated goals to make human rights for the global LGBTQ+ community a top foreign policy priority and to evaluate their own “track record” in the use of “DEIA advancement criteria for senior-level positions” under their management.
Career diplomats told the Post the questionnaire put nominees in a difficult position of going on the record in support of the administration’s policy knowing that doing so could sink their nomination.
“It puts career diplomats in a bind to be asked to go on the record commenting on how they would support policies that are favored by the current administration but may not be by the next,” Barbara Stephenson, a former ambassador and career diplomat under Republican and Democratic administrations, said.
Stephenson added that the policies of the current administration don’t always match the diplomat’s personal beliefs, and such professionalism may now be held against them by Vance’s questionnaire.
“Those career diplomats are required to support the policy of the administration in power, even when that means changing positions they have previously argued for or against,” Stephenson added.
Vance made no effort to hide his intention to use the questionnaire to root out nominees who supported causes and policies with which he disagreed.
“If you are injecting your own personal politics in a way that harms American national security and diplomacy, that’s not fine,” Vance said in an interview last year, Politico reported. “The questions all try to get at those issues.”
While Vance and the Trump campaign issued no formal statement on the leaked memo, Vance confirmed the story in a sarcastic post to social media.
Vance was elected to the Senate in 2022 to represent the swing state of Ohio. He is best known as the author of the best-selling memoir Hillbilly Elegy, which was later turned into a Netflix movie. He was known for his anti-establishment, “anti-woke” and anti-LGBTQ+ policies long before former President Donald Trump tapped him to be his running mate for vice president.
