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Former President Joe Biden addresses a packed room at the 2025 LGBTQ+ Victory Institute International Leaders Conference in Washington, D.C., on December 5, 2025.
The former president warned that the nation's move toward equality must be protected in the age of Trump.
Elected LGBTQ+ leaders and candidates from around the world packed into the JW Marriott ballroom in Washington, D.C., on Friday to celebrate former President Joe Biden’s decades-long commitment to LGBTQ+ equality,and to confront a political landscape where that progress is suddenly under threat.
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Biden’s appearance at the LGBTQ+ Victory Institute’s 2025 International LGBTQ+ Leaders Conference, the largest LGBTQ+ political gathering in the nation, was history-making. Speaking to a crowd of more than 550 people, the first sitting or former president to address the LGBTQ+ Victory Institute accepted the organization’s Chris Abele Impact Award, the group’s highest honor, becoming only the third recipient in the Institute’s history. And for many in the room, it felt like more than an award ceremony. It felt like a moment of return.
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“This is no time to give up,” Biden told the crowd. “It’s time to get up — get up and fight back.” He framed the moment as one of profound democratic consequence: “We believe in the power of our democracy to pull the nation together,” he said, warning that “everything we’re seeing coming out of this reactionary White House” makes it essential for LGBTQ+ Americans and allies to stand firm.
Since President Donald Trump retook office in January, federal agencies have targeted LGBTQ+ people, particularly transgender Americans, through sweeping policy reversals across the government. Biden cast those actions as an assault on the American idea itself: a rejection of dignity, equality, and the constitutional promise of opportunity.
“America is the only country founded on an idea,” he said. “We hold these truths to be self-evident … all are created equal, all deserve to be treated with dignity throughout their lives.” Though the country has not always met that ideal, he said, “we’ve never walked away from it.”
He warned that the current administration is trying to weaponize fear and misinformation to pit Americans against one another. Republicans are using LGBTQ+ people as a “political football,” Biden said, as a way to divide the country.
Biden’s speech was part celebration, part warning.
He recalled his 2012 Meet the Press endorsement of marriage equality and spoke about the love he’d witnessed from LGBTQ+ families over the years. “I just couldn’t remain silent anymore,” he said. “I expressed my support for gay marriage a little earlier than some folks had been expecting.”
He then told a story he also shared in that interview: a night spent speaking with LGBTQ+ leaders at a private home. A man asked him, “How do you feel about us?” Biden said he replied by pointing to the couple’s two young sons. “I wish every American could have seen the love in the eyes of these two young boys for their dads,” he said. “If they did, they’d never have any doubt about what this is all about.”
“But a lot has gotten lost in all the noise,” he said. “Basic identity is being turned into a political football.” He warned that young LGBTQ+ people today sit alone behind closed doors, staring at the ceiling, wondering, “Will they ever be loved? Will they ever matter? Will they ever have a family? Will they ever truly be accepted for who they are?” His message to them was compassionate: “Just be you. You are loved. You belong.”
He accused Trump and “the MAGA Republicans” of trying to “distort and derail our fight for equality,” turning LGBTQ+ equality into “something scary, something sinister.” But at its core, he said, equality is about the simplest of things: “making every American… be treated with basic decency, dignity, and respect.”
And he linked LGBTQ+ rights to broader economic fairness. “It’s about making sure every American can come home at the end of the day, look their kid in the eye and say, ‘Honey, it’s going to be OK.’”
Biden told the room that their willingness to run for office — and to subject themselves and their families to scrutiny and attacks — is “what’s going to take courage.” “Everybody deserves a shot,” he said. “Everybody.”
Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel, who warned during an earlier panel that the U.S. Supreme Court appears poised to revisit marriage equality, said Biden’s appearance brought her something she hasn’t felt in months.
“I miss him,” Nessel told The Advocate after his speech. “I miss his kindness. I miss having a president who loves all of the country, not just some of the country.”
Related: Joe Biden to receive top honor at LGBTQ+ leadership conference for his contributions to equality
Hawaii Attorney General Anne Lopez said Biden’s presence was a stark contrast to today’s political climate. “Right now we have a president who’s a bully,” she told The Advocate. “It is so wonderful to have a man who respects all of us. He is really motivational.”
For San Antonio, Texas, Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones, who was an undersecretary of the Air Force under Biden, the moment felt deeply personal.
“For me, President Biden is very, very special,” she said, recalling her years serving under “don’t ask, don’t tell.” “He knocked down these doors when folks weren’t ready to.” She credited Biden with elevating LGBTQ+ service members long before it was politically safe.
As the current speaker of the Maine House of Representatives, Ryan Fecteau said Biden’s return to the LGBTQ+ political stage was unexpectedly emotional.
“It’s probably more meaningful than ever,” he said. “It’s easy to forget that 11 months ago we had a president who stood shoulder to shoulder with gay people … who believed we should be represented in his administration.” Seeing Biden again, he said, was a reminder “that it is possible to have a president who believes in our place in American society, that we’re not just here to exist but to contribute.”
The 2025 conference, running through Saturday, convened more than 700 LGBTQ+ elected officials, political leaders, and human rights advocates from across the globe. The Victory Institute, which organizes the event, has become one of the most influential LGBTQ+ political institutions worldwide. Its mission is straightforward and ambitious: train, support, and mobilize LGBTQ+ people to run for office and lead. Its alumni include some of the most historic figures in American politics, including Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin, and Delaware U.S. Congresswoman Sarah McBride, the first out trans person in Congress, and California Congressman Robert Garcia, the ranking member of the House Oversight Committee.
The organization also plays a critical role ahead of the 2026 midterms, where key state legislative and congressional races could reshape LGBTQ+ political power. This year’s conference featured high-profile speakers, including Maine Gov. Janet Mills, California U.S. Rep. Mark Takano, Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes, Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel, Hawaii Attorney General Anne Lopez, and mayors such as San Antonio’s Gina Ortiz Jones and San Diego’s Todd Gloria.
The Institute also inducted new members into its Hall of Fame, including West Hollywood’s former Mayor John Heilman and Carla Antonelli, the first trans woman elected to the Spanish Senate.
Eric Chung, an out Democrat running in Michigan’s 10th Congressional District, told The Advocate that Biden’s appearance underscored the strength and visibility of the LGBTQ+ political community. “It’s very powerful to see a former president come to this event,” he said. “Having a former president recognize just how important this coalition is really is an important milestone.”
The Victory Institute emphasized that Biden’s administration set records for LGBTQ+ inclusion. Nearly 15 percent of Biden’s appointees identified as LGBTQ+, far surpassing any prior administration. They include former White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, Human Rights Campaign Senior Vice President for Campaigns and Communications Jonathan Lovitz, who was a Biden appointee in the Department of Commerce, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, Admiral Rachel Levine, and Ambassador Chantale Wong. Beyond representation, the administration reinstated and expanded federal civil rights protections, reversed the ban on transgender military service that Trump has now reinstated, strengthened antidiscrimination rules in employment and health care, and expanded protections for LGBTQ+ youth and families.
Biden closed the speech with characteristic urgency and optimism. Quoting his “friend Sarah McBride,” he said, “Hope is a conscious choice. You have to summon it.” America, he said, “is not a fairy tale,” but for 250 years has emerged from every crisis “stronger, wiser, and more resilient.”
“We just have to get up,” he said. “Remember who in the hell we are. We’re the United States of America … and there is nothing beyond our capacity when we act together.”
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