NEW YORK – Sarah Kate Ellis, President and CEO of GLAAD – the world’s largest LGBTQ media advocacy organization, released the following statement this evening after President Donald Trump accepted the resignation of Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price following numerous reports of Price using close to $1 million dollars of taxpayer money to pay for the more than two dozen private and chartered jet trips across the world.

“After decades of targeting marginalized communities for his own profit, karma finally caught up with Tom Price. It’s a relief that an anti-LGBTQ activist like Price was removed from the Trump Administration’s highest ranks, but LGBTQ Americans must remain vigilant and prepare for the next nomination – as they could bring the same discriminatory agenda as the rest of the president’s picks.”

Read more about Tom Price’s anti-LGBTQ record below and find other profiles on anti-LGBTQ activists inside the Trump Administration through GLAAD’s Trump Accountability Project.
 

BACKGROUND INFORMATION: Secretary of Health and Human Service Tom Price’s Anti-LGBTQ Record

During Service

• 3.28.17: Under his proposed budget for the U.S. Congress, the Trump Administration offered to cut HIV and AIDS research funding under the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
   
• 3.24.17: President Trump and his administration appointed anti-LGBTQ activist and former Heritage Foundation employee Roger Severino to lead the Health and Human Services Civil Rights Office, putting the LGBTQ community at risk of losing access to critical and affordable health care. 
   
• 3.20.17: Erased the LGBTQ community from The National Survey of Older Americans Act Participants and the Annual Program Performance Report for Centers for Independent Living, key surveys that are used to help provide care to American seniors – including disability, transportation, and caregiver support needs.

Prior to Service

• Cultivated an extensive anti-LGBTQ congressional voting record: voted in favor of a Federal Marriage Amendment that would have denied same-sex couples the right to marry, voted against LGBTQ-inclusive hate crimes legislation, voted against the repeal of the military’s discriminatory ‘Don’t Ask Don’t Tell’ policy, and voted against the Employment Nondiscrimination Act, which aimed to provide nondiscrimination protections to LGBTQ employees.
• Called federal guidelines on transgender equality “absurd” and a “clear invasion of privacy.
   
• Said Supreme Court’s marriage equality ruling was “not only a sad day for marriage, but a further judicial destruction of our entire system of checks and balances.”
   
• Excused comments comparing being gay to pedophilia and bestiality as simple “Christian beliefs regarding proper sexual ethics.”
   
• Insisted legislation designed to protect LGBTQ people from hate crimes was really “thought crimes” legislation, and bemoaned its manner of passage as an “absolute disgrace.”
   
• Condemned the repeal of ‘Don’t Ask Don’t Tell’ for turning the military into “a testing ground for social policy, and called its manner of passage “shameful.”
   
• Spoke at a “Take Back America” conference where attendees were lectured on subjects such as “How to Counter the Homosexual Extremist Movement.”