Editorial: Newsom’s formal Pride statement is late

It’s the middle of June, and we have yet to see an official Pride Month proclamation from California Governor Gavin Newsom. While he did post “Happy Pride, California!” on his Instagram June 1, Newsom has, in the past, issued a formal proclamation for the LGBTQ community at the start of the month. (Update: after this editorial was published Wednesday morning, Newsom issued the Pride proclamation at around 3:40 p.m.)

Then again, maybe the state’s queer community is better off without a gubernatorial salute. After all, the trans community is still smarting from Newsom throwing it under the bus earlier this year when he agreed with right-wing provocateur Charlie Kirk that trans women and girls shouldn’t play on female sports teams. Newsom made that pronouncement on the debut of his “This is Gavin Newsom” podcast.

Since then, the governor has apparently experienced some pushback. Fox News had a piece on its website that referenced the June 6 episode of Newsom’s podcast where he revealed that he’s lost friends because of his anti-trans comments. His guest this time? None other than Dr. Phil McGraw, another right-wing quack who embedded himself with Department of Homeland Security personnel during the Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids in Los Angeles that started that same day. You know, the raids that led President Donald Trump to federalize the National Guard over Newsom’s strenuous objections. Why on earth was Newsom giving more airtime to McGraw? He had blasted Trump over the National Guard issue and even filed a lawsuit, which saw a temporary victory of a couple of hours before a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals lifted the judge’s order until it could consider the matter. A three-judge panel heard arguments June 17. 

“They're done and, you know, I appreciate they felt hurt,” Newsom said of his now-former friends on his podcast. “They felt that point of view was, you know, somehow diminishing.”

Somehow diminishing? Oh, governor, you have no idea.

Evan Michael Minton, a trans man in Sacramento, put it succinctly in a Facebook post that he linked to the Fox News item. “Can anyone I know who has regular contact with our Governor please ask him to just quit talking about trans+ people?” Minton wrote, stressing that “trans+ people in sports is just not a sweeping issue, it’s a Republican-generated talking point. Like ‘welfare queens’ and ‘bathroom predators.’”

Speaking of the ICE raids and use of federal troops, several prominent Democrats are praising Newsom for “finding his resistance voice” in standing up to Trump. “Even California Democrats who’ve been critical of Newsom in recent months have cheered his feisty rhetoric and his willingness to push back on the White House,” Politico reported. “‘We’ve been waiting to feel like the governor is standing up and fighting for California and every Californian, and he seems to be doing that,’ Lorena Gonzalez, head of the state Labor Federation, and a former state lawmaker, told the publication. Gonzalez might want to rethink that, given Newsom’s stance on trans people, it doesn’t appear to us that he’s “fighting for every Californian.”

Newsom dared border czar Tom Homan to arrest him, and has used the conflict to generate plenty of buzz. As Politico rightly noted, this isn’t the first time Newsom has seized on a national issue.

We all remember when Newsom was San Francisco mayor in February 2004 and ordered city officials to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. That “Winter of Love” catapulted the marriage equality movement, even as some Democrats at the time didn’t agree with him. Now, of course, same-sex marriage is the law of the land, and even many Republicans support it as the 10th anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court decision nears on June 26.

But it’s too bad that Newsom doesn’t exhibit the same commitment and outspokenness for the trans community, which is also under severe attack by the Trump administration for many reasons other than sports participation. The very health care that trans people need access to is slipping away as hospitals pause gender-affirming care. For example, Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, after initially briefly pausing new admissions to its gender program, announced last week that it was closing its Center for Transyouth Health and Development effective July 22.

“Center team members were heartbroken to learn of the decision from hospital leaders, who emphasized that it was not made lightly, but followed a thorough legal and financial assessment of the increasingly severe impacts of recent administrative actions and proposed policies,” the hospital stated on its website. The program had been in operation for more than 30 years, so this is a real gut-punch to trans kids and their families.

As of Wednesday morning, Newsom’s office had yet to send out any news release addressing the situation. A parent has launched a Change.org petition calling on Newsom and state legislators not only to provide emergency funding to keep the center open but also to “publicly affirm that California will defend access to gender-affirming care for youth—and stand by families who rely on it.”

All of this after Newsom signed gay state Senator Scott Wiener’s bill in 2022 that makes California a refuge for trans youth and their parents. He should speak out against CHLA’s decision. After all, when Newsom signed the bill, he wrote, "We believe that no one should be prosecuted or persecuted for getting the care they need – including gender-affirming care. Parents know what's best for their kids, and they should be able to make decisions around the health of their children without fear. We must take a stand for parental choice."

Parental choice goes both ways, of course. The term is now a talking point used by conservative school board members and others. But Newsom’s point three years ago was that parents of trans kids should have a choice too. That’s even more important in light of Wednesday’s U.S. Supreme Court decision upholding Tennessee’s ban on gender-affirming care for minors, a huge setback for trans rights.

It is illustrative of how the trans community has a real need for support – and for programs and policies that help them live their authentic lives. Right now, Newsom is failing on that front.

Updated: 6/18/25: This editorial was updated to indicate Governor Newsom did issue the Pride proclamation Wednesday afternoon, hours after this editorial was posted.