After Donald Trump failed to issue a proclamation marking the beginning of Pride Month, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed he has “no plans” to acknowledge it at all.
Leavitt was responding to a reporter asking about a resolution proposed by U.S. Rep. Mary Miller (R-IL) to make June “Family Month” and “reject the lie of ‘Pride'” to “instead honor God’s timeless and perfect design.”
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One high-profile Democrat has called the move “spiteful,” “shameful,” and “vindictive.”
The reporter brought up Miller’s proposal and said he “would personally like to see maybe a nuclear family month” and that “some people are saying let’s get a veterans month.”
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“There are no plans for a proclamation for the month of June,” Leavitt replied, “but I can tell you this president is very proud to be a president for all Americans, regardless of race, religion, or creed.”
Question: Rep. Miller suggested changing pride month to family month, I would personally like to see maybe a nuclear family month. Some people are saying let’s get a veterans month. pic.twitter.com/7MKj4EY3Jg
— Acyn (@Acyn) June 3, 2025
The reporter’s mention of a possible veteran’s month is part of a larger call among right-wingers to eliminate Pride Month and make June Veterans Month, despite the fact that May is already National Military Appreciation Month and November is National Veterans and Military Families Month.
The White House website shows that Trump designated May National Physical Fitness and Sports Month, Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, Jewish American Heritage Month, National Foster Care Month, and National Mental Health Awareness Month, but did not issue a proclamation for National Military Appreciation Month. Congress first designated May National Military Appreciation Month and said that it was meant to honor both veterans and current service members.
Anti-Pride vitriol is especially brutal this year, likely because the Trump administration’s war on LGBTQ+ rights has made anti-LGBTQ+ sentiment feel more mainstream and has emboldened far-right actors to more publicly display their hate. Miller’s proposal, for example, calls Pride Month displays “perverse” and says the events “denigrate the nuclear family.”
Both Presidents Joe Biden and Barack Obama issued annual Pride Month proclamations during their terms. Trump never did during his first term, though two years into his presidency in 2019, he did tweet about it, claiming he wanted to “stand in solidarity” with LGBTQ+ people and was fighting to “decriminalize homosexuality” worldwide.
That tweet was, however, the first time a Republican president acknowledged the existence of Pride Month at all. During Trump’s first term in office, his administration said it established a mission to decriminalize homosexuality worldwide.
While Trump was just as antagonistic to LGBTQ+ people during his first term as he has been during his second (widely considered at the time to be the most anti-LGBTQ+ president in modern history), his administration seemed determined to maintain a guise of caring about LGBTQ+ people.
This time around, that effort to keep up appearances is gone. In addition to the lack of a Pride Month proclamation, the FBI recently banned “official FBI actions, events, or messaging regarding Pride Month,” according to an email from FBI Assistant Director for Public Affairs Ben Williamson obtained by Fox News.
But even as Republicans have sought to ban Pride flags from government buildings, cities and states across the country have defiantly raised Pride flags this month.
This all comes as the administration has been doing everything in its power to decimate trans rights as well as diversity, equity, and inclusion programs.
Since Trump took office in January, departments and agencies across the federal government have been subject to executive orders stripping recognition of transgender people from U.S. government policy and purging “anti-American propaganda” like drag from the public square.
Based on Trump’s “gender Ideology” order issued on his first day in office and an order banning diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts in the federal government, the State Department alone has banned changes to sex markers on U.S. passports based and threatened arts organizations receiving U.S. government funds, leading to canceled exhibitions featuring LGBTQ+ and Black artists.
The shutdown of USAID, the United States Agency for International Development, has resulted in the loss of billions of dollars in aid to bipartisan programs like PEPFAR, the President’s Emergency Program for AIDS Relief. Advocates have called the cuts “catastrophic” for the global LGBTQ+ and intersex rights movement.
In April, Trump’s state department withdrew the United States from the United Nations LGBTI Core Group, a collection of countries actively supporting the rights of LGBTQ+ and intersex people globally, a move that has dismantled any illusions that Trump cares about decriminalizing homosexuality around the world.
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