An ex-federal employee who tackled white supremacy around the world is running for Congress on a pro-LGBTQ+ platform, amid increasing attacks from Republicans on the community.

Speaking to PinkNews about his campaign and prior work within the US government, Michael Duffin said throughout his life he has “wanted to champion the underdog” and sought to “fight” for those who are being bullied or oppressed.

The LGBTQ+ community, particularly the trans community, is unfortunately one such group facing extreme oppression at all levels of US politics at the moment.

A year on from Donald Trump’s return to power, anti-trans policy positions are not the unbeatable winning formula that the 2024 Trump campaign made them seem – or at least, we can hope.   

In the first major election since the start of Trump’s second term in office, the Democrats scored coast-to-coast victories: congresswomen Abigail Spanberger and Mikie Sherrill won the gubernatorial races in Virginia and New Jersey respectively, socialist heartthrob Zorhan Mamdani was declared New York City’s first Muslim mayor and voters in California passed a measure to redistrict in an effort to counter Republican gerrymandering in other states. 

The results serve as a measure of attitudes towards Trump’s government, many political pundits have noted. 

In the wake of these victories, GLAAD president and CEO Sarah Kate Ellis declared Americans are “rejecting divisive politics” which attack queer folks, Human Rights Campaign president Kelley Robinson said voters aren’t interested in “hollow campaigns of fear mongering” and former president Barack Obama wrote on X, formerly Twitter, that “the future looks a little bit brighter”. 

Indeed, Spanberger, Sherrill and Mamdani have all spoken out in support of LGBTQ+ rights and, in particular, the rights of the trans community in the face of vicious attacks by the Trump administration. 

Despite the sudden uptick in hope, it is still a long way to next year’s mid-terms and, indeed, the 2028 presidential election. 

Just over a year in office and we have seen the Trump administration work at speed to reshape the government in his image. Both ideologically, where he has enacted countless executive orders, cut thousands of jobs, launched huge tariffs, engaged in trade wars and created an entirely new government department, and physically –  the builders having moved into the East Wing last month to build a new ballroom.  

There is no telling what could come in the next year or three, or if the Democrats could even repeat their success this time around at the mid-terms. 

But, if anyone knows the impacts of the Trump administration’s sweeping spending cuts and divisive, anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric, it’s Duffin.  

A Democrat candidate running for Congress in Virginia, Duffin has spoken of the importance of LGBTQ+ allyship – particularly as a straight, married, middle-aged guy with two young children – in the midst of America’s deeply divided political landscape. 

A former counterterrorism official at the US Department of State, Duffin worked on programmes addressing white supremacist organisations.

Duffin was one of the 1,300 State Department staffers fired in Trump’s sweeping cuts and entered Virginia’s 8th Congressional District in response to this: running on a platform of supporting federal workers, providing financial relief for middle-class families and tackling the rise in extremist hate. 

The district, which includes all of Alexandria, Arlington, and Falls Church and some parts of eastern Fairfax County, is already staunchly Democrat. Duffin is one of the three candidates in the 2026 Democratic primary, which includes former Alexandria City Councilman Mohamed “Mo” Seifeldein and Frank Ferreira.

All three of them are challenging five-term incumbent representative Don Beyer for the seat. 

It was in his role as a non-partisan civil servant with the State Department during the first Trump administration that Duffin began to notice a “pattern” emerging in how white supremacist and right-wing groups were increasingly focusing on the LGBTQ+ community. 

“I had seen as a counter terrorism practitioner that the Muslim and Jewish communities had become harder targets for these individuals – [white supremacist] hate groups, terrorist groups – because a synagogue or Islamic Centre now has double doors, they have cameras everywhere, they’re working actively with security,” Duffin noted. 

Many Pride groups, on the other hand, often do not have such defences: “I met a group in Boulder, Colorado in May 2023.

“It was just a regular office space, and so we’re talking in a conference space and they told me ‘look, you can see outside. People outside can see inside. They see the Pride flag’.

“It’s public knowledge where they’re located. They’re an easy target.

“It’s not a coincidence that white supremacists and Christian nationalist groups are targeting the LGBTQ+ community – it’s a targeted effort,” he explained, noting that whilst not all conservatives intend for bad actors to commit violence against the community, it is an inevitable impact of anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric.  

Allyship is an important part of Duffin’s campaign and he says the narratives being perpetuated by the Trump administration are not just harming the LGBTQ+ community but wider US society. 

“There needs to be different advocates and messengers,” he explained. “And I want to be a messenger of ‘leave this community alone’. This is absolutely wrong.’

“In the case of the Trump administration, they’re targeting the LGBTQ+ community and someone could say, ‘well, I’m not gay or queer, that doesn’t impact me’. 

“The lesson from World War Two, in addition to the atrocities they committed against people, was that they [Adolf Hitler] led Germany on a suicide mission. 

“So for me, it’s like it’s not just demonising and vilifying the LGBTQ+ community. It’s destroying us,” – ‘us’ being the whole of the US collectively.

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