Log Cabin Republicans drop the ‘T’ to focus on just LGB issues

By SUZANNE DOWNING

Aug. 23, 2026 – The Log Cabin Republicans, the nation’s largest organization representing gay conservatives, has formally dropped transgender issues from its national mission and will now describe itself as an “LGB advocacy organization.”

Ross Hemminger, president of the Log Cabin Republicans, announced the change in Townhall.

“Fifty years ago next year, Log Cabin Republicans was founded on a simple conviction: that gay Americans who believe in limited government, individual liberty, and equality deserve equal protection under the law and a voice inside the Republican Party. From the start, Log Cabin Republicans grounded its advocacy in constitutional principles — equal protection, limited government, and individual freedom,” he wrote.

The organization’s board added transgender rights to its mission in 2015, Hemminger wrote, based on the principle that adults should be free to pursue their own happiness without government interference, provided they did not infringe on the rights of others.

“At the time, we did not believe that we would find ourselves where we are today,” Hemminger wrote.

He said transgender activism has since moved away from protecting the choices of adults and become increasingly centered on children, schools, women’s athletic competition and medical procedures for minors.

Hemminger pointed specifically to efforts to introduce gender ideology in schools, allow biological males to compete in women’s sports and provide medical gender-transition treatments to minors. This is happening sometimes, he said, without the knowledge or consent of their parents.

The organization’s board voted after what Hemminger described as significant discussion with its members.

Log Cabin Republicans will now concentrate its national advocacy on issues involving sexual orientation and conservative principles. Its priorities will include marriage, adoption, military service, equal treatment under the law and religious-liberty protections.

“In other words, we are an LGB advocacy organization,” Hemminger wrote, saying the decision returns the organization to the mission envisioned by its founders.

The change does not mean transgender conservatives are prohibited from joining the organization. Hemminger said membership will remain open to all conservatives, and local chapters may continue welcoming anyone who shares the group’s principles.

The decision separates two political movements that have increasingly been treated as a single constituency, despite addressing fundamentally different issues. Gay and lesbian advocacy traditionally focused on sexual orientation and equal treatment for adults. Transgender activism is based on gender identity and now frequently encompasses school policies, children’s medical care, access to sex-segregated facilities and eligibility for women’s athletic competition.

Hemminger argued that combining the movements has begun to damage public support for gay men and lesbians, including support for same-sex marriage and other rights that had gained broad acceptance.

Many younger Americans, he wrote, did not witness the decades-long political and legal campaign over gay marriage. Their impressions of the broader gay community are instead being shaped by today’s fights over transgender athletes, gender instruction and medical interventions involving children.

The Log Cabin Republicans will mark its 50th anniversary next year. The organization was founded to give gay Republicans a voice within the party while promoting limited government, personal freedom and equal protection under the law.

Hemminger said the organization has achieved many of its original goals, including the right of gay Americans to marry and to serve openly in the military. He characterized the new policy as a return to the group’s roots rather than a change in its underlying principles.

The decision immediately drew criticism from organizations on the political left. The Human Rights Campaign argued that separating transgender advocacy from gay and lesbian advocacy would divide the broader movement. Other LGBT publications described the decision as abandoning transgender people.

The Log Cabin Republicans, however, said the modern transgender political agenda is no longer the movement the organization agreed to support in 2015.

“This decision reaffirms our core mission,” Hemminger wrote.

The organization’s website has also been revised to identify Log Cabin Republicans as America’s oldest and largest organization for LGB conservatives and their straight allies.