David Gianforte, of Bozeman, Montana, was upset about the anti-trans bills making their way through the Montana state legislature, so he decided to lobby the governor to veto the bills, the Montana Free Press reported. It just so happens that Montana’s right-wing Republican governor is Greg Gianforte, who is David’s father.
Greg Gianforte gained a certain notoriety in 2017 when he “body-slammed” Guardian reporter Ben Jacobs on the eve of a special election he won for a seat in the U.S. House. He pleaded guilty to a charge of misdemeanor assault and received a six-month deferred sentence and served no jail time. He was sentenced to 40 hours of community service, 20 hours of anger management classes, and a $300 fine.
Gianforte became Montana’s governor in 2021 and has followed a typical right-wing agenda, signing bills restricting abortion and voting rights, easing gun regulations, and opposing vaccine and mask mandates. In May 2021, he signed a bill banning transgender girls and women from participating in sports at public schools.
But despite the governor’s record, David, who identifies as nonbinary and uses the pronouns “he” and “they,” reached out by email to seek an appointment with his father to talk about his opposition to three anti-LGBTQ+ bills making their way to the governor’s desk.
The governor responded: “I would like to better understand your thoughts and concerns. When can we get together to talk about it?” the governor wrote, signing the email, “Love, Dad.”
The Montana Free Press reported:
David, 32, sat down in the governor’s office on March 27 with a prepared statement about legislation affecting transgender Montanans and the LGBTQ+ community generally, to which David says he belongs. He wanted to talk about Senate Bill 99, a ban on gender-affirming health care for minors; Senate Bill 458, a bill to define sex as strictly binary in Montana code; and House Bill 359, a ban on drag performances in many public spaces. Sitting across from his father in the governor’s office, with Gianforte’s top health adviser present, David said, he read his printed statement out loud.
“Hey Dad. Thanks for setting aside time to meet with me, it means a lot to me,” David said. “There are a lot of important issues passing through the legislature right now. For my own sake I’ve chosen to focus primarily on transgender rights, as that would significantly directly affect a number of my friends … I would like to make the argument that these bills are immoral, unjust, and frankly a violation of human rights.”
David, 32, who has a background in computer science, is the second oldest of the governor’s four children and grew up in a devout Christian household. According to KTVQ, “David said that after he first told his parents he was gay in 2020, the family never talked about it at length again.”
David sat down for an interview with the Free Press on April 25 in which he disclosed his gender identity publicly for the first time. “I felt somewhat of an obligation to speak with him about it. Otherwise I would regret the missed opportunity,” David said.
Late Tuesday, the governor’s office issued a brief statement about the meeting in response to a request from the Free Press.
“The governor loves his family and values their thoughts, ideas, and perspectives. Our office will not discuss private conversations between the governor and members of his family,” said press secretary Brooke Stroyke.
The first of the three anti-LGBTQ bills to be approved by the legislature is SB 99, the ban on gender-affirming health care for minors. It’s awaiting the governor’s signature. The governor did send SB 99 back to the legislature with amendments that, in David’s view, did not make the legislation better for Montana’s LGBTQ community.
David said the governor’s letter to lawmakers explaining the amendments did not make sense because it referenced the same values—empathy and compassion—that he had asked his father to consider regarding transgender Montanans.
“It’s bizarre to me to read the press release that my father put out,” David said. “He talks about compassion toward children, the youth of Montana, while simultaneously taking away health care from the youth in Montana. It’s basically a contradiction in my mind.”
David told the Free Press that he knows trans people who have benefited from medical procedures SB 99 would restrict, such as hormone therapy which some people begin receiving as teenagers. He criticized the other bills as invasions of privacy and attempts to curb the right of self-expression.
In a tweet, David declared their support for state Democratic Rep. Zooey Zephyr, the first openly transgender woman in the Montana legislature. Zephyr criticized the governor’s changes to SB 99, and said any lawmaker who supported the amended bill would have “blood on your hands.”
RELATED STORY: Montana transgender lawmaker faces censure or expulsion
Zephyr has since not only been blocked from speaking during sessions on the floor of the legislature, but also can no longer attend the sessions. She can only vote remotely for the remainder of the legislative session.
Wednesday night on MSNBC, Zephyr told host Joy Reid that she hadn’t yet met David Gianforte. She added:
“I think that highlights the fact that when they target LGBTQ people they think they’re targeting the boogeyman but we are everywhere, whether you’re an administrator at your job or the governor of Montana, you are never far from a queer person and our votes need to show that we’re welcome.”
Zephyr later appeared on a panel on MSNBC’s “The Last Word,” hosted by Ali Velshi, with Gen Z House member Rep. Maxwell Frost of Florida and Tennessee Rep. Justin Jones, who was expelled and reinstated to the state House. Both Frost and Jones have spoken out in support of gun control measures.
It was a remarkable conversation with three young Democratic lawmakers who are standing together in solidarity for democracy and equality.
There have been some notable Republicans who have changed their positions on gay rights after they discovered how it affected their own families. Dick Cheney’s daughter Mary is a lesbian. During the 2004 presidential campaign, Cheney distanced himself from President George W. Bush’s call for a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage. He said “freedom means freedom for everyone. … People ought to be free to enter into any kind of relationship they want to.” Former Rep. Liz Cheney came out publicly to admit that she was wrong in opposing gay marriage.
And in 2013, Sen. Rob Portman of Ohio became the first Republican senator to support marriage equality in 2013 after his son Will came out as gay. Before leaving the Senate, Portman helped muster enough Republican votes in December 2022 to overcome the filibuster and pass a bill protecting same-sex marriage in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn the federal right to an abortion.
But David Gianforte told the Free Press that he didn’t expect his conversation with his father to change the outcome of any of the anti-LGBTQ bills. “He is concerned about his career … And he’s aware that being able to stay in the position of governor is dependent on him staying in favor of the Republican Party,” David said. “And I believe that that affects his decisions on some of these bills.”
But David said people need to speak candidly and openly in order to move forward, in their own families or in the public arena. “I feel like I have a voice and I can be heard. And I feel, not only in communicating with my father, that’s not necessarily the main point, but also just showing support for the transgender community in Montana,” David said. “I think that could be meaningful, especially at this time.”
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Montana Republicans tried to silence trans lawmaker. They failed
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The past week seems to have packed in a month’s worth of news. Markos and Kerry tackle it all, from Joe Biden’s big announcement to Tucker Carlson’s early retirement from Fox News.
