During an appearance on MSNBC, Chasten Buttigieg criticized Republican policies, saying they tell suicidal LGBTQ people to “pull the trigger.”
Buttigieg shared his own experience as a closeted gay teen contemplating suicide, staring at his father’s gun cabinet believing that was the “only way out.”
MSNBC’s Nicolle Wallace said, “I think that’s exactly right. I keep having Amanda Zurawski back, the woman in Texas who was pregnant and named her daughter Willow. She lost her pregnancy at 18 weeks and almost died of sepsis. It’s a story that is real. It’s a woman who very much wanted her pregnancy. It’s this inconvenient wrinkle for Republicans for extremist Republicans policies on abortion because it doesn’t fit into the mold. If you love a woman or you are a woman or know a woman or have a child, you understand what the stakes are in this election.”
He felt like the “only gay person in the world” and that the world was telling him to end his life.
Buttigieg argued that one candidate, implying Democrats, has the backs of LGBTQ youth, while the other, implying Republicans, surrounds themselves with people who actively say “pull the trigger.”
Buttigieg said, “It requires a lot of vulnerability. It’s really hard but for me, getting to grow up to be this person was a miracle. When I was 13, 14 years old and sitting in my parent’s basement, I would stare at my dad’s gun cabinet and I thought that was the only way out. I would never know love. I would never know family. I would never know community.”
He said Republicans do not support LGBTQ people or families like his own and do nothing to make life better or safer for such communities.
He said, “I thought I was the only gay person in the world. I felt like the world was telling me to pull the trigger. I very much feel this election is about one candidate who looks at that kid and says ‘I’ve got your back,’ and another candidate who surrounds himself with people who are actively saying ‘pull the trigger.’ That’s what they believe.”
“They do not support LGTBQ people. They do not support families like mine own. They are not doing anything actively to make life better or safer for kids like my own, for families like my own and for many other people around this country.”
