- by Cynthia Laird, News Editor
- Tuesday, March 3, 2026 (ebar.com)
Democratic gubernatorial candidates Xavier Becerra, left, Betty Yee, and Katie Porter took part in a forum at the Los Angeles LGBT Center.
Photos: Screengrabs via KNBC-TV
Seven Democratic candidates seeking to succeed California Governor Gavin Newsom said that they stood with the LGBTQ community during a forum Monday evening. One, however, was sharply critical of the state’s chief executive for recent comments he made suggesting Democrats be more “culturally normal.”
The candidates, all straight allies, appeared separately at “Centering Equality: California’s LGBTQ+ Gubernatorial Forum” co-hosted by statewide LGBTQ rights group Equality California and the Los Angeles LGBT center. It was held Monday, March 2, at the center.
Moderators Colleen Williams of KNBC-TV and Dustin Gardner of Politico said at the outset that all the major candidates had been invited. Two Democratic candidates, San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan and former state lawmaker Ian Calderon, as well as Republicans Steve Hilton, a former Fox News host, and Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco did not appear.
Candidate Tony Thurmond pushed back against the question about Newsom’s desire to see fellow Democrats change the way they talk about LGBTQs. During a recent interview on CNN, Newsom called for his party to be “culturally normal,” and specifically to stop “spending a disproportionate amount of time on pronouns [and] identity politics.”
“The governor is flat-out wrong,” said Thurmond, currently the elected state superintendent of public instruction. “We don’t need to placate the conservative right.”
Thurmond added that while he agrees with Newsom on a lot of things, LGBTQ people should “just go ahead and be who you are.”
In response to the same question, candidate Katie Porter said, “I don’t think any leader gets to sit in judgment.” Porter previously represented Orange County in Congress and ran unsuccessfully for U.S. Senate in 2024.
Betty Yee, the former elected state controller, also had critical words on the topic. “I think there’s a little bit of scapegoating these people,” she said, referring to LGBTQs.
Gardner and Williams generally asked each candidate the same questions, but time constraints prevented them from asking all of them about Newsom’s suggestion Democrats “pivot” in how they talk about the queer community.
Read the rest of this story below
and never miss another!
Sign up today to receive trusted LGBTQ news in your inbox.Please select the newsletters you’d like to subscribe to:Bay Area Reporter newsletterNews is Out weekly newsletterBay Area Reporter health newsletterSubmit
Trans issues
On issues affecting the transgender community, all of the candidates spoke in support. Tom Steyer, a billionaire who’s self-funding his campaign, was the clearest on the matter of trans girls and women playing on female sports teams, a contentious issue in California and across the country. Several states have passed bans on trans athletes, while California attempted a compromise last year regarding high school sports. Meanwhile, the Trump administration has launched investigations into some colleges who had trans women on their sports teams.
Steyer, who said he has played sports “my entire life,” said, “I strongly feel trans people should participate in sports.”
“I come back to how vulnerable and stressed trans youth feel,” Steyer said. “Sports is some form of community.”
Xavier Becerra, who served in Congress, as California’s attorney general, and as health and human services secretary in the Biden administration, said he has long fought against discrimination.
“I’ll protect it the way I did when I was attorney general,” he said of issues such as trans people participating in sports. “Health care and education are not the prerogative of the federal government. The Constitution left health care, education, and public safety to the states. Obviously, there are some constraints if you take federal money, [such as] Medicare. I know the law.”
Porter said that she’s had conversations with health care companies and parents over providing gender-affirming care to trans youth.
“We need to provide state funding for this,” she said, pegging the cost at about $26 million. “That is a number that is out there that we can find.”
Congressmember Eric Swalwell (D-Dublin), advocated a “human approach” to issues affecting trans people.
“Life is already hard for a trans kid,” he said.
He was critical of President Donald Trump and his efforts to roll back rights for trans Americans.
“This president has declared war on kids,” Swalwell said, with bans against gender-affirming care that many hospitals in California and elsewhere have implemented due to the Trump administration’s threat to withhold federal funds. “We need a fighter and protector in Sacramento.”
Candidate Antonio Villaraigosa, a former state Assembly speaker and mayor of Los Angeles, said that he has been an ally to the LGBTQ community for decades.
“I started at the beginning,” he said, rattling off support for early legislation providing rights to LGBTQ Californians. He also said that as mayor, he removed trans women prisoners from the men’s jail.
“I continue to be at the forefront,” Villaraigosa said.
As for the threat of the state losing federal dollars, Villaraigosa said the way to combat that would be to backfill the cuts with state money. “We have a $300 billion-plus budget,” he said. “Budgets are a statement of values.”
Grading themselves
The candidates were asked at the outset to grade themselves with the LGBTQ community in mind.
Bacerra didn’t assign himself a letter grade, but pointed out that when he was in Congress, the House voted on the Defense of Marriage Act, which limited marriage to between one man and one woman. He was one of 67 representatives to vote no. (A section of DOMA has since been repealed by the U.S. Supreme Court; in 2022 then-President Joe Biden signed the Respect for Marriage Act, which repealed what was left of DOMA.)
Porter said that she’d “give myself an A.”
Swalwell, who said his record on the Human Rights Campaign’s congressional scorecard has been 100%, gave himself “an A for ally.”
Steyer touted an endorsement from gay Assemblymember Rick Chavez Zbur (D-Hollywood), who is a former executive director of EQCA. “For me, the question is what people in the community think,” he said.
Thurmond noted his work on behalf of the community. “I’m a work in progress,” he said. “I’m not going to sit on my laurels.”
Villaraigosa gave himself an A+.
Yee said she’d give herself an A. “I’m a lifelong ally,” she said.
Polling, tough question
A poll released last week by the Public Policy Institute of California shows a statistical tie between Democratic candidates Porter, Swalwell, and Steyer and the two Republicans, Hilton and Bianco. The five poll between 10% and 14%. The rest of the Democratic field polls at 5% or lower, according to the PPIC survey.
The strong showings by Hilton and Bianco have left many Democrats worried that two Republicans could win in the June 2 primary, shutting out Democratic contenders in a deep blue state. Under the state’s open primary, only the top two finishers, regardless of party affiliation, advance to the November 3 general election.
That concern was evident at the recent California Democratic Convention in San Francisco, as the Bay Area Reporter noted. In a rare move, on Tuesday Rusty Hicks, chair of the California Democratic Party, urged struggling candidates to withdraw by the Friday, March 6, filing deadline.
And it was brought up at the LGBTQ-focused forum. The candidates were asked if they would endorse someone else if they dropped out of the race.
Becerra, polling at 5%, said it was interesting that the candidates most often mentioned as ones to possibly drop out were people of color such as himself. He declined to endorse someone else.
Porter said she was “worried about the two Republican thing,” but added that she’s polling at the top of the Democratic field. She’s polling at 13%, according to the survey.
Swalwell, polling at 11%, said, “I’ve made the decision to win. We’ve built the biggest coalition and I need all of you on the team.” He referenced his place at the end of the debate stage back in 2019 when he briefly ran for president. “I’m now in the center of the stage,” he said.
Steyer, who’s polling at 10%, said that there were “a lot of people in this race that I respect.” He did acknowledge that if he had to endorse one of the other candidates, it would be Yee.
Thurmond, polling at 2%, said that he’s run two statewide campaigns for state schools chief and won each time despite millions of dollars spent against him.
“My team has already seen a path to victory,” he said, though he did not elaborate.
Villaraigosa, polling at 5%, said he would support Yee and Thurmond.
Yee, also pulling in 5% support, said she would support Villaraigosa and Steyer. Of the former, she said he’s been the “biggest champion” and of Steyer, she said, “He brings something new to the race.”
For highlights of the forum, click here.
To view the forum, go to KNBC-TV’s YouTube channel.
