President Donald Trump hasn’t used a video announcement to cancel Pride month.
Althoughthe US president has been criticised for his anti-LGBTQ+ executive orders and making bizarre claims about transgender mice, and for sharing Nazi-era insignia online, he has not tried to prevent Pride taking place.
Pride Month is observed every June in the US and commemorates the Stonewall riots which first flared on 28 June 1969. The protests were led by a group of lesbians, trans women, drag queens and gay men outside a Manhattan gay bar.
AFP reported that a Korean-language post on X/Twitter appeared to show Trump saying in a video that “Pride month is cancelled” and the US would “no longer participate in deliberate moral inversions… instead, June will be known as Confidence month or maybe just June”. But the video is a deepfake.
The video included homophobic and graphic remarks about gay sex and appeared to originate from X user Maverick Alexander. “This is a deepfake but let people dream,” a disclaimer read at the end of the original video, but this was edited out of the Korean-language post.
The video “has been manipulated using AI”, said AFP, and a reverse-image search revealed that the clip matched a White House video from last month, where Trump wished people of the Jewish faith a “Happy Passover”.
The White House has not commented on the deepfake.
Trump’s second term has been marked by a series of anti-LGBTQ+ moves, including a declaration that “only two sexes” exist, diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives being gutted and trans men and women being banned from serving in the military.
Despite the fact that the video was not real, Pride events have struggled in the wake of the administration’s attacks, with New York City Pride saying sponsors had “pulled back” because of the “pressure” put on DEI programmes.
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