Vivek Ramaswamy's campaign website says he is "fighting to lift all Ohioans."

Equality Ohio's 2026 Candidate Scorecard gives him an F — the grade reserved for a candidate with a "poor record and likely to harm LGBTQ+ civil rights."

Ken Schneck at The Buckeye Flame assembled the record behind that grade, using research from the Flame and the GLAAD Accountability Project. The Ramaswamy campaign was asked for comment and did not respond.

Here's the short version of what's in it.

The part that wasn't rhetoric

Most of a candidate scorecard is made of statements. One item on this list is not.

After the 2024 election, Ramaswamy was appointed to co-lead the Department of Government Efficiency alongside Elon Musk. Under his direction, DOGE staffers used keywords — including "homosexual" and "LGBTQ" — to identify federal grants for elimination. More than 1,400 active grants were canceled, amounting to $100 million in funding.

That is not a debate-stage line. That's a search query used to decide which grants stopped existing. Whatever those 1,400 grants were funding — research, health services, community programs — the method for finding them was to look for the word.

Ramaswamy left DOGE early to run for governor of Ohio. We wrote about how the whole operation ended: its charter expired on July 4, 2026 with no final report, having promised $2 trillion in savings and claimed $215 billion.

What he says about trans people

The Buckeye Flame's list runs in reverse chronological order. The rhetoric is consistent across three years.

May 2023 — On Sean Hannity's show: "Here's my deal with this LGBTQIA+, especially the trans cult. Dress how you want, behave how you want as an adult, live your life freely, but leave our kids alone and do not demand that we change our language or the way we live our lives."

May 2023 — He equated gender-affirming care to "genital mutilation" and "chemical castration," called being trans a "mental health disorder," and said, "Affirming their confusion is not compassion to me." He said he'd sign a national ban on gender-affirming care for minors. Care for transgender people is supported by every major American medical association.

May 2023 — He attacked Target for selling trans-friendly swimwear, saying it "spit in the face" of conservative customers, and added: "Just ask Budweiser how that worked out for them."

June 2023 — On X, he called the trans community a "cult" and "often a mental health disorder."

June 2023 — His campaign ad listing "10 Truths" put "There are two genders" as truth number two, directly after "God is real."

September 2023 — At the GOP presidential primary debates, he said "transgenderism … is a mental health disorder." Medical consensus is that being transgender is not a mental-health condition.

June 30, 2026 — After the Supreme Court upheld state bans on trans students in school sports, he told the Toledo Blade: "Ohio has barred men from competing with women in women's sports, and the Supreme Court has now held that it's constitutional. I'll enforce [the ban] after I'm elected."

That last one is from five weeks ago. This isn't an old record he's moved past — it's the current campaign.

Who he's proud to be endorsed by

A candidate's endorsements are a choice, and Ramaswamy has advertised these ones.

In March 2025, he announced the endorsement of Aaron Baer, president of the Center for Christian Virtue, which the Flame identifies as an anti-LGBTQ+ hate group. Baer's endorsement opened by touting his own record of having "spearheaded campaigns to end transgender procedures on children and stop boys from playing girls' sports."

Ramaswamy's response: he was "humbled to earn the support of one of Ohio's top Christian leaders, and it is hands-down one of my most important endorsements."

In April 2025, he promoted endorsements from a slate of Ohio state representatives whose legislative records the Flame lays out in detail. Among them:

• Rep. Gary Click — sponsor of the Ohio law banning gender-affirming care and barring trans girls from girls' sports; co-sponsor of a bill to protect parents who reject their trans children.
• Rep. DJ Swearingen — co-sponsor of the law requiring teachers and school staff to out LGBTQ+ students to their families.
• Rep. Jonathan Newman — sponsor of a bill to bar students from using pronouns matching their gender identity, and on record saying trans people do not exist.
• Rep. Beth Lear — co-sponsor of the bathroom-ban law, who once said adults who affirm trans youth should "have a millstone hung around your neck and be thrown into the deepest sea."
• Rep. Angie King — co-sponsor of a proposed drag ban, who the Flame reports once stood alongside neo-Nazis to protest her community's Pride celebration.
• Rep. Rodney Creech — author of the language, now law, banning menstrual products from men's rooms in public buildings.

These are not people who happened to endorse him. He put out press releases about it.

The pattern this fits

Ramaswamy's campaign has a habit of saying one thing on the website and something else at the microphone.

When he named four Ohio public universities he wanted to defund to pay for a tax cut and then faced bipartisan backlash, he said he never said it. Asked point-blank by the Wall Street Journal whether he'd push "right-to-work" in Ohio, he wouldn't say no. Now his site promises to lift "all Ohioans" while his record earns the lowest grade a state LGBTQ+ advocacy group hands out.

His Democratic opponent, Dr. Amy Acton, is currently graded "Pending" on the same scorecard.

Ohio voters can decide what "all Ohioans" means to a candidate whose federal agency used "LGBTQ" as a search term for deciding what to defund.

Sources

• "Vivek Ramaswamy earns an 'F' in LGBTQ+ rights; here's a look at his track record" — Ken Schneck, The Buckeye Flame, August 4, 2026

Photo: The Buckeye Flame.