By Sabrina Samone, TMP

The Equality Act, the band on Transgender Military personnel, and the epidemic of trans murders; took front and center stage during this highly publicized Forum on LGBTQ issues. It’s only the second time in history such a forum of Presidential Candidates has taken place.

Ten Democratic presidential candidates gathered in Iowa on Friday night to make their pitches to LGBTQ voters in the nation’s first caucus state. Candidates were largely united on passing the Equality Act, addressing violence against transgender women, and undoing president Trump’s ban on transgender military service.

The LGBTQ Presidential Forum was the first since 2007. The candidates spoke in tight, ten minute segments. Here’s a rundown of those most out spoken on our issues had to say.

Candidate Cory Booker came off the most authentic, well spoken and one of few to mention the use of Prep, to combat HIV;

“This has been an urgent part of my life for my entire career,” Booker said of civil rights, “because what King said is so true: that we’re all caught in an inescapable network of mutuality tied in a common garment of destiny, injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”

Booker also called for health insurance to cover PrEP, the HIV prevention medication, and called for “science-based sexual education that talks about transmission of STIs.”

“It’s about time we have a woke president on these issues,” Booker said, “who every day is using their platforms to inspire and ignite justice, compassion, a more courageous empathy, a revival of civic grace, so that we see everyone for the equal dignity and equal citizenship that we all have.”

We’d be a miss if we didn’t mention one of the lgbtq community’s most beloved Candidates, Mayor Pete Buttigieg.

As the only openly gay candidate, South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg promised to “end the war on trans Americans,” sign the Equality Act, and to appoint “an administration and judiciary that understands that American freedom means the freedom to be who you are, and love who you love.”

“We’ve got a crisis of belonging in this country,” Buttigieg said. Speaking to the LGBTQ community directly, he said, “We have the power to reach into our own experience: Belonging to a part of America that also cuts across all of the other different categories,” and that as “the only minority that exists in equal proportion across every ethnicity family and income group. We could help be that glue.”

Stafford asked Buttigieg about religious freedom restoration acts, or RFRAs. “Faith is supposed to be about making people whole and making people better off,” Buttigieg said, “and when faith is used as an excuse to harm somebody, to me that is an insult to religion itself.”

Julián Castro was one of the few Candidates to bring attention to the plight of LGBTQ immigration and those escaping persecution in anti LGBT countries.

Former secretary of Housing and Urban Development Julián Castro took the stage last, touting an immigration plan that would allow more people to seek asylum in the United States for LGBTQ persecution in their home countries.

Castro promised to appoint a cabinet with LGBTQ members and said he would undo Trump’s rollbacks of LGBTQ protections with a focus on “religious exemptions” that let private companies avoid anti-discrimination law by claiming religious reasons. Castro said he would also appoint a task force to investigate the deaths and injuries of trans women of color and touted his role in promulgating an Obama-era rule that allowed transgender women to access crisis shelters that align with their gender identity, not natal sex.

Sen. Amy Klobuchar took the stage and paid homage to Buttigieg’s historic candidacy, saying “he is something to be proud of.” Klobuchar, like others, promised to pass the Equality Act and said she would appoint a trans-friendly secretary of education to combat bullying and stigma.

A Pulse nightclub shooting survivor, Brandon Wolf, asked Klobuchar to outline her plan to fight hate violence against LGBTQ people, law enforcement, guns, and hate crimes.

“I will tell you this: as your president I will not fold, I will not fold to the NRA, I will not give in to them, not for those victims at the Pulse nightclub, not for those victims in Midland and Odessa and Parkland and Dayton.”

Elizabeth Warren may have earned the most points with Trans Americans when asked by moderator Lenz what Warren would do in her first 100 days, she replied. “I’m not going to tell you, I’m going to show you.” Warren then read the names of the 18 transgender women murdered so far this year.

“It is time for a president of the United States of America to say their names,” Warren said, calling violence against trans women a “moment of crisis,” and she called for more Americans to speak out about the issue.

Warren said that Trump’s effort to “turn people against people” was “one of, as long as people are turned against each other, then maybe they won’t notice that Donald Trump and his corrupt buddies are robbing the rest of this country of its wealth and its dignity,” drawing upon a common campaign theme.

To sum up the evening, host Angelica Ross said on how we can continue the conversation around LGBTQ rights- especially trans right?

“I think we can continue the conversation by including trans people at every opportunity. Instead of having a special LGBTQ forum, how about making sure all voices are included in the conversation?”