Republican Kane County Board Member David Young used time at four separate Kane County board committee meetings to spread anti-LGBTQ messages where he called the queer/trans community “evil.”
Young has been on the board since 2022. He serves on the Administration, Energy and Environmental, Jobs, Public Health and Public Service committees.
The anti-LGBTQ comments occurred at the Sept. 12 Energy and Environmental Committee and Jobs Committee meetings, the Sept. 17 Public Health Committee meeting and the Sept. 18 Public Service Committee meeting.
During the public comment period at the Energy and Environmental Committee meeting Young discussed the handful of trans people who have been accused of murder and mass murders over the past three years. Those incidents make up a small percentage of the almost 1,500 mass shooting events that have occurred in the U.S. since the beginning of 2023. Young also deadnamed and misgendered those trans people and used transgender as a noun not an adjective to describe that group of people in his comments.
Young also said the “Democratic party has embraced this LGBTQ+ group including a lot of people on this [Kane County] board. They embrace the culture of death. They embrace evil. I want to know when this evil group will be denounced by any leader of the Democratic party.”
Later that day, Young continued to spew the same anti-trans rhetoric during the public comment period at the Jobs Committee meeting.
Then, at the Public Health Committee, meeting Young opened up the public comment period by reiterating the same things he said at the Sept. 12 meetings about trans people who have been accused of mass murders in recent years. Young said he got emails after his comments at the meetings last week where they condemned his remarks.
Following Young’s statement at the Public Health committee meeting, all public commenters condemned his anti-LGBTQ remarks.
Geneva resident and Kane County resident Tricia Miller criticized Young for taking time away from last week’s Energy and Environmental Committee meeting “to make a public comment that was demeaning, hateful and filled to the brim with fallacies and propaganda.” Miller cited the Gun Violence Archive statistics which show that seven of the 4,147 mass shootings were committed by trans or nonbinary people since 2018—0.01% of all incidents. She called out Young for his failure to condemn gun violence instances perpetrated by cisgender heterosexual white men. Miller added that if she had to choose whether to trust her child to be in the care of Young or any trans person on Earth she would choose the trans people every single time. She condemned Young said it sickens her that “he represents any part of this county” since he “holds hateful racist, homophobic and transphobic beliefs and has threatened the lives of all who celebrated Pride back in June and now this.”
Grassroots activist Denise Theobald pointed out that doing “political activity during compensated time is prohibited … yet here we are again with you hijacking committee meetings to spew your hate” at multiple committee meetings. She added that Young accused Democrats on the board and elsewhere of “embracing the so-called cult of hate and evil” instead of focusing on each of the committee meeting’s stated goals and said that his words “are dangerous.”
Kane County resident Paula Merrington told the board that she has lived in the county for 11 years and said she was “encouraged” to hear that Young wanted to address the gun violence epidemic, and then immediately “disheartened” to see that he was using last week’s meetings to to specifically attack transgender people. She pointed out that trans people are a tiny percentage of gun perpetrators in the U.S. and “according to the Williams Institute, transgender people are themselves over four times more likely to be victims of violent crime, 73% of those are victims of gun violence.”
Merrington also said Young should apologize for his “outrageous statements. The residents of Kane County, including our transgender community members, many of whom I call my friends, and whom are also taxpayers in Kane County, deserve elected officials to contribute to making our communities safer for all of its residents. Singling out certain community members based on an individual board member’s biases is unconscionable. It is also dangerous. The community will not tolerate such behavior.”
After the Public Health committee meeting, two Kane County residents, Rebin Roy and Kylie Peters, emailed Merrington their statements that she shared with this publication.
Roy said, “It has come to my attention that David Young made hateful anti-LGBTQ+ comments at the September 12 Kane County Board meeting. This type of hateful rhetoric has no place in our community. David Young needs to make a public apology and resign. People like him should not have a platform for hate speech and bigotry especially in positions of power. I ask you take this matter seriously and take appropriate action to remedy this situation.”
Peters said, “98% of mass shootings are committed by cisgender men. I wonder, would the public be okay with an elected official referring to men as a ‘death cult’?”
At the Public Service Committee meeting, Young said he has a right to speak as a Kane County citizen at these meetings and alleged that no one is condemning gun violence. He added that “when you come up here and say I have all of this hate, I’m feeling nothing but hate from you guys.”
Also during the Public Service Committee meeting’s public comment section, community member Jordan M. called on Young to direct his energy toward Congress, who has the power to protect people from gun violence, not use his position as an elected board member to use committee meetings public comment periods to spread “misinformation and your personal ideology towards the queer community.” Jordan also pointed that being an elected official is a privilege and not a place for him to use his position as a “pulpit for vile, divisive speech wholly unrelated to the topics presented by the board.” She called on Young to stop wasting the board’s time and taxpayer money on this issue and asked that he talk to a therapist about this and be removed from the Kane County Board.
Kane County resident of over 25 years Jackson Diamond, who is trans, said it is a board member’s responsibility to represent, everyone including trans people. They spoke about their own humanity and said there is nothing they could say to convince people like Young who refuse to listen. Diamond also called out the other board members for not speaking out in defense of trans people in light of Young’s anti-trans comments at these meetings. They called on the immediate resignation or removal of Young from the Kane County Board.
Other community members spoke about not feeling safe now due to what Young said about Democrats being evil people, called for him to apologize or resign and reminded him what public service means.
Merrington told this publication that some LGBTQ+ community members had reached out to her and said they “would have liked to have spoken out at the committee meetings but they didn’t feel safe to do so.”
In an email statement to this publication following all four committee meetings, the progressive grassroots political organization Fox Valley Activists said, “Since June 2025, District 15 Kane County Board member David Young has made repeated transphobic and homophobic remarks. He has done so during public comments at various committee meetings in order to shield himself from censure from the board, which would only be possible if he were commenting from the dais in his official capacity. Fox Valley Activists strongly condemns hate speech of any kind, but it is particularly heinous coming from an elected official who is elected to represent all people living in Kane County. At this moment in history to villainize and already marginalized group, a group already disproportionately victims of violent crime is unconscionable and irresponsible. We demand that David Young resign from his position.”
Prior to Young’s anti-LGBTQ comments at these recent committee meetings, he also spoke out against trans people participating in sports and called them “biological males” following the adoption of this year’s Kane County Board Pride Proclamation at the June 10 general board meeting. Young also attempted to add an amendment to the proclamation to include references to President Donald Trump’s executive order that would bar trans people from participating in sports which was voted down by most of the board members.
Kane County Board Chair Corrine Pierog said in an email statement to this publication, “In June, the Kane County Board approved a proclamation recognizing Pride Month. This action reaffirmed Kane County’s commitment to ensuring that every individual—regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity—is welcomed and valued in our community.
“While acknowledging that the First Amendment provides important constitutional safeguards and that individuals may hold differing views, the recent inflammatory remarks made by one elected official do not reflect the position of the majority in Kane County. Hate speech fosters division, erodes public trust, and deepens polarization.
“Kane County has an obligation to uphold a safe and inclusive environment for all residents. My hope, shared by leaders across the nation, is that we lower the temperature on what divides us and instead strengthen our focus on what unites us.”
Windy City Times reached out to Young via email to address his comments and the public’s reactions to them at those Kane County Board committee meetings and as of this publication date he has not responded.
Young’s anti-LGBTQ+ and specifically anti-trans comments come amidst increasing calls by elected Republicans and their supporters to restrict trans people from all aspects of public life and to end protections for LGBTQ+ people writ-large. This includes banning trans people from owning guns and prohibiting anyone or any entity from flying Pride flags anywhere in Washington, D.C.