The former transportation secretary and one of Americas most famous queer parents, Pete Buttigieg, criticized Donald Trump as not being pro-family after he promised free in vitro fertilization (IVF) treatments to all Americans that want it, all Americans that need it, but then recently said that there are no plans to make that a reality.Truly being pro-family means ensuring access and cost of care including IVF never stands in the way of someone choosing to start or grow their family, Buttigieg posted to X. Trump breaking his promise about something as important as this might not be surprising, but it is cruel. Related Trump declares himself the fertilization president in bizarre Womens History Month speech Truly being pro-family means ensuring access and cost of care including IVF never stands in the way of someone choosing to start or grow their family. Trump breaking his promise about something as important as this might not be surprising, but it is cruel. pic.twitter.com/N7pJD1tLIn Pete Buttigieg (@PeteButtigieg) August 14, 2025Buttigieg was referring to a campaign promise Trump made in August 2024 that under the Trump administration, we are going to be paying for that treatment. Were going to be mandating that the insurance company pay. IVF can cost tens of thousands of dollars per round, so this was a promise that many people who need access to IVF to build their families took seriously. Insights for the LGBTQ+ community Subscribe to our briefing for insights into how politics impacts the LGBTQ+ community and more. Subscribe to our Newsletter today Trump made this promise in response to public sentiment that the Republican Party opposes IVF, in part because the Alabama Supreme Court effectively banned the procedure last year as a result of a Republican anti-choice law, and Senate Republicans blocked a bill protecting access to the procedure. IVF requires many fertilized zygotes to be created in order to have a decent chance at a pregnancy, and many of those fertilized zygotes dont implant, are frozen indefinitely, or are later destroyed. Many conservatives believe that those fertilized zygotes are individual human beings with rights. Trump went so far as to call himself the father of IVF during the 2024 campaign to distance himself from the more anti-IVF elements of his party. In February, Trump signed an executive order that he claimed would be expanding access to IVF, which offered far less than the full coverage he promised during his campaign. But even that executive order was described as not having any meaningful impact on access to fertility treatments by reproductive health advocates. That order created a policy council that was supposed to submit recommendations [about] aggressively reducing out-of-pocket and health plan costs for IVF treatment in 90 days, which would have been in May. If such a council exists and has put together those recommendations, they have not been publicly discussed.Earlier this month, the White House said that it has no plans to mandate insurance companies cover IVF, and that was the report that Buttigieg was responding to.LGBTQ+ people often rely on IVF to build their families. Buttigieg and his husband, author Chasten Buttigieg, have two kids through adoption.Subscribe to theLGBTQ Nation newsletterand be the first to know about the latest headlines shaping LGBTQ+ communities worldwide.