{"id":85497,"date":"2026-10-29T01:21:44","date_gmt":"2026-10-29T05:21:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.info\/?p=85497"},"modified":"2026-10-29T01:22:05","modified_gmt":"2026-10-29T05:22:05","slug":"donald-trumps-big-gay-government","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.info\/?p=85497","title":{"rendered":"

Donald Trump\u2019s big gay government<\/h2>"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Washington: It was the last Wednesday in July, and many of Washington\u2019s top players were hanging out at the Ned, a private club around the corner from the White House<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The secretary of the Navy, John Phelan, was waiting for an elevator in the lobby. Howard Lutnick, the secretary of commerce, was bouncing around the Library bar upstairs. Scott Bessent, the secretary of the Treasury, was wandering around up there too.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Sitting in a brown leather armchair in the center of this social whirl was a high-ranking official at the Department of Energy named Charles Moran. His abstruse-sounding title is associate administrator for external affairs for the National Nuclear Security Administration. What this means is that he works in the part of the Energy Department that develops, tests and keeps safe America\u2019s nuclear weapons stockpile.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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But that\u2019s not why administration officials kept approaching his armchair to schmooze.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Moran, 44, is the pasha of a new power tribe in the capital: the gay men of the Trump administration.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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These are the A-Gays. They\u2019re (mostly) out, they\u2019re proud (to work for President Donald Trump<\/a>) and they have big jobs inside (or alongside) this administration. They wield influence all over town, from the Pentagon to the State Department to the White House to the Kennedy Center.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cWe\u2019re like Visa,\u201d Moran said. \u201cEverywhere you want to be.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The most powerful out gay man in the Trump administration is Bessent. There are a handful of others in the Treasury Department. Other A-Gays include Tony Fabrizio, the president\u2019s longtime pollster; Trent Morse, a departing deputy assistant to the president; Richard Grenell, who was put in charge of the Kennedy Center; and Jacob Helberg, an undersecretary of state. These are just some. There are lots of other lesser-known men who make up the tribe.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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They\u2019re overwhelmingly white and tend to have a certain kind of look. Close cropped haircuts. Windowpane suits. They\u2019re not the type to be telling anyone their pronouns or using the word \u201cqueer.\u201d And they aren\u2019t the least bit offended that the leader of their party continues to stoke a moral panic about transgender people.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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They\u2019re gay. But they\u2019re still Republicans.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Moran knows a lot of them because he\u2019s been \u201con the Trump train,\u201d as he put it, from the beginning.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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In 2015, back when the Republican establishment was still trying to thwart Trump, Moran said that he and some other gay Republicans he knew became intrigued by the brash New Yorker\u2019s history of saying nice things about gay rights. These men had experienced homophobia from their fellow Republicans at one point or another, so they saw Trump\u2019s ascendance as something new, especially after the 2016 Republican National Convention, when Peter Thiel was given a prime-time speaking slot and used it to endorse Trump.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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In 2019, Moran took over Log Cabin Republicans, the gay Republican group, aligning it fully with the MAGA movement and increasing its ranks. He stepped down in January after nearly five years hoping he would be rewarded with a job in the incoming administration \u2014 though he didn\u2019t expect it would involve nukes.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Part of the A-Gays\u2019 power comes from the fact that they (mostly) stick together. \u201cEven within the bureaucracy, the bureaucracy is overwhelming,\u201d Moran said. \u201cI love having this community as a resource. Back in the day, these groups had to be closed off and hidden, but now we use it as a tool.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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But there is a kind of paradox about these men\u2019s existence in Washington. They live in the gayest city in America, which is also pretty much the most Trump-hating city in America.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The gay men who work for him here are keenly aware they are in hostile territory, surrounded by other gay men who consider them self-deluded traitors or worse. At gay bars around town and on dating apps, they are either iced out or confronted about the things this president has said and done. He cut AIDS relief around the world and HIV vaccine research and funding for LGBTQ+ suicide prevention services. His defense secretary announced during Pride month that the Navy vessel named after Harvey Milk would be renamed. Perhaps most worrying for many gay people is how conservative the Supreme Court has become, thanks to Trump. Could same-sex marriage go the way of Roe? It\u2019s not out of the question.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Gay Trump appointees interviewed for this article \u2014 some of whom said they weren\u2019t authorized to speak on the record \u2014 dismiss such opprobrium as overheated liberal whining. They argue that the battle for gay rights has basically been won, and that there has never been a Republican as friendly to the gays as Trump.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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There have always been gay men in power in Washington, but they were rarely open about it. A few years ago, a Washington journalist named James Kirchick published \u201cSecret City: The Hidden History of Gay Washington,\u201d a sprawling, definitive history on this subject.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cBeing gay was the worst thing you could be in American politics,\u201d Kirchick said one recent afternoon. He recalled a famous quote about politics, spoken in 1983 by former Rep. Edwin Edwards, D-La., who bragged, \u201cThe only way I can lose this election is if I\u2019m caught in bed with either a dead girl or a live boy.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Kirchick, 41, said one way to see how much has changed in recent years was to look at what things were like under the most recent Republican president before Trump, George W. Bush. \u201cThere were high-ranking gay people in that administration, but they had to be very discreet about it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Kirchick has been a vocal critic of Trump, but he did note one important difference when it comes to this president: \u201cTrump himself is obviously a huge part of what\u2019s changed. He\u2019s clearly comfortable around gay people.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Before his political turn, Trump mostly talked publicly about gay people the way one might expect of a New Yorker in show business. He once asked a contestant on \u201cThe Apprentice\u201d if he was \u201ca homosexual.\u201d When the man said that he was, Trump replied, \u201cI like steak; somebody else likes spaghetti. That\u2019s why they have menus in restaurants. It\u2019s a great world.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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He allowed gay people to join Mar-a-Lago when other clubs in Palm Beach still discriminated. One associate of his said that in the period when Trump was preparing to become a presidential candidate, he privately explained his thinking on gay-related policy issues, such as marriage equality, this way: \u201cI love the gays. They pay the most for the weddings.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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But then he went on to pick as his running mate Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, who had a long record of opposing gay rights. And then there was the fact that the political base Trump had cobbled together and then needed to mollify included many gay-hating constituencies; he would never have made it without evangelicals. Once he got into office, he barred transgender people from the military. He recently mocked Pete Buttigieg\u2019s same-sex marriage.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Bring any of that up to the A-Gays, and they just laugh and insist that no one can say with a straight face that MAGA is homophobic. They delight in what they see as the camp aspects of gay culture that suffuse their movement: On the eve of his inauguration this year, the president danced onstage with Village People as the group performed \u201cY.M.C.A.,\u201d the ode to gay cruising. Trump often talked about the hotness of men he spotted in the front row or who appeared onstage with him.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Kirchick called the president a \u201ccamp icon,\u201d adding, \u201cHe\u2019s like a drag queen. He\u2019s outrageous. He\u2019s transgressive. He\u2019s catty. He\u2019s a narcissist the likes of which we haven\u2019t seen since Alexander the Great.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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In early June, the president and first lady, Melania Trump, went to the Kennedy Center for the opening night of a production of \u201cLes Mis\u00e9rables.\u201d This constituted a big night out on the MAGA social calendar \u2014 there was even a red carpet \u2014 and the A-Gays turned out in force.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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They soon came face to face with their ideological counterparts when a troupe of drag queens showed up to crash the party. Their very presence was a political statement, since the president had been railing online about how there would be no more drag shows allowed at the Kennedy Center.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The drag queens made their defiant march through the theater to find their seats near the stage. The right-wing gay men glared and shook their heads.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cThe gay left just can\u2019t handle the fact that President Trump <em>loves<\/em> the gays,\u201d said Casey Flores, a 34-year-old MAGA gay who moved to Washington in April and started a job at the Kennedy Center as a fundraiser.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cThis idea that Republicans hate gays \u2014 that\u2019s just so not the case, as clearly evidenced by all of us,\u201d Flores said, referring to all of his gay friends who moved to Washington to work for Trump. \u201cWe\u2019re<em> so<\/em> over it. We just want to help the country.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Flores, who is not married, said he\u2019s \u201cnot particularly worried about gay marriage being repealed,\u201d mostly because of some \u201cprotections\u201d he heard were put in place not long ago. (He was referring to the Respect for Marriage Act, which President Joe Biden signed into law in 2022; it mandates federal recognition of same-sex marriage and was passed by a bipartisan coalition of lawmakers.)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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But what about some of the more homophobic-seeming constituencies and characters in MAGA world? Is it ever difficult, as a gay man, to stand shoulder to shoulder with evangelicals and people like Pete Hegseth, the defense secretary, who has a history of criticizing policies allowing gay people to serve in the military?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Eh, not really, said Flores.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cNobody is meaner to gay people than other gay people,\u201d he insisted. \u201cLeft-wing gays hate socially conservative Christians more than that group of people hates the gays, and I think that\u2019s on public display every day on social media and elsewhere.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\nhttps:\/\/www.deccanherald.com\/world\/donald-trumps-big-gay-government-3704767<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-85497","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85497","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=85497"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85497\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":85500,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85497\/revisions\/85500"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=85497"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=85497"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=85497"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}