The NY Times looks at gay men working in the Trump administration
What a strange article. The attitude is that these men are some sort of curiosity [emphasis mine]:
Mr. Moran, 44, is the pasha of a new power tribe in the capital: the gay men of the Trump administration.
These are the A-Gays. They’re (mostly) out, they’re proud (to work for President Trump) 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. …
The most powerful out gay man in the Trump administration is Mr. Bessent. There are a handful of others in the Treasury Department. Other A-Gays include Tony Fabrizio, the president’s longtime pollster; Trent Morse, an outgoing deputy assistant to the president; Richard Grenell, who was put in charge of the Kennedy Center; and Jacob Helberg, an under secretary of state. These are just some. There are lots of other lesser-known men who make up the tribe.
They’re overwhelmingly white and tend to have a certain kind of look. Close cropped haircuts. Windowpane suits. Golf shorts. They’re not the type to be telling anyone their pronouns or using the word “queer.” And they aren’t the least bit offended that the leader of their party continues to stoke a moral panic about transgender people.
They’re gay. But they’re still Republicans.
There’s no “moral panic” in Trump or the GOP about transgender people. There’s outrage at (a) the insistence on forcing language on people, particularly language that denies biological reality (b) the invasion of biological males into protected female areas such as women’s sports and ladies’ rooms (c) the medical transition of young people, and the negation of parental rights in order to do so (including lies told to parents about suicide among these kids, in order to coerce them into giving consent). I might add – particularly in light of the shooting discussed in the post right below this one – the fact that a significant number of trans people are mentally ill and that should be the emphasis for treatment rather than the medical and/or social transition of teenagers.
What’s more, is the Times article’s author ignorant of the fact that the trans movement feeds off of homophobia, often trying to convince kids who would otherwise enter the gay world as adults that transition is a solution to their own internalized homophobia? Therefore it’s by no means a given that gay people support the trans movement.
Then there’s this:
“The funny thing is, I had a lot of girlfriends who wanted to move here,” said Natalie Winters, the D.C.-based right-wing media darling who is a protégé of Steve Bannon. “They thought the dating scene would be really great, that MAGA would bring in a whole wave of, like, you know, eligible, conservative, smart, enterprising men.”
Instead, she said, “everybody’s freaking gay.”
The article is by no means all negative:
“The gay left just can’t handle the fact that President Trump loves the gays,” 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 fund-raiser.
“This idea that Republicans hate gays, that’s just so not the case, as clearly evidenced by all of us,” Mr. Flores said, referring to all of his gay friends who moved to Washington to work for Mr. Trump. “We’re so over it. We just want to help the country.”
Comments I saw from readers are mostly negative – the “all they care about is power” type of thing.
Does Ambassador-elect Tammy Bruce wonder, “What am I? Chopped liver?”, or is she happily muttering sotto voce to herself “Thanks be! I’ve finally caught a break!”
The ‘Trump is going to send all the gays to concentration camps’ is very high on the long, long list of ridiculous lies that so many have pushed for 10 years now.
Now some have slightly changed it to the ‘trans’ stuff because the gay stuff is so patently ridiculous that it just doesn’t work.
Nothing very surprising here – people who are obsessed with specific issues often don’t grasp that others might not care about it.
Conservative gays or lesbians are not as rare as the NYT would like to believe. Also, many L/G activists are beginning to be vocal in opposition to having the “T” part grafted onto the movement, since it constitutes an explicit denial of biological reality. Gay men are men who are attracted to men and not to women, and they know one from the other.
Different context…I know…
But that whole…
“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” thing.
Are they doing their jobs in accord with POTUS’s agenda? Are they keeping their private intimate lives private? Ok then…
“richf on August 27, 2025 at 3:05 pm said:
Nothing very surprising here – people who are obsessed with specific issues often don’t grasp that others might not care about it.”
Learned my lesson while immersed in the global warming fake hockey stick story.
Delightfully mentioned to a neighbor the hockey stick being proven fake, and neighbor legitimately had no clue what I was talking about. He had never heard of “the Hockey Stick” graph.
I assumed “everybody knew bout that” because every site I visited had the news front and center.
I keep that in mind whenever I see “everybody knows” comments.
Everybody does not know what we know.
Just another oh-so-
preciouser…slimeyum, no, make that REPULSIVE “Forget it Jake, it’s the NYT” moment…https://youtu.be/Gxd23UVID7k?si=oK-MjuEyfnOoEujK
Everybody Knows
The high ranked reader responses in the NYT to this article seems to me to be a text book example of cognitive dissonance.
I’ve been a small fan of Richard Grenell since Trump45, following his usually interesting tweets.
The push to make gays into trans folk seems to have been effective for making many lesbians into trans men, none of whom are invading male athletic spaces.
There are also a good number of gays who don’t support gay marriage, but I don’t know about any prominent ones in the Trump admin. Trump is sexist, but not racist nor homophobic.
I’d guess there’s a drift of more gay support for Trump than for Romney, but haven’t seen that.
So, the left shows its true colors again. If some of these writings/comments were written/said by someone on the right the left would be up in arms screaming for the heads of bigots.
For example:
“They wield influence all over town, from the Pentagon to the State Department to the White House to the Kennedy Center.” – if someone on the right said that it would interpreted as the gays are taking over and they need to be stopped. – argh!
“everybody’s freaking gay.” wow, just wow! that is such an anti-gay slur.
Lastly, referring to them as belonging to a ‘tribe’? where are the language police on the left for that one?
And thank you Neo for taking the time to read such stuff that I otherwise wouldn’t have myself.
To follow up a bit on fullmoon’s comment. I was told by a climate cult leftist ( I know, redundant) that ” everyone knows” that Steve McIntyre is not a “climate scientist ” and just a statistical hack, so anyone with any brain should know his debunking of the Mann Hockey Stick is utter BS.
Simulants. Homosexuals are in the transgender spectrum. Homophobia is evidenced by appropriation of labels like “gay” and adoption of principles of political congruence (“=”).
As for the mass abortionist, gender (e.g. sexual orientation) confusion can force psychotic breaks and wicked solutions to relieve “burdens” h/t Obama at the intersection of secular cults and liberal rites.
Hey Tom Grey, so Trump is sexist? So he’s a thought criminal whose mind isn’t full of feminist-leftist approved thoughts and beliefs about women? How horrible. Maybe you could tell him the proper way to treat Melania.
well he can go on worshiping the skydragon, it’s remarkable that mann has been able to get away with this scam since 2009 when the hack happened in the uk, but they were able to cover it with a pillow, until it stopped moving, of course he was the driver for this clean energy scam,
grenell was outflanked by cofer black, whose connections are pretty murky in some respects when they were on the Romney campaign, he went on to the board of Burisma for instance because of his expertise in West Africa oil, notably Sudan where he had been station chief
Lordy! Lordy! I do become weary of this.
There was a time when we were told we should be ‘color blind’. Now that is a sin in many quarters.
We were told that someone’s bedroom habits, euphemistically speaking, were none of our business.
Now, in Progressive and pseudo-progressive quarters, we must pay obeisance, express approval, and share in Pride celebrations for those who proudly call themselves Queer.
I am sorry, but I am too old to learn the new, distorted definitions for words; much less which words are considered acceptable by various communities. . Therefore, I use the word gay only in the traditional sense. I seem to recall the word homosexual as an accurate description, while the word ‘Queer’ was a pejorative term not to be used by polite people.
Too complicated. I will just trudge along in the world I know.
if there are grounds for concerns its this
https://x.com/hpmcd1/status/1960461958051737618
but it’s not identity specific, its just wishful thinking,
The NYT is the Nation’s Foremost College Newspaper.
Marisa @ 5:45: Yes,I too was baffled by Tom Grey’s calling Trump a sexist!
I hope Tom expounds on it for us.
But at least he didn’t call Trump a misogynist.
Leave that crap to the TDS crew. Lol.
Related—to miguel’s 8:08 pm link regarding the bizarro fantasies of America’s special envoy to Lebanon:
“Hezbollah’s infiltration into Lebanese Intelligence;
“Why the IDF cannot treat the Lebanese Army as independent….”—
https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/413955
Sdferr @ 3:02, yes Tammy Bruce caught a break. Lol!
She’s smart & cool. I was glad to see Trump select her for his team.
Times commenter: “All they care about is power”.
Pot, meet kettle. Kettle, this is pot.
Leftists are consumed with hatred and contempt for those who do not conform to their belief systems.
There must be some personality disorder or self esteem issues within leftists; they just cannot live and let live. They MUST always be telling -or if given the chance, compelling – others what to think, what to say, how to live.
They are incapable of minding their own business.
It is no accident that the worst mass murderers in world history were all leftists. If given the opportunity, pretty much all leftists would resort to mass exterminations if it would assure them that they would be successful in imposing their world view upon the “unwashed masses.”
The NY Times article re: gays for Trump, suggests that these gays are abnormal, bizarre, disturbed because they support Trump. That was the point the article’s author was really making.
You mean like this charmer?*
* See images at –https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2025/08/slutty-dr-demetre-daskalakis-resigns-as-director-national/
Irwin Chusid wrote,
“The NYT is the Nation’s Foremost College Newspaper.”
Wow!
Gays who sign on to the leftist agenda and do not put one foot out of line: “Celebrate! Here’s an entire month to be proud of yourself!”
Gays who actually are individuals and form their own opinions about politics, life, etc.: “Every single anti-gay slur in the book.”
The NYT displays the same attitude to conservative blacks: they must not be “really” black. They’re weird black, Uncle Toms. To a lesser extent, we see the same attitude towards conservative women, who are cishet Stepford Wives or unthinking appendages of their conservative daddy-husbands, not fully human. I guess we’re getting there about Latinos as well: “white Hispanics.”
I suppose the same complaint could be made about our lumping liberal white men together as beta soys.
Marlene, Marisa, thanks for comments. Trump is less sexist than Bill Clinton, or JFK, RFK, LBJ, or MLK jr (60s), and I’ve voted for him 3x despite his cheating on his first 2 wives & other sexist behavior & words.
His female & woman policies, including his hiring, are good to excellent.
But I find your implied claim that he’s not sexist kind of laughable.
I think it’s important to be able, even willing and eager, to support politicians who have good policies whether or not they have character flaws. And I’m more comfy agreeing with Trump critics who have true criticisms. Sexism, unlike XX & XY, is a spectrum & not binary. Depending on your own unspecified definition of sexism, you’re both probably a little sexist yourself.
I know feminists who claim men & women are equal, and any who claim they are different are sexist. By that radical def, I’m also sexist. But the milder treating people differently because of their sex is also something I’m usually a little guilty of, usually treating them better, that is helping them more willingly.
Or, as Steve Martin believes,
a woman should be put on a pedestal
.
.
.
High enough to look up her skirt.
‘Sexist’ is a nonsense term.
Pres. Trump values his female allies too obviously to be what I would call a sexist. I understand the idea that it’s sexist to think of pretty young woman primarily as potential sexual conquests, but if that’s sexism, it’s the healthiest and least troubling possible manifestation, especially if force is never involved.
I never cared if a boss was a hound-dog, as long as he was capable of interacting with me as a professional and left the hound-dogging to women who wanted to interact with him in that way. Especially when I was coming of age in the 1970s and 80s, there were plenty of men who found it almost impossible to take a woman seriously as a full human being, quite apart from whether they were gentlemen in their social/sexual interactions. Trump has never seemed to be that way. He loves competence wherever he finds it.