LGBTQ groups overall are pleased to have the first gay U.S. Treasury secretary. But that doesn't mean they had uniform reactions to the news of Scott Bessent's U.S. Senate confirmation to the position January 27.
President Donald Trump nominated Bessent November 22.
Log Cabin Republicans, an LGBTQ Republican affinity group, marked the moment as a step forward for equality. The confirmation makes Bessent, 62, the highest-ranking LGBTQ cabinet official in U.S. history; the first Senate-confirmed cabinet official was Democrat Pete Buttigieg, former president Joe Biden's secretary of transportation.
The Treasury department didn't respond to a request for comment.
The Senate easily approved Bessent's nomination 68-29. California's two Democratic senators handled the confirmation differently. Senator Adam Schiff voted no; Senator Alex Padilla did not vote.
Log Cabin Republicans officials heralded Bessent's confirmation.
"The Log Cabin Republicans congratulate Scott Bessent on his overwhelming and bipartisan Senate confirmation as the next United States Secretary of the Treasury," the group's president, Charles Moran, stated in an email. "His confirmation is historic, and not just because he has become the first openly gay man to hold the position as well as the highest-ranking gay man in U.S. history. Bessent's nomination by President Trump is a testament to his commitment to building a cabinet of the best and brightest minds in the country."
(Moran, a gay man, announced in a January 8 email to supporters that he would be stepping down from Log Cabin's leadership post but did not provide a departure date, other than to note he would serve as president "into the new year." He has been the group's president for the last five years.)
As the Washington Blade previously reported, Bessent is a protégé of liberal billionaire philanthropist George Soros. Bessent, an investor and hedge fund manager, was a partner at Soros Fund Management and the founder of Key Square Group, a global macro investment firm.
He's married to John Freeman, a former New York City prosecutor, who was present at Bessent's confirmation hearing, at which the nominee said, "If you had told me in 1984, when we graduated, and people were dying of AIDS, that 30 years later I'd be legally married and we would have two children via surrogacy, I wouldn't have believed you."
Moran stated, "Bessent is one of the most qualified individuals to ever hold the office and brings a wealth of experience and insights to the Treasury Department. He will be an invaluable partner in shaping President Trump's economic agenda and put America on the road back to prosperity."
The Human Rights Campaign, a national LGBTQ rights group that has been outspoken in its opposition to Trump, gave the B.A.R. a statement January 29.
"Scott Bessent marks the first time an openly-LGBTQ+ person will serve as Treasury Secretary. We need pro-equality LGBTQ+ nominees and LGBTQ+ people at all levels of government," stated HRC President Kelley Robinson, a queer Black woman. "The LGBTQ+ community is counting on openly LGBTQ+ nominees like Scott Bessent to step up for the community. HRC has a long history of working across the aisle to advance equality and this appointment may be an opportunity to continue."
However, Robinson stated that Trump and his administration remain hostile to LGBTQ rights and priorities in other areas. For example, the administration's halting of PEPFAR funding, which jeopardizes the lives of people who receive HIV prevention and treatment through the global aid program; executive orders declaring gender is biological sex at conception and banning transgender people from the military; the scrubbing of the White House website of many LGBTQ and HIV resources; and the weakening of civil rights provisions for federal contractors.
(Secretary of State Marco Rubio on January 28, issued a waiver allowing providers to continue offering HIV treatment and medical care funded through PEPFAR, though the fate of HIV prevention services remains unclear, according to the New York Times.)
On January 29, Trump issued yet another executive order aimed at public schools. Titled "Ending Radical Indoctrination in K-12 Schooling" it calls for eliminating "all federal funding or support for illegal and discriminatory treatment and indoctrination in K-12 schools, including based on gender ideology and discriminatory equity ideology and protecting parental rights."
Robinson maintained the Trump administration's policies so far hinder LGBTQ people.
"It will be a tough road — as was proven during Donald Trump's previous administration, in his Project 2025 agenda, and throughout his first week back in office, Donald Trump and his White House are a threat to the rights, freedoms, and lives of LGBTQ+ people," Robinson stated. "That will be our focus in the upcoming days, months, and years ahead."
Trump desires to 'grow the party's base,' analyst says
Noting that in his first term, Trump had touted the Ending the Epidemics HIV initiative (which House Republicans have since wanted to defund and that his administration had launched a global effort to decriminalize homosexuality, Project Amicus CEO David Grasso, a gay man, told the B.A.R. in a January 28 phone call that "I don't know if there's a neat philosophy to thread all this together."
"Every administration is going to be a mixed bag," Grasso said. "There's no underpinning everything, but I think there is a desire to grow the party's base to include LGBTQ+ Americans, while still maintaining their commitment to their existing base, and it's typical politics, a tug-of-war between these two goals."
The national Republican Party quietly dropped opposition to same-sex marriage from its 2024 platform — at the same time that the platform went from something written by committee, as in 2016 and prior years, to being a document proposed by Trump, as NPR reported.
"Twenty percent to 30 percent of LGBTQ people would probably identify as right-of-center," Grasso said. "The administration is reflecting nationwide demographics and there is polling that suggests Trump received a lower amount than that, but in general, ideologically, the numbers are pretty close to what I mentioned."
An NBC News exit poll found Trump won 27% of LGBTQ voters in 2020 but that this went down to 12% in 2024, a year in which gender issues became a cornerstone of his strategy.
In the closing stretch of last year's campaign, a TV commercial with the tagline "Kamala is for they/them, President Trump is for you" (referring to Democratic presidential nominee then-vice president Kamala Harris) aired over 30,000 times and in every swing state. A Future Forward PAC analysis found it among the most effective of the campaign, swinging viewers 2.7% toward Trump after viewing it.
Nonetheless, some close advisers to, and supporters of, Trump, such as Ric Grenell, a gay man Trump named as his Presidential Envoy for Special Missions in December, have had an impact, Grasso said. He noted that he credited the decriminalization campaign to Grenell, who served as ambassador to Germany during Trump's first term before a short stint as acting director of national intelligence.
Grasso said that the Soros connection was a sign Bessent was chosen for the position based on merit, considering the animosity between conservatives and the billionaire liberal philanthropist, who was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor, by Biden in early January.
"It wasn't on our bingo card that the George Soros hedge fund manager would be in the Treasury, but being a hedge fund manager is not a partisan position," Grasso said.
LGBTQ Agenda is an online column that appears weekly. Got a tip on queer news? Contact John Ferrannini at [email protected]
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