While speaking at a fundraiser at his Mar-a-Lago residence in West Palm Beach, Florida, former Republican President Donald Trump told a group of gay supporters they "don't look gay," a claim that prompted his critics to accuse him of expressing inflammatory and homophobic sentiments.
The fundraiser, which was for Michigan Republican congressional candidate John Gibbs, a former Trump administration official who worked at the Department of Housing and Urban Development, attracted members of Gays for Trump—an organization largely comprised of homosexual men that supports Trump, his administration and policies.
When one of the organization's members in the audience shouted out, "Gays for Trump," things got weird.
You can watch what happened in the video below.
Upon hearing the words, "Gays for Trump," Trump turned in the direction of the voice and asked,
"Where's Gays for Trump?"
When someone responded, "We're over here," Trump pointed in their direction and declared, "You don't look gay," before telling the attendees
"We did great with the gay population, as you know.”
The clip soon went viral and Peter Boykin, the founder of the Gays for Trump, later made an absurd claim to Newsweek in an email that members of the group "probably wouldn't 'look gay' because it's a stereotype that fits more with the typical 'look' of leftist LGBT."
Boykin went on to note that the fundraiser was "a suit and tie event" and insisted that Gays for Trump is "full of various types of gays and the gay community has a lot of diversity—the difference is the Gays for Trump lean right."
However, the incident has served to highlight the long history of discrimination against LGBTQ+ people in the United States and how they are often taught to conceal who they are so as not to make others uncomfortable. Nearly 1 in 5 hate crimes are motivated by anti-LGBTQ+ bias and that bias is rooted prejudice or hostility toward a victim’s actual or perceived sexual orientation.
Additionally, the Center for American Progress (CAP), has noted that its own research and survey findings show "that LGBT people hide personal relationships, delay health care, change the way they dress, and take other steps to alter their lives because they could be discriminated against.
The social faux pas of merely "looking gay" was rather aptly analyzed by David Hudson, the Deputy Editor of Gay Star News, who in 2018 observed,
"But what of that statement? 'You don't look gay.' How are we supposed to react to that?"
"Is it being offered as a statement of surprise? Or as a clunky and misguided compliment? At the very least, it would suggest the person saying it thinks gay people look a certain way."
Trump–and Gays for Trump–have been criticized in the wake of the video.
The Trump administration has long been criticized for its record on LGBTQ+ rights and the non-governmental media monitoring organization GLAAD kept a running tally of its attacks against the community.
During his term, Trump was scorned for banning transgender individuals from serving in the military, a move that was later overturned shortly after President Joe Biden took office. Last year, he denounced "biological males," telling supporters that he did not believe transgender women and girls should compete on sports teams consistent with their gender identity.
A few months after entering office, Trump signed a "religious liberty" executive order that eased the ban on tax-exempt organizations such as churches engaging in political speech.
Just months prior, a leaked copy of a draft executive order, titled “Establishing a Government-Wide Initiative to Respect Religious Freedom," signaled sweeping plans by the Trump administration to legalize discrimination, even by private companies and religious organizations.
The order, had it been signed, would have allowed wholesale exemptions for people and or organizations to cite religious objections to not only same-sex marriage and gender identity, but premarital sex and abortion, as grounds for otherwise discriminatory action, news that prompted swift condemnation from human rights groups.
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