New Bryon Noem bombshell puts Kristi Noem’s anti-trans politics under harsher spotlight

Former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem is facing growing public scrutiny after a new Friday report added fresh allegations about her husband, Bryon Noem’s secret life, and deepened a controversy that critics say highlights a stark contradiction between her political record and her family’s private life.

The latest report, published Friday by the Daily Mail, claims Bryon Noem told an online fetish performer in audio recordings that he discussed fantasies about hormone therapy and feminizing surgery. According to the paper, he wanted to eventually live publicly as a woman named “Crystal.” The tabloid says it obtained recordings, voicemails, and messages allegedly exchanged over the years between Bryon Noem and Shy Sotomayor, a dominatrix and fetish model who says she had a long-running online relationship with him.

It is important to distinguish at the outset that transgender identity and sexual fetish behavior are not the same thing. Medical experts and LGBTQ+ advocates have long emphasized that being transgender is about a person’s deeply held gender identity, while fetishistic crossdressing or feminization fantasies are separate behaviors that do not, on their own, indicate that someone is transgender.

Related: Kristi Noem’s husband accused of living double life as ‘busty bimbo’ cross-dressing fetishist

Related: 25 hilarious reactions to Kristi Noem’s hypocrisy after husband’s cross-dressing fetish leaks

The Daily Mail also reports that in the alleged exchanges, Sotomayor repeatedly insulted Kristi Noem and criticized her immigration policies, including ICE operations carried out during her tenure at Homeland Security. In one exchange published by the tabloid, Sotomayor tells Bryon Noem there is “no female compared to me, especially your wife,” while in another, she attacks Kristi Noem over “everything she’s done.” Bryon Noem sat behind his wife in congressional hearings in support of her testimony as recently as March.

The Advocate has not independently verified the authenticity of the recordings or messages.

The new claims build on earlier Daily Mail reports alleging Bryon Noem exchanged explicit messages under an alias, sent money to women in a fetish community, and shared photos of himself in feminine clothing.

In an earlier statement reported by the New York Post, Kristi Noem’s representatives said she was “devastated” and that “the family was blindsided,” asking for privacy. The White House did not respond to The Advocate’s request for comment.

For many observers, the issue is not the alleged behavior itself. It is the hypocrisy now casting an ever brighter spotlight on one of the Republican Party’s most polarizing former officials.

The allegations are drawing intense attention in part because of Noem’s political record. As governor of South Dakota and later as Homeland Security secretary, Noem built her national profile by backing policies aimed at restricting transgender rights and policing gender expression. She also oversaw some of the administration’s harshest immigration enforcement measures, including deportation policies that immigrant-rights groups condemned as cruel and inhumane.

The contrast between a public career built in part on attacking people for gender nonconformity and a private scandal centered on allegations involving the same themes is at the center of the controversy.

Crossdressing is not inherently queer or transgender. Medical and advocacy groups distinguish gender expression from gender identity, meaning a person may crossdress while identifying as cisgender and heterosexual.