The closetocracy? 11 anti-LGBTQ+ Republicans dogged by gay rumors

Lindsey Graham

When U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham died in July, the South Carolina foreign policy hawk left behind three decades of opposition to LGBTQ+ civil rights advances, including years of declining to recognize same-sex marriage, supporting “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” and voting against the Employment Non-Discrimination Act in 2013.

He also left behind years of speculation about his sexuality. Rumors that Graham was gay swirled around his lengthy political career up until the time of his death. Graham’s status as a lifelong bachelor who never married or had children led to years of insinuations that he was gay, often manifesting as homophobic jokes and attacks against him, despite his frequent denials.

This speculation intensified in June 2020 after gay adult film performer Sean Harding posted allegations involving an unnamed Republican senator that social media users linked to Graham, who was allegedly nicknamed “Lady G” by male sex workers who claimed him as a client. Harding did not publicly provide evidence substantiating the allegations.

Trump loyalist Laura Loomer testified in 2025 that Graham was gay and closeted, and insisted that his sexuality had been an open secret on Capitol Hill. After Graham’s death, author Jesse James Rose went viral after penning an Instagram post alleging the politician used to pay her to “do unspeakable things to him in a hotel room while he wore red lingerie” prior to her gender transition, when she was a “twinky pre-transition college student.” Rose’s account has not been independently corroborated.

Rose’s post prompted another transgender woman, Taylor Snider, to come forward. In a recent collaboration between Them and The Advocate, Snider alleged that Graham paid her for about half an hour of sex work at a Washington hotel on June 7, 2015 — six days after he launched his presidential campaign. Snider said she did not realize who her client was until she saw Graham on CNN about a week later.

Them reviewed screenshots of a dated advertisement and text exchange that appeared to arrange the appointment, although the outlet could not independently verify the messages. Snider said she came forward to “point out the hypocrisies that are actively in our world right now,” noting Graham’s later attacks on transgender rights. Graham also championed FOSTA-SESTA, legislation that further criminalized online sex work and that advocates say made sex workers more vulnerable to violence.

Ron DeSantis

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is responsible for the infamous “Don’t Say Gay” law, which banned public school teachers from providing classroom instruction about sexual orientation or gender identity, as well as restrictions on gender-affirming procedures for trans youth. His ultra-regressive views on the LGBTQ+ community haven’t protected the Florida Republican and Trump ally from rumors about his sexual orientation.

DeSantis has faced whispers about his sexuality for years that were made worse when he was photographed wearing what social media users claimed were hidden heels in his boots. The photos quickly went viral and inspired questions about his sexuality and claims that he’s a drag queen, which was a pointed criticism considering DeSantis’ fight to ban children from drag shows. Of course, wearing lifts — or being compared to a drag queen — is not evidence of someone’s sexuality.

Mike Johnson

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson’s homophobic and transphobic views can’t be overstated. He backed a measure barring transgender people from using bathrooms aligned with their gender identity in the U.S. Capitol; he has supported criminalizing gay sex, was an attorney for the far-right Alliance Defending Freedom, defended “gay conversion therapy” organizations like Exodus International; and the Human Rights Campaign dubbed him the “most anti-equality” speaker in U.S. history. Even Meghan McCain called the Trump ally a “raging homophobe.”

But his anti-LGBTQ+ beliefs and Johnson’s more than 25-year marriage to a woman, with whom he shares four children, haven’t stopped years of gay rumors from spreading about the vocal MAGA supporter.

The search term “Mike Johnson Grindr” started trending in 2025 when an anonymous man went viral on TikTok after making unsubstantiated claims that he had proof Johnson had a private Grindr profile and threatening to make it public unless the Trump administration released the Jeffrey Epstein files. No such evidence was produced. More rumors spread when Johnson admitted that he and his son monitor each other’s porn habits.

John Strand

Controversial figure John Strand isn’t shy about telling voters that he’s a Jan. 6 rioter who spent close to a year in federal prison before being pardoned by Trump, alongside about 1,500 other people convicted of Jan. 6-related offenses. What the Florida congressional candidate didn’t advertise was his past as a male underwear model living in West Hollywood.

Strand may be a vocal MAGA supporter, but in his youth he was a struggling model in West Hollywood, according to a Mother Jones exposé. People who knew him at the time told the publication that Strand attended a party at the historic gay bar The Abbey, got a job working in an Equinox booth at West Hollywood Pride, posed nearly nude for the cover of French gay magazine Sensitif, and “would go out with his boys” while his wife “would stay home.”

Madison Cawthorn

The rumors about his sexuality that have plagued former Republican U.S. Rep. Madison Cawthorn for years intensified in 2022 when Politico obtained photos of the embattled former North Carolina congressman wearing women’s lingerie at what looked like a party.

Just weeks after the photos came to light, Cawthorn became embroiled in another scandal; this time, a video clip was released showing the former rising star in the MAGA movement naked in bed with his male cousin. Cawthorn, who once accused his GOP colleagues of “sexual perversion”, denied that there was anything wrong with the video and said he was just “being crass with a friend” and acting “foolish.”

These scandals fueled rumors that he is secretly gay, despite his anti-LGBTQ+ political record, which includes opposing the Respect for Marriage Act, a law requiring state and federal governments to recognize same-sex marriages, and voting against the Equality Act, which would have banned anti-LGBTQ+ discrimination in employment and housing.

Josh Hawley

Josh Hawley, a Republican senator from Missouri, once sent an email to his followers telling them that there are only two genders, said that businesses should legally be allowed to deny service to same-sex couples, asked “Can men get pregnant?” multiple times during a Senate abortion hearing in January, claimed that “almost half” of Netflix’s content promotes “transgender ideology,” and voted against the Respect for Marriage Act.

Despite all of this, Hawley has recently found himself at the center of rumors questioning his sexuality. Not only was Hawley one of the names Hunter Biden brought up when talking to journalist Don Lemon about the group of powerful closeted politicians he dubbed the “closetocracy,” but he was also the subject of a recent viral social media post accusing him of kissing a “male escort.”

Pro-LGBTQ+ chef and content creator Joe Gera claimed that Hawley paid off a busboy who spotted him kissing a male date behind a restaurant. Gera did not provide publicly verifiable evidence supporting the claim.

Matt Schlapp

Matt Schlapp is the former White House director of political affairs under George W. Bush and a current Trump ally who has been accused of sexual assault multiple times, including by a male staffer and two other men. He is the head of the virulently anti-LGBTQ+ American Conservative Union, which organizes the Conservative Political Action Conference. Both ACU and CPAC promote anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric, oppose same-sex marriage, and fight against transgender rights.

The so-called “family values” Republican was accused of sexually assaulting Carlton Huffman, a Republican staffer on Herschel Walker’s U.S. Senate campaign who was tasked with driving Schlapp in October 2022. The male staffer alleged that Schlapp groped his genitals without his consent and invited Huffman to come to his hotel room.

Huffman ultimately received a $480,000 settlement paid through an insurance policy on behalf of Schlapp and the ACU in exchange for dropping his sexual assault lawsuit. Schlapp continued to proclaim his innocence and said he had been exonerated.

Larry Craig

A stalwart of the conservative wing of the Republican Party, former U.S. Sen. Larry Craig went from voting against gay rights to being caught up in a police sting in an airport men’s restroom. The former Idaho senator was arrested on June 11, 2007, during an undercover vice operation at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport.

Craig was one of 41 arrests made in the type of police entrapment operations that used to target gay men, involving an undercover officer signaling to a man in the stall next door and then waiting for him to respond in kind. These supposed covert foot movements were enough to get men busted on charges of lewd conduct.

Craig was arrested and quietly pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of disorderly conduct, but claimed the whole thing was a misunderstanding and insisted he was not gay and was not seeking sex when he touched the police officer’s foot.

“I am not gay. I never have been gay,” he said at a news conference.

The anti-gay politician’s Republican allies dropped him like a hot potato as soon as news of the scandal broke. Republicans like Mitch McConnell, John McCain and Mitt Romney, along with religious conservative political adviser Pat Buchanan, all spoke out against him.

Craig announced that he would resign but later reversed his decision and served until his term expired in January 2009. His stunning downfall ended his political career, and he was later ordered to repay money and pay penalties for using campaign funds for his legal defense.

Wes Goodman

Conservative Christian lawmaker Wes Goodman’s up-and-coming Republican career was over the second he got caught living a double life and exchanging sexually suggestive emails with gay men. Goodman was a conservative “family values” Republican who championed “traditional family values” and anti-LGBTQ+ causes.

But Goodman ended up having to resign from the Ohio legislature in disgrace after he was caught in “inappropriate behavior” of a romantic or sexual nature with a man in his office, and salacious texts and emails he exchanged with gay men he met on Capitol Hill came to light.

Rumors that Goodman was a closeted gay man had been spreading for years before he got caught. Goodman aspired to run for Congress, but his right-wing political career ended in resignation when House Chief of Staff Mike Dittoe was informed about the incident, and House Speaker Cliff Rosenberger learned of the allegations.

“He acknowledged and confirmed the allegations,” Rosenberger said, according to reporting from The Advocate at the time.

Stephen Miller

Far-right senior Trump adviser Stephen Miller is vehemently anti-LGBTQ+. Not only is Miller the co-founder of America First Legal, which served as one of Project 2025’s advisory organizations and has openly attacked the rights of transgender students, but he also takes his hatred to bizarre ends, like attacking Pop-Tarts for corrupting children by partnering with GLAAD for Pride Month.

Miller’s open hatred for the LGBTQ+ community hasn’t stopped the rumor mill. People started joking that Miller was in a throuple and having three-way sex with his wife and Elon Musk in 2025 after Miller’s wife, Katie Miller, left the Trump administration to take a job with Musk’s artificial intelligence company, xAI.

During a conversation with I’ve Had It podcast host Jennifer Welch on his YouTube channel, journalist Don Lemon said, “I thought he was gay,” and that he got a “gaydar ping” from Miller. The MAGA loyalist was also one of the names Hunter Biden dropped when talking about the “closetocracy” he claims is running the government.

Michael Alfonso

Unlike most of the men on this list, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy’s son-in-law, Michael Alfonso, is new to politics and hasn’t dealt with years of gay rumors plaguing him. Alfonso just won the Republican primary in Wisconsin’s 7th Congressional District, but instead of focusing on the upcoming election against Democratic former state Rep. Fred Clark, he has been going viral lately because of his eyebrows.

Dubbed a “MAGA Warrior” by President Trump, who also endorsed him in January, the nepo-baby politician has been widely lambasted on social media for his prominent and well-groomed eyebrows. While some of the jokes lobbed at Alfonso have been about his resemblance to a certain Sesame Street character who is “best friends” with Ernie, many of them have also fed into rumors that his manscaping is proof that he is gay. It isn’t, but the jokes reveal how quickly conservatives’ rigid ideas about masculinity can be turned against them.