White House attacks Smithsonian for telling ‘radical’ LGBTQ+ stories at American history museum

A new White House report attacks the Smithsonian Institution’s management of the National Museum of American History. Among its complaints are the inclusion of drag queens, LGBTQ+ icons, and magazines with nude women on the cover.

The Domestic Policy Council report, titled “Saving America’s Story,” claims the museum has been “captured” by an “intellectual framework rooted in Marxism that seeks to radically transform society by revealing and challenging alleged ‘overlapping systems of oppression.’”

It takes particular issue with much of the pop culture featured, including costumes from the Broadway musical Hamilton, and claims a video including drag queens pushes sexually suggestive material in front of children. The report specifically calls out a cover of the 1990s feminist zine “Girl Germs” for depicting two nude women embracing.

But above all, the report attacks the institution for telling stories about marginalized communities, arguing those exhibits come at the expense of inspiring young people with more history involving straight white men.

The Organization of American Historians already dismissed the report as an example of executive overreach aimed at advancing President Donald Trump’s political agenda.

Related: Donald Trump orders Women’s History Museum to remove trans people or lose funding

“The National Museum of American History interprets America’s history through its vast collection; this report’s objective is to punish it for doing that in a way that makes U.S. history accessible to and reflective of all Americans,” an OAH statement reads. “The report is only the latest chapter in a broader, systematic campaign that now targets an institution that was never meant to answer to any single administration. As OAH has stated previously, no president has the authority to dictate the content of the Smithsonian’s exhibitions.”

The report specifically attacks Smithsonian leadership for launching its Center for Restorative History, which aimed to include “BIPOC people (Black, Indigenous, and other people of color); LGBTQ+ people (who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and more) and people who have intersecting identities within these communities.”

The report suggests that goal privileges “virtually every group but straight, white Americans.”

The report goes on to accuse Smithsonian leaders of “Pro-Abortion Activism,” despite exhibits on abortion explicitly showcasing both abortion rights supporters and opponents. It takes issue with the fact that Museum Director Anthea Hartig issued a personal statement condemning the 2022 Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade.

Especially confounding is much of the criticism of “Hamilton,” a Tony Award-winning musical about the life of Founding Father Alexander Hamilton, whose sexuality has long been the subject of historical debate.

Related: Republican attempt to erase trans women could derail long-awaited Smithsonian museum

“A didactic about the Broadway musical Hamilton in NMAH’s Entertainment Nation exhibit that simply called Alexander Hamilton an ‘influential and flawed founding father’ likely, in part, because he owned slaves while providing no information about his key roles in America’s Founding and early development,” the report reads.

The “likely” interpretation is unsupported by a citation. The musical “Hamilton” makes no mention of Hamilton owning slaves, likely because historians have long debated the issue, though Hamilton was also a critic of slavery. The show does portray Hamilton’s personal character flaws, including his infidelity and political divisiveness, qualities critics have also attributed to Trump.

But the criticism extends throughout the museum’s “Entertainment Nation” exhibit, including objections to teaching visitors about “a bisexual blues singer, a lesbian actress, a sexually-liberated film star, an LGBTQ ‘icon,’ a lesbian TV star, a gay major league baseball player, and a queer women’s soccer player.”