Lindsey Graham is Not a Lady
By: James Finn
Tags: LGBTQ, Gay, Politics, Sexism, Equality

Lindsey Graham is Not a Lady

Adapted from a caricature of Lindsay Graham by DonkeyHotey. (CC BY-SA 2.0)

I wrote the other day that casual jokes about gay men, at heart both misogynistic and sexist, fill American air in about the same proportion as free oxygen. I observed that homophobia IS sexism, that if women were considered equal to men, sexist and homophobic jokes wouldn’t make sense.

Nothing could better illustrate my point than homophobic jokes about Senator Lindsay Graham that have filled Twitter since last June.

Graham is a closeted gay man who has wielded political power for decades to hurt other LGBTQ people. He deserves to be outed and to have his hypocrisy exposed, but attacking him with traditional anti-queer vitriol does much more harm than good. Let me give you a little background first, then dig into this story.

Sean Harding, self-promo photo from Twitter feed. Caution, feed is NSFW.

Last June, the hashtags #LadyGraham and #LadyG exploded on social media after gay porn star Sean Harding claimed Senator Lindsay Graham (R/SC) is well known among male sex workers, who use use both nicknames for him.

Harding isn’t the first to out Senator Graham as gay.

Speculation about his sexual orientation goes way back, with D.C. insiders saying his gay identity has long been hush hush but never really a secret. Now it’s much less secret than ever. Male sex workers have told journalists Graham has frequent sexual liaisons with them and has required them to sign non-disclosure agreements.

Graham has never met an anti-LGBTQ policy he couldn’t support

Both GLAAD and the Human Rights Campaign call the powerful senator one of the most anti-LGBTQ politicians in Washington. In the last few months alone, he’s suggested he wants to see the Supreme Court strike down marriage equality, spoken up against protecting LGBTQ workers from employment discrimination, and defended excluding same-sex couples from adopting children.

If it turned out a politician had been hiding his Black heritage all his life, would you crack watermelon jokes?

As a senator, he has voted against LGBTQ equality every time it’s come to the floor. As a committee chair, he has exercised his authority many times to block legislation from reaching the floor. No politician has ever been a stronger enemy to LGBTQ people than Graham has.

As far back as 2007, LGBTQ activist and journalist Michelangelo Signorile called for an investigation to expose Graham’s hypocrisy.

“Let’s have a real investigation of the rumors about South Carolina Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, who … has voted antigay — including for the federal marriage amendment — while people in South Carolina and Washington have discussed what some say is an open secret for a long, long time.”

Outing closeted queer politicians has an honorable history

I first met Signorile in 1990 when we were both members of Queer Nation. He was an agitator who used his column in OutWeek magazine to popularize outing queer public figures with anti-LGBTQ track records. The practice was intensely controversial then but is now widely accepted as ethically justified under the right circumstances.

Click for Signorile’s archived columns.

Outing does not equal homophobic slurs

Few today suggest the circumstances are wrong for outing Senator Graham, and his secret has become largely public. But outing a powerful queer politician who harms LGBTQ people is different from attacking that politician with sexist, homophobic slurs.

Yet slurs are exactly what have been filling social media since Harding dropped his bombshell. A quick Twitter search on the hashtag #LadyGraham will show you exactly what I mean. Here’s a selection from this morning — from just the first two screens of returns.

Oh you silly queen, you’ll be investigated soon enough, #LadyGraham

And the pale skinned arms of someone who’s always worn a sleeved dress! #LadyGraham

More like someone needs to look into #LadyGraham and his Grindr profile

I think Putin has some serious kompromat on #LadyGraham. No one really cares that he’s gay and pays for sex. I think it’s something to do with underage children.

No big surprise: Lindsey always enjoys a nice, tight probe. #LadyGraham

#LadyGraham A cockatoo deserves a cock-or-two, right #LadyGraham?

Is #LadyGraham having another snit?

“#Ladygraham, Aunt Bea is trending! Wonder why?” observes one Twitter user.

Could the sexism and homophobia be more blatant?

I barely screened those tweets before I pulled them for this article. They’re the first few I found in the hashtag, and each of them is toxic. Look at all the negative tropes that get checked off:

Gay men are fundamentally silly. Like women.

Gay men are promiscuous, which must be bad.

Gay men are likely to be pedophiles.

Gay men like anal sex. How gross.

Gay men are hysterical like women, and prone to “snits.”

What really gets me about all these tweets is that they come from the left. Each tweet was sent by a person who identifies as a liberal, a progressive, or a “resister.”

I saw hundreds more tweets much like that ones above, and while many of the jokes come from profiles with rainbow flags, it appears the bulk are from people who call themselves allies rather than LGBTQ people themselves.

No matter the case, the jokes are disturbing, and I’d like to explain why to both allies and my own queer tribe.

To cis/straight allies —

You guys are out of bounds. I know you mean well to oppose Graham, but you don’t have the right to call queer people silly queens or to mock anal sex. Nothing is wrong with being feminine and nothing is wrong with anal sex. If you didn’t think something was worth mocking, your jokes wouldn’t be funny.

No matter your intentions, your jokes are hurtful. They fill queer people’s air with toxins. Please stop.

Don’t get what I’m saying? Ask yourself this. If it turned out a politician had been hiding his Black heritage all his life, would you crack watermelon jokes? I don’t think so.

To queer people —

OK, I get it. You’re being ironic and you’re weaponizing Graham’s own shit against him. Hell, I’ve done it too, in private. I’ve mocked that bitter, self-loathing old queen out both sides of my mouth as I downed a cocktail and hooted it up with friends.

But the key here is private. I’ve been with people I trust to KNOW my jokes are rooted in irony. And even then I’ve been careful to explain I don’t really think calling a person a queen in a mocking way is cool. I don’t want to model toxic behavior, and I hope you don’t either. Our air is already foul enough. Right?

To everyone who cares about equality —

It’s way past time to stop weaponizing sexism and homophobia. Calling Lindsay Graham on his hypocrisy is laudable and honorable. It’s wrong for him to make political hay opposing queer rights while he’s secretly paying for sex with men.

But two wrongs don’t make a right. Cracking fag jokes is what what GRAHAM would do among his homophobic constituents.

Let’s be better than Graham. What do you say?