After 20 years of writing conservative political and cultural journalism and opinion, there’s nothing in my portfolio on sexual orientation. But I wonder about the life of Sen. Lindsey Graham, and I’m not inclined to ask AI my core question. I’m going to try to figure it out.
There are video clips of Graham telling reporters, “I’m not gay.” And yet it’s common knowledge among the intelligentsia that he was some iteration of homosexuality. Real Time host Bill Maher regularly alluded as such, and his audiences laughed knowingly. When President Trump chose the Village People hit “Y.M.C.A.” to close his rallies, it was Maher who cracked, “Trump doesn’t know it’s gay, and Lindsey Graham loves it.”
Graham never married, had no kids, not that those are necessarily defining characteristics of heterosexuality. Since his passing, anecdotally and without independent corroboration, a transexual escort has come forward claiming that the South Carolina senator was a client, and that there were others of that trade that he patronized. (That’s another question I’m not qualified to answer: is straight male attraction to a femme pre-op transexual “gay?”)
South Carolina is one of the most Republican, conservative states in the Union. Trump won the state three times going away. As a U.S. House Representative and later Senator, Graham served in Congress from 1995-2026, 31 years. If it was an open secret amongst the Beltway class that Graham was gay, there’s no way the electorate in The Palmetto State didn’t come to realize that over the decades, even if they didn’t know it in the beginning. They kept sending him back.
Further complicating the narrative for those like myself who honestly don’t understand, Graham voted against codifying gay marriage, raising another question: is it hypocritical or admirable to vote against perceived threats to traditional morality and violate that morality in one’s own life?
Why didn’t Graham just come out? Why not cast off the charade that presented him—in terms of his “concealed” sexual identity—as the senator with no clothes. What did he stand to lose by admitting this apparent truth? To gain by staying in a transparent closet Would Graham’s admission of that “alleged truth” have changed anything? Would President Trump not praised his lifelong public service, not called him a friend, and not enjoyed playing golf with him?
Would Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR), a Christian family man and paragon of conservative masculinity, have changed this appraisal of Graham, gleaned from a Fox News segment after his untimely death: “Cotton praised Graham as a ‘true self-made American original’ and patriot, highlighting his dedication to the country, his faith, and his remarkable life story coming from humble beginnings in South Carolina.”
The question remains. Is there still, in 2026, something to be lost by officially coming out as a gay Republican? In Lindsey Graham’s case, it doesn’t seem like there would’ve been.
