Daniel DeMontigny
This title may seem to be an oxymoron. Gay guys for Trump? Really? Well yes. It is the name of a gay republican group that, on its website and in the street, fiercely defends Trump’s populist ideas and his administration. Founded by its president Peter Boykin in February 2016 during the US presidential campaign, this group claims to defend the interests of the gay community in the Republican Party, but by visiting the website, we quickly realize that the speech looks like rather to that of the extreme right. Since 2016, they have been organizing pre- and post-election events, marches, and taking part in a number of events accompanied by other groups that make up the muddle of American neo-conservatism. These pro-Trump gay groups, there are more than one, are, according to gay magazine Out, « the minority within the minority within the minority ». In March 2018, a pro-Trump LGBT march on the White House attracted just over twenty people and Mr Boykin said it was a resounding triumph!
According to Boykin, President Trump would not be an old-school Republican and his administration, in general, would openly embrace the LGBT community. These are also recurring themes among gays who voted Republican in 2016 (14% of the homo vote). He says the LGBT community would be largely controlled by the far-left agenda and simply discussing the conservative agenda can provoke hatred and rejection from the LGBT community. Moreover, the feeling of being marginalized, unheard by their peers, seems to predominate their speech. Another gay group that supports Trump, Deplorable Pride, says on his webpage that they would have formed their organization because they feel ‘chastised’ by the LGBT community
because of their political positions. In addition, Boykin says that unless there is a place at the table, the LGBT community will not be represented. That would be the main goal of Gays for Trump. To get there, it will make noise, be noticed, embrace conservative ideas. But here. The Trump administration, by means of memos and internal policies in several of its governmental agencies, surreptitiously undermines the acquired rights, as much for the marriage as for the discrimination on the labor market of the LGBT people, by increasing the rights of the religious groups . Yet gay men who support Trump continue, even more fervently, to defend him. As if their identity depended on it.
Here we are at the heart of the beast: political identity. Gays for Trump appeared on the scene with the rise of the alternative right (alt-right), a populist movement that took off with the 2016 presidential campaign, and which was fomented mainly by Breitbart News, an online magazine that said ‘alt-right’, and one of his openly gay ex-editors and provocative master, Milo Yiannopoulos. This alternative right is composed of extremist groups which, despite their different positions on certain points, share certain identity objectives: open war against the political correctness of the extreme left and the claim of the right to speak, mainly. His weapons of choice are provocation and misinformation, which goes as far as rewriting facts and even history.
For a pro-Trump Republican LGBT person who feels rejected by his community, but also, paradoxically, by the Republican establishment, what is left to be seen and heard? To provoke, to confuse, to make noise, and even more noise, for the supreme leader!