Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Top Stories

Mayor Pete didn’t say ‘gay’

Pete Buttigieg

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg speaks at the Democratic National Committee.

Ricky Carioti/The Washington Post via Getty Images

Tseng is an equity strategy program manager at Google, a Paul and Daisy Soros fellow, and a public voices fellow of The OpEd Project.

In his speech at the Democratic National Convention, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg never said the word “gay.” Not once. He didn’t mention his husband, Chasten, by name or even use the term “husband.” He never mentioned that he is a man who loves another man, nor did he give any explanation of why his family seemed like an impossibility just 25 years ago, beyond saying that it did.

In fact, the only thing that might have tipped you off about his sexuality was his mention of pro wrestling, a very queer sport. The omission of any aspect of his gayness made me long for a much broader pool of candidates onto whom I could project my hopes and dreams as a gay man.


To be fair, “Mayor Pete” is unequivocally the most famous gay man in American politics. He’s the highest ranking LGBTQ+ federal official (14th in line for the presidency) and has a personal story that is known to a broad swath of the country due to his own campaign for president in 2020. He is widely recognized as one of the Democratic Party’s best communicators and as the nation’s first credible Millennial candidate for president.

Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter

So a good-faith reading of these omissions is that he assumes his audience already knows the biographical elements that powered his meteoric rise. And perhaps a more realistic reading is that Buttigieg plans to one day run for president (or governor of Michigan, where he now lives) and is betting that respectability politics will be his most effective strategy for appealing to the broadest set of voters. I would even grant him the generous reading that he is genuinely uninterested in discussing his identity in depth, and so this calibration is authentic to who he is.

Still, Mayor Pete’s reticence to discuss his identity in any way that might cause an “ick factor” for his future constituents makes me feel like rolling my eyes with my entire body. As New Yorker contributor Masha Gessen wrote in 2020, Buttigieg’s “politics of being ‘just like you’ leaves out the people who cannot or do not want to be just like conventional straight people, whether in appearance or in the way we construct our lives and families.” Implicit in that is the idea that his “passing privilege” — his ability to appear heterosexual, and the fact that he is an otherwise anodyne cis-white guy — is what he believes is his greatest selling point: that being a”palatable gay” is the only way any gay man could ever get elected to higher office in the United States.

But even as a palatable gay myself, with my husband of nearly 10 years and twin girls we adopted almost exactly a year before Pete and Chasten adopted their twins (his most relatable line in his speech: “when the dog is barking, and the air fryer is beeping, and the mac and cheese is boiling over, and it feels like all the political negotiating experience in the world is not enough for me to get our 3-year-old son and daughter to just wash their hands and sit at the table”), I can’t help but feel a sense of loss that our chance to be represented on a national stage is so contingent on us living our lives in such a prescribed way. And since he doesn’t seem willing to handle conversations about the less heteronormative aspects of queer identity and intersectionality, those crucial parts of our community’s shared struggle seem far from the national discourse.

The truth is that I’m still rooting for Mayor Pete. I hope he does well. I hope he gets elected to additional positions and is able to use his power and influence to make lives better, because I truly believe that is his goal. But I don’t want to be forced to put all of my gay politics eggs in the Pete Buttigieg basket. Unfortunately, the pipeline of queer political talent is thin. Of the 480 congressional and gubernatorial seats up for election this year, there are only 13 LGBTQ candidates endorsed by the LGBTQ+ Victory Fund, the public affairs committee supporting queer candidates. Because the bench is so shallow, we don’t have enough representation to truly encompass the wide spectrum of queer identity. Perhaps our most radical gay federal official, Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.), who is unabashedly gay and speaks often of his queerness, is still a cis-man who wears a suit to work every day.

It’s easy to say that we queer folks need to get off the couch and run for office, to be the representation we want to see in the world. But it’s not hard to see how thick a skin it takes to be a queer public figure, particularly in a politically charged (and increasingly threatening) America. Mayor Pete knows that too; he’s lived it with every step of his career. It’s gotten him far, but now that he has risen so high on the national stage, it’s time for him to take the next courageous step and talk about it.

He might advocate for care infrastructure for aging LGBTQ seniors, or talk about the impact that PrEP and the mPox vaccine have had on public health, or maybe even mention once in a while that trans rights are human rights. It’s time for Mayor Pete to shine the light on how beautiful, and legitimate, all parts of the queer coalition are, and to lift up other gay politicians so he no longer has to be the be-all and end-all for those of us looking for someone to speak for us.

Read More

An illustration of diverse people around a heart with the design of the American flag.
An illustration of diverse people around a heart with the design of the American flag.
Getty Images, wildpixel

The Next Hundred Days: America's Latest Test of Democracy

For decades, we have watched America wrestle with its demons. Sometimes, she has successfully pinned them down. Other times, the demons have slipped beyond her grasp. Yet, America has always remained in the ring. There is no difference right now, and the stakes couldn't be higher.

Across America, from small-town council meetings to state legislatures, there's a coordinated effort to roll back the clock on civil rights, geopolitical relations, and the global economy. It's not subtle, and it's not accidental. The targeting of immigrants and citizens of color has become so normalized that we risk becoming numb to it. For example, what happened in Springfield, Ohio, late last year? When national politicians started pushing rhetoric against Haitian immigrants, it wasn't just local politics at play. It was a test balloon, a preview of talking points soon echoed in halls of government and media outlets nationwide. Thus, this is how discrimination, intolerance, and blatant hate go mainstream or viral—it starts small, tests the waters, and spreads like a virus through our body politic and social system.

Keep ReadingShow less
Two groups of people approaching each other over a chasm, ready to shake hands.

Two groups of people approaching each other over a chasm, ready to shake hands.

Getty Images, timsa

The Impact of Trump’s Executive Actions: Efforts To Eliminate DEI

This essay is part of a series by Lawyers Defending American Democracy (LDAD) explaining in practical terms what the new administration’s executive orders and other official actions mean for all of us. Virtually all of these actions spring from the pages of Project 2025, the administration's 900-page blueprint for government action over the next four years. The Project 2025 agenda should concern all of us, as it tracks strategies already implemented in countries such as Hungary to erode democratic norms and adopt authoritarian approaches to governing.

Project 2025’s stated intent to move quickly to “dismantle” the federal government will strip the public of important protections against excessive presidential power and provide big corporations with enormous opportunities to profit by preying on America's households.

Keep ReadingShow less
Future of the National Museum of the American Latino is Uncertain

PRESENTE! A Latino History of the United States

Credit: National Museum of the American Latino

Future of the National Museum of the American Latino is Uncertain

The American Museum of the Latino faces more hurdles after over two decades of advocacy.

Congress passed legislation to allow for the creation of the Museum, along with the American Women’s History Museum, as part of the Smithsonian Institution in an online format. Five years later, new legislation introduced by Nicole Malliotakis (R-N.Y.) wants to build a physical museum for both the Latino and women’s museums but might face pushback due to a new executive order signed by President Donald Trump.

Keep ReadingShow less
Fairness, Not Stigma, for Transgender Athletes

People running.

Getty Images, Pavel1964

Fairness, Not Stigma, for Transgender Athletes

President Trump’s campaign and allies spent $21 million of campaign spending on attack ads against transgender people. With that level of spending, I was shocked to find out it was not a top concern for voters of either party, but it continued to prevail as a campaign priority.

Opponents of transgender participation in sports continue to voice their opinions, three months into the Trump presidency. Just last month, the Trump administration suspended $175 million in federal funding to Penn State over a transgender swimmer. $175 million is a bit dramatic over one swimmer, or in the case of the entire NCAA, fewer than 10 athletes. Even Governor Gavin Newsom was recently under fire for sharing his views on his podcast. Others, like Rep. Nancy Mace, have also caught on to the mediagenic nature of transphobia right now. “You want penises in women's bathrooms, and I'm not going to have it,” she said in a U.S. House hearing last month. I had no clue who Nancy Mace was prior to her notorious views on LGBTQ+ rights. Frankly, her flip from being a supporter of LGBTQ+ rights to shouting “Tr**ny” in a hearing seems less like a change of opinion and more of a cry for attention.

Keep ReadingShow less