The New York Times this week profiled Donald Trump’s so-called “A-Gays,” an offensive clique of lily white, self-appoionted power gays who, in the Times’ words, strut around a militarized D.C. like “a new power tribe.”
What the story reveals is that this “tribe” is anything but glamorous. The asinine A-Gays are a grotesque display of hypocrisy, delusion, and self-importance. These poor excuses for gay men have chosen to bow before the very administration that is taking a knife to the LGBTQ+ community.
In broad daylight, while giddy, gutless A-Gays gawk at the gruesomeness. The A-Gays have their noses so far in the air, and so far up Trump’s ass, that the only thing they smell besides Trump’s stench is the stink of their own snootiness.
This group of Nazi-like close-cropped haircuts and fancy suits is crowing about finding acceptance in Trump’s cult of narcissism. The A-Gays are a perfect fit: too caught up in themselves, just like their vanglory-in-chief.
They are cheap, throwaway props, who, despite all the evidence to the contrary, say that Trump is “not really homophobic.” Really? Does anyone believe Donald Trump would ever walk into a gay bar, or even speak at a Log Cabin Republican event? There’s your answer.
Need more proof? Trump and his bruv homophobes, following the virulently anti-LGBTQ+ Project 2025, have been busying themselves with obliterating (the A-Gays love this word) LGBTQ+ protections.
They are defunding queer youth suicide hotlines, gutting HIV programs at home and abroad, destroying trans rights, and erasing LGBTQ+ history from the nation’s story.
These A-Gays aren’t A-list anything, except in their arrogance. In the real world, they wouldn’t even make the Z-list.
The Times quoted one of the A-Gays, Casey Flores, who smugly suggested that “the battle for gay rights has basically been won.” Really? Seriously? Perhaps Flores has a flip phone and no access to the internet (DOGE took that away), so he’s illiterate about the news.
Tell couples wondering if their marriages will survive a Supreme Court waiting for the chance to rip equality to shreds, not to worry. Tell queer youth staring down skyrocketing suicide as hotlines and resources are eliminated, that it’s going to be ok.
It takes a special kind of obtuse stupidity to insist the fight is over.
But why worry? Because Flores is busy sitting in a leather chair in an uppity club, sipping a martini, pining for an invitation to Peter Thiel’s house, while talking loud enough on his flip-phone so people in the room can be witnesses to his self-importance.
I’ve seen this lot before. When I worked on Capitol Hill in the late ’80s, I stumbled into a beach house in Rehoboth where a cabal of closeted Reagan staffers stayed. Their walls were plastered with pictures of themselves with the very man whose administration ignored AIDS while their friends died. This sounds very harsh, but that was the reality.
They were smug too, and equally self-important, and worshipful of a president who didn’t care if they lived or died. Sound familiar? Those men ended up in the dustbin of history, or worse.
Some of them got sick and died, and yet their loyalty never wavered. I spoke with James Kirchick when his fascinating book, Secret City: The Hidden History of Gay Washington, came out. We talked about Reagan strategist Terry Dolan, himself gay, who succumbed to AIDS as Reagan still refused to say the word. Many of his contemporaries died in secret.
Reagan even went so far as to deny his close friendship with Rock Hudson after he died of AIDS complications in October of 1985. When I went to that house, it was 1988, Reagan’s last year in office, and these toadies were still enthralled with him. Ignorance begets ignorance.
That’s what these Trump A-Gays remind me of, because they are of the same ilk. They, too, are men so desperate for proximity to power that they’ll overlook the casualties of Trump’s cruelty piling up around them.
The absurdity reaches new heights when Melania enters the picture. The Times reports that Melania is an icon to this group. I had to read that twice, because Melania doesn’t “love the gays” at all.
The article cites two appearances she benevolently made for Log Cabin Republicans, one at Trump Tower and one at Mar-a-Lago. But that might be a huge lie. She went, not out of the goodness of her non-heart, but because it was a money-making scheme for her. She allegedly charged them six figures to show up for each event. I wrote about this last year.
Yet the Times’ Shawn McCreesh fails to note that key fact, painting her as a gay ally when she’s really a paid prop.
With all this, I couldn’t help but be reminded about the A-gay-A, Richard Grenell, who idiotically said earlier this year that Trump attracts “normal gays.” I wrote about that too, saying if he thinks he’s “normal” then thank God I’m not.
This is all so repulsive. These sycophants cling to Trump as if he’s the key to their acceptance, blind to the reality that the very MAGA bros and Christian extremists they cozy up to despise them.
Their foolishness is only matched by their sheer lack of awareness. I bet none of the A-Gays has ever been to a Trump rally, and heard the word “f*g” bandied about like a conjunctive.
Do they really think guys like Mike Johnson, Pete Hegseth, and Stephen Miller respect them? Hell no!
The Times article notes that these men are unwelcome in D.C.’s actual gay bars, iced out on dating apps, mocked as sellouts. Um, do ya think?
No one wants to get close to someone who cheerfully sells out their own community for a selfie with Trump or preens at a table at the Monocle, while squealing, “Look at me!” “Look at me!” “Look at me!”
What’s most insidious is the A-Gays’ willingness to redefine “community” as their exclusive club. One of the A-Gays, Charles Moran even brags about keeping a spreadsheet of Trump gays in government, as if they’re some secret fraternity.
I’m sorry, but keeping a spreadsheet on A-Gays is about as creepy as it gets. I can see some wanna-be A-gay frantically calling around, “Can you get me on Charles Moran’s spreadsheet?”
The A-Gays make themselves out to be something fabulous. But, there’s nothing fabulous about defending a man who would gleefully roll back marriage rights, who mocks Pete Buttigieg’s marriage while renaming the Navy ship that rightfully honored Harvey Milk. And what about trans rights?
These pathetic A-Gays are nothing more than collaborators in Trump’s quest to burn down democracy and establish an autocracy. When that happens, we will all know what the “A” in A-Gays stands for.
Trump will throw these A-Gays under the bus once MAGA wakes up and sees that the A-Gays are nothing more than DEI hires.
Trump dances to “Y.M.C.A.” onstage, sure, but behind the curtain, he cuts AIDS relief, mocks drag queens, and greenlights Christian extremists who believe our very existence is a sin.
History will not be kind to these men. Just as Reagan’s closeted loyalists are remembered with shame and revulsion, Trump’s A-Gays will be remembered as lamentable sycophants, too vain to see that they were being used, and too pompous to stand with their own.
Trump’s A-Gays won’t be remembered for their power or their proximity, just as pathetic spreadsheet sellouts, and useful idiots who helped crush freedom, democracy, and gay rights.
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This article originally appeared on Advocate: Trump’s “A-Gays” are an arrogant, delusional and obtuse bunch of noxious narcissists