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Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent maintains that his sexuality played no role in President Donald Trump choosing him for the Cabinet. But he said that Trump makes jokes about his sexual orientation. “He’ll occasionally tell me, he goes, ‘You’re breaking Melania’s friends’ hearts,’” Bessent said in an interview with Axios. “‘They see you on TV, and they want an intro, and we have to break the news to them.’” Bessent, the highest-ranking out official in Cabinet history, discussed his work in the administration in a lengthy sit-down with Axios co-founder Mike Allen. The 64-year-old also said being openly gay didn’t significantly affect his career on Wall Street before he entered government. Related: The only thing Scott Bessent shares with Pete Buttigieg is a last name that begins with a 'B He acknowledged turning down a Naval Academy appointment because he was gay. Instead, Bessent attended Yale. But while his sexuality shaped his educational choices, he said discrimination didn’t hold him back in finance, even in the 1980s. “It’s very difficult to talk about the counterfactual,” he said. “But, I don’t think going to Yale held me back. Maybe some people who went to other Ivy League schools would think it might. But I think that it makes you aware, and I’ve openly spoken about it before.” Bessent said concerns about discrimination may have influenced the career path he chose within finance. “A great thing about money management is there’s a scorecard,” he said. “Maybe in sales, maybe in trading, maybe in relationship management, there’s a lot of subjectivity.” Bessent’s own department has faced criticism over its handling of workplace discrimination. In June 2025, House Democrats urged him to reverse a Treasury proposal to remove sexual orientation and gender identity as explicitly listed grounds for sex discrimination complaints on its Equal Employment Opportunity forms. The lawmakers warned that the changes could confuse employees about their rights and discourage reporting. Related: Ultra-rich Scott Bessent, who owned a pink mansion, says he’s a ‘soybean farmer’ & the internet mocks him “It’s deeply troubling to see someone who has benefited from civil rights protections turn around and try to strip them from others,” Rep. Ritchie Torres, a gay New York Democrat, told The Advocate at the time. Treasury did not respond to a request for comment for that report. Allen asked about comments Bessent made during his Senate confirmation hearing, when Bessent insisted Trump selected him “not because of my sexual preference, not because Treasury secretaries with green eyes do better,” but because he was the best candidate for the job. Bessent stood by that assessment. “I think that’s one of the reasons we have such a great team,” Bessent said. Bessent was confirmed last year, days into Trump’s second term. His appointment made him the first openly gay Cabinet member confirmed by the Senate under a Republican president. It also put him fifth in the order of succession, ahead of former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, who was 14th in line and the highest-ranking out official in former President Joe Biden’s administration. Watch the Axios interview below. - YouTube www.youtube.com

For Democrats hoping to make Republican attacks disappear by adopting their own anti-transgender messaging, Kelley Robinson believes that they are giving up too much for a political benefit that may never arrive. “My honest answer is you’re doing too much and getting too little,” the Human Rights Campaign president told The Advocate during a roundtable breakfast conversation with reporters Monday at the organization’s headquarters in Washington, D.C. “You don’t have to sacrifice any member of our community to win in these races, to have a message that resonates with voters.” The dispute centers on how Democrats should answer Republican campaign ads portraying support for transgender people, particularly their participation in school sports and access to gender-affirming care, as evidence that candidates are out of step with voters. Some Democrats have responded by emphasizing their own support for restrictions. Robinson argues that doing so gives LGBTQ+ voters less reason to support them without ending the Republican attacks. Related: Gretchen Whitmer, ‘a Midwest lesbian’s mom,’ has a message for Democrats waffling on LGBTQ+ rights With roughly a month until the midterm elections, Robinson laid out a strategy that places LGBTQ+ voters at the center of competitive races and challenges Democrats to recognize the electoral cost of alienating them. HRC, she said, has made a $15 million investment, its largest for a midterm election, and is concentrating its resources on candidates who will defend the community. That support comes with conditions. “We are not the Democratic Party. We do not endorse every Democrat,” Robinson said. “We endorse folks who are with us on the issues and where we think that there’s a margin that we can make a difference and win.” Her warning arrives amid a debate over how Democrats should respond to Republican campaigns targeting transgender people. For Robinson, the question is also whether candidates understand who they are asking to put them in office, including voters whose concerns about paying the bills are inseparable from their ability to keep a job, protect their families, and live without discrimination. Related: Gretchen Whitmer to Democrats questioning their support for trans rights: ‘I’ve never wavered’ Ohio illustrates the choices HRC is making. Robinson said the organization is investing in Sherrod Brown’s Senate campaign while declining to support Democratic gubernatorial candidate Amy Acton or U.S. Rep. Marcy Kaptur at this time. Kaptur has used a campaign ad to highlight her vote with Republicans against what she calls “transgender ideology” in schools and to oppose transgender girls’ participation in girls’ sports. Acton has also faced criticism from LGBTQ+ advocates over her positions on transgender issues. Robinson drew distinctions among the three, praising Brown’s response to anti-trans attacks, describing Acton as a physician with a supportive history who had become tangled in her messaging, and criticizing Kaptur on both policy and rhetoric. Pressed on whether HRC should more forcefully denounce Democrats adopting anti-trans positions, Robinson pointed to her public statements that candidates cannot be anti-trans and pro-equality. Then she made clear how much more attention she intended to give Kaptur. “I’m not wasting my time,” Robinson said of the Ohio congresswoman. “So we’re spending our energy and resources on the champions that we think can be the difference makers,” she added. The immediate danger for candidates adopting anti-trans messages, she argued, is that they could weaken the coalition they need in a close election. A voter treated as expendable in a campaign ad may be harder to persuade to turn out. Robinson said some candidates have explained their decisions to HRC by saying they wanted the attacks against them to stop. “The ads are not going to stop,” she said. “This is not a well-intentioned or good-faith political debate that they’re trying to engage with you on. This is a scare tactic because they don’t have answers to the concerns of voters.” Related: These 8 Democrats voted for the Republican national ‘Don’t Say Trans’ bill passed by the House https://www.advocate.com/politics/national/8-democrats-abandon-trans-kidsHRC’s advice is to answer the attack, state the candidate’s values, and move to the issues constituents want addressed. Robinson described that approach as a correction to the Democratic response in 2024, when she said Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign’s reluctance to engage allowed heavily financed attacks to go unanswered. “However, when your opposition is pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into a lie, you have to address it,” Robinson said. “That to me was the core failure of 2024: the lack of direct response.” She sees improvement this cycle, describing Democrats as more willing to affirm transgender people’s humanity and confront attacks head on. But the remaining defections carry consequences for people already watching governments debate their access to ordinary public life. New findings released Tuesday by the HRC Foundation help explain that urgency. Among registered LGBTQ+ voters responding to its 2026 Annual LGBTQ+ Community Survey, 87 percent said they definitely planned to vote in the midterms, and another 7.5 percent said they probably would. Nearly three-quarters of respondents (73.7 percent) selected civil rights and equal protections as one of their top three voting priorities. That category encompassed protections for LGBTQ+ people, people of color, women, people of faith, and others. Economic stability, inflation, and the cost of living followed at 35.9 percent, ahead of government accountability and corruption at 32.5 percent, the foundation said. More than half of respondents said they were struggling or just getting by financially, and 47.2 percent said they were worse off than two years earlier. Robinson argues that the economic and civil rights findings belong in the same conversation. “If I can be fired from my job for being gay, that’s impacting affordability, that’s impacting economics,” she said. “If your kid is gay, it has generational impact on your family.” The survey also recorded widespread concern about the durability of existing protections. Ninety-two percent of respondents worried the U.S. Supreme Court could undermine federal workplace discrimination protections, and 85 percent expressed concern about marriage equality, according to HRC. Robinson said those fears inform the agenda beyond Election Day. She called for stronger state nondiscrimination laws and passage of the Equality Act, alongside military nondiscrimination protections, HIV funding, and permanent support for specialized LGBTQ+ youth crisis services through 988. “We have to figure out a way to make our rights more durable than they currently are,” she said. Robinson also directed some of her scrutiny inward. Building support for transgender people, she said, requires sustained conversations with people who have questions and a willingness to explain lives that political advertising often reduces to a threat. “If I’m honest, there was a point in the movement where we said, ‘It’s not our job to educate you.’ That turned out to not be the case,” she said. “The storytelling, the connecting with people, the working with folks through their questions that feel hard to ask, that’s actually part of movement building.” For now, Robinson is looking to November for evidence that defending LGBTQ+ people can help candidates win. She wants the results to shape how the next Congress governs and how the next field of presidential candidates approaches the community. “I hope that the headline coming out of November 4th is that equality voters won and anti-trans ads lost,” she said.

Ohio Democratic gubernatorial candidate Amy Acton and U.S. Rep. Marcy Kaptur are facing backlash from LGBTQ+ advocates who say their campaign messaging comes at transgender people’s expense. The criticism centers on Kaptur’s recent campaign ads and Acton’s comments opposing transgender girls’ participation in girls’ sports. Both have faced scrutiny from LGBTQ+ advocacy group Equality Ohio, which gave Kaptur a D and lowered Acton’s grade from an A to a B. The longest-serving woman in congressional history, Kaptur is being criticized by LGBTQ+ advocates for an ad touting her vote for the Stopping Indoctrination and Protecting Kids Act, also known as H.R. 2616. Related: Ohio Democratic Party is censoring criticism of anti-trans ads: insiders “I voted with Republicans to keep transgender ideology out of our schools because parents know what’s best for their kids, and boys should not play in girls’ sports,” Kaptur says in the ad. As reported byThe Advocate, the bill, dubbed “Don’t Say Trans” by LGBTQ+ advocates, would require schools to out transgender students in certain circumstances and threaten federal funding for schools that “teach or advance concepts related to gender ideology.” Kaptur and seven other Democrats joined Republicans to pass the bill in the House in May. It would also need Senate approval and the president’s signature to become law. According to The Buckeye Flame, Kaptur has a second ad touting her record of breaking ranks with Democrats, including saying “no to teaching gender ideology in schools.” The ads have also fueled a dispute within the Ohio Democratic Party. Party insiders accused its leadership of removing posts from the party’s Pride Caucus social media accounts that criticized Kaptur’s anti-trans messaging. Equality Ohio gave Kaptur a D, saying that “transgender Ohioans should not be used as political talking points,” while her opponent, former Republican state legislator Derek Merrin, whom Kaptur narrowly defeated in 2024, received an F. “Ohioans are worried about rising costs, making rent, having food on their table, seeking medical care, and that’s where real leadership should be focused. Real leadership means refusing this culture war bait, not reaching for it,” Equality Ohio said in a statement. Actoninitially received an A on Equality Ohio’s scorecard. The organization placed her grade under review after she made anti-trans comments following the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling upholding state bans on transgender girls and women competing in girls’ and women’s school sports. It subsequently assigned her a B. “I do not support boys playing in girls’ sports. This is already settled law in Ohio, and as governor I will enforce and uphold the law,” Acton told The Toledo Blade. “As a doctor, public servant, and a mom, I will always stand up for fairness and protect kids’ health and safety.” A B indicates an “insufficient record but supportive public statements,” Equality Ohio says on its website. Related: 'Transgender biological men': Sherrod Brown’s Ohio ad signals the danger of Dems hesitating on trans rights “The Acton campaign has updated their website to include LGBTQ anti-discrimination to their campaign platform. We have confirmed the campaign has met with LGBTQ leaders and parents of transgender children,” the organization said. “We have not been able to confirm meaningful engagement directly with transgender communities.” Equality Ohio also said members of Acton’s campaign had engaged with the organization, but a requested meeting with Acton herself had not taken place. Acton is running against Republican candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, whoreceived an F fromEquality Ohio. Meanwhile, former Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown, who lost his seat in 2024 and is running for Senate, is pushing back on anti-trans ads attacking him in his race against Republican Sen. Jon Husted. “Here they go again. Those same attacks against Sherrod Brown. With everything going on, that’s what they’re talking about. In Ohio, it’s against the law to perform transgender surgeries on kids. That’s right. It’s illegal,” one of Brown’s ads says in response to an ad claiming Brown “supports sex change surgery for kids, permanent surgical decisions with devastating consequences.” Them also reports that a Republican super PAC’s ad misleadingly links a Texas woman’s transition to Brown and policies affecting Ohio children, even though she was an adult when she transitioned and did not live in Ohio. Equality Ohio has given Brown an A and Husted an F. “For years it was gay marriage, and that was the boogeyman that everybody was trying to use,” Equality Toledoexecutive directorBrent Rabie told the Ohio Capital Journal. “Now, they’ve targeted trans people and used them, and are doing false campaign ads. … Anytime people use any community for political points or to be a political punching bag, I think it’s dangerous.”

Transgender women detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement say staff members abused them at a Louisiana processing center. “Everywhere they call us men, f***ots, very offensive words,” Camila Toro de Paula told Verite News. The Louisiana outlet spoke to three trans women who had been housed for periods ranging from three months to a year at the Central Louisiana ICE Processing Center in Jena. Their accounts highlight the overlapping hardships LGBTQ+ immigrants face under Trump administration policies, including its push for mass deportations and its policy of housing trans women in facilities designated for men. The women are now held in solitary confinement for what authorities describe as their protection, according to Verite News. But the women said they had endured months of mistreatment by staff. An incident report from June describes guards conducting a full pat-down of one of the women, Estephany Rivas. Rivas alleged that a guard lifted her shirt in front of several men as she shouted, “Don’t touch me.” The report consistently uses male pronouns to describe Rivas. She told Verite News a female sergeant searched under her shirt but never made clear what guards were looking for. “I told her, ‘No, no, don’t touch me. Don’t touch me because I don’t want you to lift up my shirt,’” Rivas said. The report states that guards ultimately took Rivas to the ground during the search. Her account is among several allegations of mistreatment at the facility that raise questions about compliance with ICE’s National Detention Standards. “We’ve had a number of clients who have been beaten and permanently disabled by takedowns, so we routinely see that they’re not actually following the use of force guidelines; that they’re using an indiscriminate amount of force when they’re taking people down,” said Sarah Decker, an attorney at the Robert & Ethel Kennedy Human Rights Center. The allegations in Louisiana follow a series of alleged abuses at ICE facilities across the country. A federal judge inApril ordered the release of Karla Saenz, a trans woman who said Arizona ICE officials wrongly denied her proper medical care while forcing her to stay in a men’s facility. In Minnesota, Alice Valentine, a queer trans woman and U.S. citizen, said in January that ICE officials pepper-sprayed, handcuffed, and jailed her and her girlfriend for showing up to protest. Concerns about the treatment of transgender immigrants in ICE custody extend to Trump’s first term. Johana Medina Leon, a trans asylum seeker from El Salvador who fled to the U.S. border, died in a Texas hospital in 2019, four days after ICE released her on parole following six weeks in custody.