Trump’s Choice for Treasury Secretary: A Huge Win for LGBTQ+

In what has been the greatest political achievement for the LGBTQ+ movement, President-elect Donald Trump last week named hedge fund executive and former partner at Soros Fund Management Scott Bessent to be the United States’ next Secretary of the Treasury. Bessent, who is in a civil marriage to a gay man with whom he is raising two children, had been a key proponent of philanthropist George Soros’ LGBTQ+ agenda. Charles Moran, president of Log Cabin Republicans (LCR)—the country’s leading conservative LGBT organization, which claims more than 10,000 members nationwide—hailed Bessent’s nomination as “a reminder of President Trump’s love and respect for LGBT Americans.”

Bessent’s nomination perhaps was a shock to many conservative Catholics and non-Catholics alike, just as the choice of now former House Representative Matt Gaetz as Attorney General was—before he withdrew his bid after he was mired by a series of allegations of sexual misconduct, including sex with a minor at a 2017 party. Bessent’s would-be appointment dispels liberal media and Democratic politicians who had made apocalyptic pronouncements about the supposed fascist dystopia that awaits the LGBTQ+ community under a second Trump administration. Yet, for those who believed that Donald Trump was anti-LGBTQ+ or woke from ensuring their rightful place in society, think again. For those who believed that Donald Trump was anti-LGBTQ+ or woke from ensuring their rightful place in society, think again.Tweet This

In April 2024, the LCR had a fundraiser at Trump’s Florida home at Mar-a-Lago. The keynote speaker was none other than Melania Trump. The event raised over $1 million. This launched the LCR “Road to Victory” appeal to voters in swing states. In July, she hosted a second LCR fundraiser in New York at Trump Tower, which raised a total of $1.4 million. And just last Friday, at The Admiral restaurant and bar in Washington, D.C., the LCR held a victory ceremony for the newly elected president. Former LCR Vice President Alphonso Way Jr. hailed Trump’s electoral victory over Democrat Kamala Harris, saying he fully believes the LGBTQ+ community will fare well under the incoming Trump administration:

I like to think that we’re safer now when Trump is in office. To anybody that’s worried, our rights are not getting rolled back. We’re not being put in chains or stockaded in public. We’re going to be loved. And I love everybody. So, just keep the love going. Don’t lose hope.

For years, a key goal of the LCR and its allies had been the abrogation of the Republican Party’s anti-gay-marriage position from its official platform. Trump, like outgoing President Joe Biden, notwithstanding his explicit endorsement of “traditional marriage and family, based on marriage between one man and one woman,” defended the legitimacy of same-sex marriage. Indeed, his 2020 campaign included “Trump Pride,” which targeted LGBTQ+ supporters. 

Yes, Trump did publicly classify gender-affirming care as “chemical, physical, and emotional mutilation” of youth and vowed to end all “programs that promote the concept of sex and gender transition at any age.” Yet such “traditional” language that had attracted Americans in 2016 and 2020 altogether disappeared in the 2024 campaign—there was no endorsement whatsoever of “traditional marriage” nor a call to overturn the Supreme Court’s Obergefell v. Hodges 5-4 ruling that recognized same-sex marriages in 2015. Trump essentially communicated to his fellow Republican candidates that they were officially free to adopt their own position on the issue. 

In addition, notwithstanding Trump’s public statements that transgender women—who are biologically male—will not use women’s bathrooms, there was never a call in the official Republican platform to eliminate transgenderism, let alone repealing so-called anti-discrimination protections for transgender individuals or restrictions on children receiving medical transition treatments that had been set in place by the Biden administration.

The same can be said of the GOP’s pro in vitro fertilization (IVF) position, for which Trump had self-proclaimed himself to be the “Father of IVF.” Aside from the fact that man begins to play “God” by taking it upon himself to create life through this process, a major problem is that any practice of assisted reproductive technology vis-à-vis IVF results in multiple births when there is a transfer of more than one embryo during the procedure. The physician in this case determines which of these embryos have the greatest potential to develop in the woman’s uterus, which leaves him or her to decipher if the remaining ones are to be either frozen or discarded in a bin—Elon Musk has a total of 12 children, 8 from IVF from three different women.

As stipulated by the document of the then Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith Donum Vitae (1987), IVF is considered sinful partly because it dissociates the sexual act from the procreative act between husband and wife. For Catholics, techniques that entail the dissociation of husband and wife, by the intrusion of a person other than the couple (donation of sperm or ovum, surrogate uterus), are held to be immoral. Such methods (heterologous artificial insemination and fertilization) infringe on the child’s right to be born of a father and mother known to him and bound to each other by marriage.

The newly-appointed Secretary of the Treasury naturally is not to oversee policy on same-sex marriages or abortion. That is the job of the Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert Kennedy Jr., who is a public supporter of both. All things being equal, Bessent, who is to hold the purse in Washington for the foreseeable future, will certainly have a say for those who oppose the LGBTQ+ agenda as human rights.

[Photo: Scott Bessent (Credit: Dominic Gwinn / Middle East Images / Middle East Images via AFP)]