Graham consistently denied being gay until the end of his life. When comedian Chelsea Handler made insinuations about his sexuality online in 2018, the Senator responded to the allegations, saying, “To the extent that it matters, I’m not gay.”
However, while Rose’s recent post following Graham’s death is one of the most direct instances of a queer person alleging that Graham had hired them for sex work, it isn’t the first. In 2020, porn performer Sean Harding posted online, implying that an unnamed Republican senator had hired multiple gay sex workers, including him. People connected the story to Graham based on the nickname “Lady G,” a codename sex workers in D.C. allegedly used to refer to the South Carolina legislator. The nickname followed Graham for what would turn out to be the final years of his life.
As recently as 2025, right-wing influencer and Trump ally Laura Loomer said that Graham was gay while testifying under oath for a deposition. “Several of President Trump’s staff have told me in confidence that Lindsey Graham is gay,” Loomer said during the deposition, which she later defended online, saying she did not want to perjure herself.
I’m torn. On the one hand it’s horrible thinking of an LGBT+ person being so filled with self hatred that they have to live a lie. Speaking anecdotally, it can lead to these men hurting men they have sex with cos that man knows his “dirty secret” and the self loathing spills out onto them. But at the same time Graham was filled with hate and caused a lot of pain. So I’m torn.
Graham did whatever was necessary to gain more power and hold onto it, voted for imperialist wars that killed many thousands and made the USA weaker as a nation and helped perpetuate and create needless suffering. And in the end he collaborated and joined fascism. People like that love power above anything else. They love nothing else, believe in nothing else. It’s a filter, only the worst or the least human make it to the top. It doesn’t matter what they feel inside, certainly they don’t care. No empathy, no pity, no sense of aesthetics, no pride. Only power. Graham was the perfect example of this.
And he won. He never faced consequences, prosecution or defeat for the consequences of his actions and died of natural causes at the peak of his power. Pissing on his grave is the least we can do.
Save your pity for the victims of the policies he supported. Like the people dying or being mutilated in Iran right now.
He directed his self-hate to the world and caused immeasurable damage. Any empathy he’d otherwise get from me is negated.
If it had just lived and died in the closet, your feelings here would make sense. The story would be heart breaking.
It was the enemy. It wanted to exploit the victims of its career. Like an ss officer with a fetish for Jewish men.
No mercy, no decorum. It was the enemy, it is dead, and that’s a good thing. If shame is really that powerful, fucking use it.