Were any of our previous presidents possibly gay

Does the evidence presented here suggest the possibility of the existence of gay U.S. presidents? Let's find out if the rumors are true. In a recent interview, you said that "statistically it's almost certain" that America has had gay presidents, but when pressed for names, you demurred, saying, "My gaydar doesn't even work that. Throughout history, there have been rumors and speculations about several American presidents possibly being gay.

From Abraham Lincoln to James Buchanan, the issue of sexuality and presidential leadership is a topic of much debate and discussion. The presidents weren't the only ones to have queer stories and histories. So did the First Ladies. There's perhaps no more famous example of queer history in the White House than Eleanor Roosevelt. More than anything else, this impulse explains why Americans have transformed James Buchanan into our first gay president.

Certainly, the quest for a usable queer past has yielded much good.

Sign In Create your free profile. Washington society began to take notice, too. A Brief History of Presidential Memoirs. I think of Frank Kameny. He is clearly prepared to let the political chips fall as they may. Stream on. Yet the specifics of this case actually obscure a more interesting, and perhaps more significant, historical truth: an intimate male friendship between bachelor Democrats shaped the course of the party, and by extension, the nation.

What I know is that, absorbing the news, I was uncharacteristically at a loss for words for a while, didn't know what to write, and, like many Dish readers, there are tears in my eyes. Skip to Content. Schools brace for wave of parents seeking opt-outs after Supreme Court ruling. He was witty and enjoyed tippling, especially glasses of fine Madeira, with fellow congressmen.

Buchanan and King shared one other essential quality in addition to their political identification. King, for his part, was first elected to the U. Certainly, the quest for a usable queer past has yielded much good. The unique and extremely popular [citation needed] authority on pop culture since Each of these two middle-aged bachelor Democrats, Buchanan and King, had what the other lacked.

As a young man, Buchanan was engaged to Anne Coleman , the year-old daughter of an iron magnate, but she died before the two tied the knot. Not so fast, say historians of gender and sexuality.

Has the united states ever had a gay president

NBC News Logo. So the speculation on the 10 presidents listed until now has been anywhere from syllogistic at best to flat-out jokes at worst. As the King family tradition has it, he passionately kissed the hand of the czarina, a risky move that could have landed him in serious jeopardy. They came from different parts of the country: Buchanan was a lifelong Pennsylvanian, and King was a North Carolina transplant who helped found the city of Selma, Alabama.

But his strongest emotional attachments were to men, and principally, to Lem. Certainly, they cherished their friendship with one another, as did members of their immediate families.

The Year History of Speculating About President James Buchanan's Bachelorhood

If any presumably recognized gay U. Categories Random About. Yes, there was politics in a lot of it. I think of all those in the plague years shut out of hospital rooms, thrown out of apartments, written out of wills, treated like human garbage because they loved another human being. A Note to our Readers Smithsonian magazine participates in affiliate link advertising programs.