Happy Saturday,
📢 President-elect Donald Trump has nominated Scott Bessent, a billionaire investment manager who is gay, as secretary of the Treasury. Bessent, if confirmed by the U.S. Senate, would be the first out member of the LGBTQ+ community to be Treasury secretary and one of only a few ever to hold a Cabinet or Cabinet-level position. Previous out Cabinet members include Richard Grenell and Pete Buttigieg. Buttigieg, secretary of Transportation in the Biden administration, was the first out Senate-confirmed Cabinet official.
🌴 Bessent lives in South Carolina with his husband, John Freeman, a former prosecuting attorney in New York City. They have two children.
👏 As our senior politics editor Trudy Ring points out, just because Trump is nominating a gay man to his cabinet doesn't mean his administration will be LGBTQ-friendly. Many of his selections have negative or mixed records when it comes to LGBTQ+ rights. Several also have connections to Project 2025, which would erode protections for LGBTQ+ people.
Onward and upward,
Alex Cooper
Editor-in-chief, Advocate.com
P.S. Want to support The Advocate's journalism? Find out how you can contribute here.
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Every week The Advocate has a bit of LGBTQ+ trivia in our newsletter. Today, you'll get the answer.
This week's question: What year did same-sex marriages become legal in the U.S.?
This week's answer: 2015. Full marriage equality became the law of the land on June 26, 2015, after the Supreme Court decision in Obergefell v. Hodges. In the landmark 5-4 ruling, same-sex married couples in the U.S. were granted equal recognition under the law.
✨ Email us the right answer and you might get a shoutout in a future email newsletter. ✨
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