On Wednesday, 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Mayor Pete Buttigieg appeared on “The Clay Cane Show” on SiriusXM.
During the segment, host Cane asked Buttigieg about the way in which his sexual orientation is perceived by LGBT media: “I’m sure you’ve heard this before in LGBT circles, that more masculine-presenting men have more access. How different would it be if you were quote-unquote, ‘more effeminate?'”
Buttigieg replied:
It’s tough for me to know because I just am what I am, and there’s going be a lot of that. That’s why I can’t even read the LGBT media anymore because it’s all “too gay,” “not gay enough,” “wrong kind of gay.” All I know is that life became a lot easier when I just started allowing myself to be myself. I’ll let other people write up whether I’m too this or too that.
Buttigieg received some backlash for his comment on social media, with some noting that two of the primary articles that allegedly dissected Buttigieg’s presentation as a gay man were from non-LGBT media outlets.
Zach Stafford, editor-in-chief of LGBT outlet The Advocate, tweeted:
Pete says LGBTQ media is to blame for the pieces dissecting whether he is “gay enough” or not. However, those two big pieces were in Slate and The New Public. Not LGBTQ media. Instead we have consistency published pieces critiquing that behavior and idea.
Twitter user Matthew Wing replied: “LGBTQ writers wrote the articles, LGBTQ outlets have written articles discussing whether or not Pete likes RuPaul’s Drag Race, which are just ‘he’s not gay enough’ articles and LGBTQ media in general has presented a clear anti-Buttigieg bias.”
User J.H. Jamshidi said the same: “Those two big pieces were, afaik, written by queer-identified people. And Slate’s Outward section is most definitely LGBT media.”
Sure enough, while New Republic isn’t an LGBT media outlet, Dale Peck, the writer of a New Republic op-ed that trashed Buttigieg, is indeed gay.
In the piece, Peck wrote in part:
All this makes Mary Pete different from every other left-leaning neoliberal in exactly zero ways. Because let’s face it. The only thing that distinguishes the mayor of South Bend from all those other well-educated reasonably intelligent white dudes who wanna be president is what he does with his d***.
The piece was later taken down, and New Republic apologized.
The other piece people seem to be citing (originally titled: “Is Pete Buttigieg just another white male candidate, or does his gayness count as diversity?” before being edited) was written by Christina Cauterucci for Slate. Cauterucci is “queer” and married to a woman.
Jacob Bacharach, also gay, published an article in The Outline about Buttigieg, titled: “Why Pete Buttigieg is bad for gays.” In the piece, Bacharach discusses with some disdain the “certain kind of gay guy” Buttigieg is.
User @mikeijames also shared an image of the front page of Out Magazine featuring a photo of Buttigieg with the caption: “Stonewall: Then, Now, Next. Is Pete Buttigieg what we really fought for?” The piece is part interview with Buttigieg, part examination of the way in which the LGBT community might view the candidate, who writer Harron Walker notes is “nobody’s radical.”
Despite the fact that LGBT writers are dissecting and evaluating Buttigieg’s “gayness,” which has, in turn, caused the candidate to grow tired of LGBT media, some are still critical:
Twitter user @dannybarefoot said of Buttigieg’s statement about LGBT media: “We all know the kind of gay who tries to signal they aren’t like other gays by bashing gay culture or our bars or open relationships or our media. I’m used to seeing this sh** from freshly out 20 somethings. It’s less cute when running for President.”
The Daily Wire reached out to Pete Buttigieg’s team for comment, but we have not received a reply as of publication.