Jesse James Rose Reminds Us What’s Really in Lindsey Graham’s Closet

After the news of the passing of South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham, Jesse James Rose responded with a post that reminds us of the life that Graham wanted to keep behind closed closet doors. 

The award-winning author, actor, & labor leader’s post has now attracted well over 200,000 likes and tells the story of how the recently deceased Senator violated Rose while preaching anti-LGBTQIA+ hate.

“Just woke up to find out Lindsey Graham is dead?? Lol??? Most of you know him as the homophobic senator from South Carolina but to me he will always be the man who paid a twinky pre-transition college student a fat stack of cash to do unspeakable things to him in a hotel room while he wore red lingerie,” wrote Rose on Instagram. 

“It is a canon trans event to have far right freaks bankrolling you & then turning around and voting against you. People love to judge us for it but I never see them opening their wallets!!! Shoutout to sex workers everywhere forced to humanize their enemies just to make rent,” the author continued in the post. 

Senator Graham was infamous for the way he attacked LGBTQIA+ people both in comments and in legislation, while simultaneously facing allegations of hiring male sex workers. Graham voted against marriage equality, advocated against civil rights protections for LGBTQIA+ people, and fought for trans people to be more isolated and less protected. 

This reference to Graham’s closeted sexuality by Rose is not nearly the first. In 2020, Sean Harding, a sex worker and content creator, posted on Twitter, “There is a homophobic republican senator who is no better than Trump who keeps passing legislation that is damaging to the lgbt and minority communities. Every sex worker I know has been hired by this man. Wondering if enough of us spoke out if that could get him out of office?”

He followed up the initial post by revealing that the Senator he was referring to was Graham. Graham has been outed on multiple occasions for cross-dressing, seeking sexual encounters with other men, and paying for encounters with other men. 

Rose ended her post with a direct address to Graham. 

“Lindsey, rest in hell for what you did to our community. I will continue to love queer and trans people harder than you ever hated us. You loved every second of our time together and now everyone knows,” wrote Rose. 

Instead of ending this coverage on a note about how Graham hated queer people, it is a better use of our time to celebrate the queer people who survived Graham’s hate. Jesse James Rose’s memoir, “sorry I keep crying during sex,” is a must-read. The book follows the heartbreaking, beautiful, and sobering story of Rose’s journey with identity, recovery, grief, survivorship, and transness. The memoir is available for preorder now.

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