He was in town for his first Conservative Political Action Conference CPAC , an event that he took seriously enough to dress up for dark suit, American-flag tie but that he was also interested in for its anthropological weirdness. A few feet away, several conservative gay and bisexual journalists and activists reclined on couches. Among them was Charlie Nash, a tweed-wearing year-old British reporter for Breitbart who described himself to me as a pagan, an absurdist and a right-wing environmentalist.

At the bar, Holden and a fellow Suffolk student were joined by a heavyset man in a colorful checkered shirt. Before telling them his name and asking that I not use it , the man introduced himself by way of a toast: Before long, it became clear why he had joined the students in conversation: But even as the man flirted he confided that he was deeply closeted and, in fact, saw his same-sex attractions as a kind of affliction. For his part, Holden said he believed his sexual orientation was one of the least interesting things about him.

But perhaps above all else, Holden rejects what he considers a bedrock of contemporary liberalism: Holden considered the Gaylord a fitting name for a conference with many openly gay attendees, including Log Cabin Republicans a conservative L. Gregory T. Angelo, a year-old longtime communications specialist who until recently was the president of the Log Cabin Republicans, told me that he had never seen so many openly gay conservatives at CPAC.

Many L. And, perhaps counterintuitive, some attribute this in part to Trump himself. As flawed as Trump is, and despite some of his unfortunate policy moves on this front, he might actually represent a fulcrum point within the party on gay issues. Trump is the first sitting Republican president to publicly commend the organization. What a difference three years can make.

The reality, I would come to learn, is a bit more complicated than that. There have historically been few good times to be a gay conservative. Gay Republicans have spent the better part of several decades being excoriated from all sides, largely rejected by their party and alternately mocked and reviled by many in the L. When I asked Rob Smith — a year-old Iraq War veteran and former Democrat who is now a conservative — about the longtime narrative associated with gays in the G.

Gay conservatives have offered endless fodder for comedians. David Letterman took a shot during the Republican National Convention: When not mocking gay conservatives, comedians — as well as many in the L. But gay Republicans have also long been seen by many in the L. Gay Republicans have typically offered two reasons for remaining loyal to a party that offers little reciprocation.

The first is that while they wish the party were better on L. I knew I was conservative before I knew I was gay. But gay conservatives also speak of their party affiliation as a kind of public service. Many have insisted for decades that their presence in the G. In recent years, gay and lesbian conservatives have been especially eager to take partial credit for the legalization of same-sex marriage.

Listening to gay Republicans take credit for gay civil rights victories is a mind-bending exercise for many L. Though L.

Transgender Americans have borne the brunt of those efforts. Trump has tried to block transgender people from serving in the military and reversed several Obama-era policies that protected transgender Americans from discrimination in workplaces, schools and prisons. In addition to more symbolic gestures, like failing to recognize L. On the same day as the transgender military ban announcement, for example, the Trump administration landed two other blows against L.

As governor of Kansas, Brownback signed an executive order in prohibiting the state government from penalizing religious groups that deny services to married same-sex couples. The most obvious is the G. And yet, many L. Angelo, who said the Log Cabin Republicans had a spike in membership and social media followers in , believes that this greater G. Considering how much criticism L. The assimilationist-minded Log Cabin Republicans, the Trump critics like Sullivan, the deliberately trollish Yiannopoulos acolytes and the conservative-leaning college students coming of age in an era of greater social acceptance have seemingly little in common besides their sexual orientation — and their oft-stated distaste for identity politics.

I routinely heard conservative gays criticize other conservative gays as ineffective, boring or empty vessels. He did not, he told me, though he recently had gone on a Tinder date with a Trump appointee.

But Hattaway was friends with a gay former conservative — a year-old named Ryan Newcomb, who worked in the White House during the George W. Though he is out of the closet, he asked me not to use his name so he could speak freely about his personal life. His liberal boyfriend of about a year, whom C.

Though C. As we waited for C. I heard something similar from Tim Miller, a gay former communications staff member for Jeb Bush, who told me he was surprised by how quickly a community of mostly young, openly gay conservative men has formed in recent years in Washington. Conservative lesbians often have less luck finding community. Sarah Longwell told me that she personally knew only a handful of conservative lesbians, and that her spouse and all her close lesbian friends are Democrats.

When C. Awkward silence ensued. Before long, C. In late I visited Chadwick Moore, a year-old former liberal and writer for the national gay magazine Out who is now one of the most combative L. During a June segment about a Huffington Post piece calling for a boycott of Chick-fil-A for its past donations to groups opposing L.

This current iteration of Moore would likely come as a surprise to the old version, who voted for Hillary Clinton. Worse yet, the left is no fun anymore. Wintrich, who attended Bard College and could even now pass for a brooding student at the famously liberal school, smoked a cigarette near an open kitchen window. In April I traveled to northwest Oklahoma to meet Colton Buckley, a year-old gay cowboy in the midst of a Republican primary campaign for a seat in the Oklahoma House.

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