Scott Bessent just made history — and a lot of queers are raising their perfectly groomed brows. With his confirmation as Secretary of the Treasury, Bessent becomes the highest-ranking openly LGBTQ+ official in U.S. history. He’s a billionaire hedge fund tycoon, married to a former prosecutor, a father of two, and yes, he lives in a pink mansion. But don’t let the dreamy optics fool you — this is Trump’s guy.
Nominated by Donald Trump after fundraising his way into favor, Bessent was painted by the former president as the embodiment of the “American Dream.” And sure, from Yale to Wall Street to a net worth reportedly north of $1 billion, it tracks. He helped manage George Soros’ money before launching his own firm, Key Square Group — which stumbled for years before finally posting gains. Now, he’s giving it all up (or so he says) to take the reins of the U.S. economy.
Bessent’s appointment marks a first for an openly gay man in a Republican cabinet, and fifth in the presidential line of succession. But here’s the plot twist: the man who built his family through marriage and surrogacy is now serving an administration whose allies have smeared both. Trump’s previous term saw same-sex parents treated as legal strangers by the State Department. And one of his surrogates, Michael Knowles, declared surrogacy “evil” and called for life sentences — or worse — for those involved.
It’s a mind-bending contradiction. While Bessent’s pink-palaced, champagne-colored life suggests progress, his political alliances signal danger for the very rights that made that life possible. “If you had told me in 1984 when people were dying of AIDS that 30 years later I’d be legally married and have kids, I wouldn’t have believed you,” Bessent once said. Now, he’s propping up a regime that threatens to reverse that journey.
There’s no denying the symbolism here. Representation matters. A gay man in charge of America’s purse strings? That’s big. But it’s the kind of representation that comes wrapped in an American flag, bankrolled by hedge funds, and tied to a political movement that’s tried to erase queer families again and again. For LGBTQ+ people — especially those relying on the laws Bessent now stands near the top of — this appointment is less pride, more panic.
Scott Bessent may be living the dream. But whose dream is it when your success helps fund a nightmare for your own community?