Has any US president been gay? The privacy of men in the White House still raises questions today
American presidential history is full of great posturing. Men in dark suits, marble busts, serious-eyed portraits, and biographies in which privacy is often smoothed into a form that suits the nation. The president is supposed to be a symbol. The father of the republic. A husband. A leader. A man whose life appears uncluttered, dignified and, if possible, heterosexual. But history is not so clear-cut. And certainly not human lives.
When people talk today about whether the United States has ever had a gay president, two names come up most often: James Buchanan and Abraham Lincoln. For the former, the debate is strongest because Buchanan remains the only U.S. president who never married, and his closest life partner was Senator and later Vice President William Rufus King. For the latter, the story is more complex and much more contentious - Lincoln had deep male friendships, shared a bed with Joshua Speed, and in recent years, interpretations that he may have been queer or bisexual have resurfaced. But the same is true for both: we are talking about the 19th century, a time that did not know the language of identity today. People did not use the word 'gay' in its current sense then. And what we read today as romantic or erotic intimacy may have existed in different social frameworks then.
But that doesn't mean the question is useless. On the contrary. It shows how much queer lives have been pushed out of history - and how difficult it is to reclaim them in a world that has often failed to name them, suppressed them, or outright punished them.
James Buchanan: a president without a first lady and a man who was whispered about even then
James Buchanan was the 15th President of the United States, and held office from 1857 to 1861, just before the outbreak of the Civil War. He does not have the best reputation in American memory. He is often ranked as one of the weakest presidents because he could not prevent the country from falling apart over slavery. But besides his political failure, another question has long been attached to his name: was Buchanan the first gay president of the United States?
The reason is not just that he never married. A key figure in his private life was William Rufus DeVane King, an Alabama politician, senator, diplomat and later vice president in the Franklin Pierce administration. King was Buchanan's close friend and political ally; the two supported each other's careers and belonged to the same Washington world.
But their relationship, according to contemporary accounts, was striking even to contemporaries. Buchanan and King were so strongly associated with each other that their political environment commented on them with innuendo that cannot be read entirely innocently today. In a letter to the future First Lady Sarah Polk, for example, politician Aaron Venable Brown wrote of Buchanan and his "better half" - only it wasn't a woman, but King.
Buchanan and King lived together for a time in a Washington boarding house, moved in society together, and their closeness became part of the political gossip. Some contemporary ridicule used feminizing labels meant to imply that their relationship or demeanor was out of step with contemporary notions of masculinity. This is where the fine line between historical reading and contemporary projection begins.
On the one hand, it is clear that this was an extremely intimate relationship between two men. On the other hand, historian Thomas Balcerski, author of Bosom Friends, points out that there was a strong culture of intense male friendships in the 19th century that were not necessarily sexual. According to him, Buchanan and King's relationship was one of a type of close male friendship that could have had enormous personal and political significance at the time. But he also adds that some such friendships may have had an erotic dimension.
And it is in that indeterminacy that Buchanan remains so fascinating. He was not "out" in today's sense. He couldn't write a memoir about his gay identity because that language and social space didn't exist. Yet his life does not fit the classic story of an American president with his wife by his side. He didn't have a first lady. He didn't have a publicly known married life. And the most important emotional man of his adult life was another man.
Abraham Lincoln: a national icon, shared beds and a debate that makes America nervous
Even more sensitive is the case of Abraham Lincoln. Not because there aren't clues around him, but because Lincoln is not just a president. He's an American saint in a top hat. A man who led the country through the Civil War, associated himself with the end of slavery, and, after his assassination, transformed himself into a moral symbol for the nation. As soon as it is said that Lincoln may have loved the man, part of the public reacts as if someone is reaching for a monument.
The most common reference is to his relationship with Joshua Speed. Lincoln met him in Springfield in the 1930s. Speed owned a store and the two men formed a deep friendship that continued after Speed returned to Kentucky. Surviving letters show a strong emotional attachment. In one from 1842, Lincoln writes to Speed after his marriage that he feels jealous because he fears Speed will now forget him, adding that he will be very lonely without him.
This is language that would easily baffle today's reader. It is tender, vulnerable and very personal. But at the same time, it is impossible to forget that in the 19th century, men often expressed themselves more emotionally in letters than would fit today's ideas of masculinity. Moreover, sharing a bed between men was not automatically erotic. In an age of limited space, travel and shared lodgings, it was often a practical matter.
But it is Lincoln's case that has re-entered the public debate in recent years with the documentary Lover of Men: The Untold History of Abraham Lincoln, which claims that Lincoln had intimate relationships with men. The film works with letters, contemporary records, and historians' interpretations to ask whether Lincoln was a queer man living in an era that did not allow him to publicly name such an identity.
According to the scholars quoted in the documentary, Lincoln's relationship with Speed was not just a casual acquaintance. The film also mentions other men in Lincoln's life, such as Billy Green and David Derickson, and suggests that male intimacy may have been more important to Lincoln than traditional biographies have acknowledged.
What, in fact, would be wrong with that?
The most interesting thing about the whole debate is how nervously a section of society is reacting to it. As if the possibility that Buchanan or Lincoln might have loved men somehow diminishes their political significance. As if sexuality is an additional stain on the historical portrait. Except that with heterosexual presidents, their relationships, marriages, and love affairs are constantly scrutinized. For John F. Kennedy, mistresses are part of the legend. For Bill Clinton, sexuality became a political earthquake. For Thomas Jefferson, his relationship with the enslaved Sally Hemings became a crucial part of the debate about American history.
So why should male intimacy be taboo for Buchanan or Lincoln?
Perhaps because it still touches on an old idea: that the ultimate power should be "properly masculine." And that "properly masculine" means heterosexual. It's just that this is the cliché that queer history distorts the most. It shows that desire, tenderness, dependence, friendship, love and political power have always been intertwined. Even in the Senate. Even in military camps. Even in the White House.
Queer history is not a modern invention
Today, when someone says that queer issues are a "modern fad," just look in the archives. It's not because we automatically attribute homosexuality to every historical man with a close friend. But to see that human desire has never been as simple as ideologues want it to be.
Buchanan and King. Lincoln and Speed. Letters, shared rooms, shared beds, the pain of separation, political gossip and centuries of silence. All of these make for a history that is no less American simply because there may have been more male love in it than has long been acknowledged.
The United States may not yet have had an openly gay president. But it's quite possible that a queer man has sat in the White House. He just didn't have the language, the security, or the time to say it out loud.
