In a Viral Post, Transgender Author Alleges Anti-LGBTQ+ Senator Lindsey Graham Hired Her for Sex Work

After longtime U.S. Republican Senator Lindsey Graham died on Saturday night, reportedly from aortic dissection, the reaction from the LGBTQ+ community was immediate.

via: LGBTQ Nation

Transgender author Jesse James Rose wrote in an Instagram post published Sunday that recently deceased homophobic Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) regularly paid her “a fat stack of cash” when she was a “twinky pre-transition college student” to do “unspeakable things to him in a hotel room while he wore red lingerie.” She is the second self-identified sex worker to say that they slept with Graham during his time as a U.S. senator.

In Rose’s post, entitled “Eulogy for a Horny Hypocrite,” she wrote, “Just woke up to find out, Lindsey Graham is dead?? lol??? … It is a canon trans event to have far right freaks bankrolling you and then turning around and voting against you…. Shout out to s*x workers everywhere, forced to humanize their enemies just to make rent.”

“It is an absolute mindf**k to me that one of the reasons I have any semblance of financial security (& a lack of student loans) is because of this man. At the time, I had no idea who he was, and I only figured it out because another group of twinks leaked Lady G to the media. Some queers tried to grandstand critique this, saying we shouldn’t out people. I believe bigots with power deserve no peace or privacy, especially when they hold public office,” she continued.

She then concluded her eulogy to the “now deceased sissy senator from South Carolina” by writing, “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.”

LGBTQ Nation contacted Rose for comment and will update this story if she responds.

Gay adult video performer Sean Harding

Graham consistently denied being gay despite nonstop rumors and residents of Washington D.C. calling his homosexuality “an open secret.” Interestingly, Rose isn’t the first queer sex worker to claim to have had sex with Graham.

On June 4, 2020, Sean Harding, a gay adult video performer, wrote 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?”

In follow-up tweets, Harding wrote, “I cannot do this alone. If you’d be willing to stand with me against LG please let me know,” and, “So far I have two individuals who would be willing to go public and support my claims. Anyone else?” Web commenters assumed Harding’s reference to “LG” referred to Lindsey Graham.

Graham became renowned among LGBTQ+ Americans for his consistently anti-LGBTQ+ policy stances.

In March 2021, Graham vowed to “talk until I fell over” to prevent the passage of the Equality Act, legislation that would enshrine LGBTQ+ anti-discrimination measures into federal law. He claimed the law would be “destroying the difference between men and women.”

He supported a federal constitutional amendment to ban marriage equality, opposed the Respect for Marriage Act, same-sex couples’ right to adopt, trans participation in school sports, voted against a bill to allow same-sex couples in D.C. to adopt, compared marriage equality to polygamy, and has repeatedly voted in support of anti-LGBTQ+ Republican presidential appointees.

Graham earned a zero on the Human Rights Campaign’s latest Congressional Scorecard because of his staunch opposition to LGBTQ+ equality and has consistently earned low scores from the LGBTQ+ organization.