Trump Taps Right-Wing Lesbian Tammy Bruce for State Dept.
Tammy Bruce, who will serve as State Deptartment spokesperson, is a frequent critic of the LGBTQ community.
President-elect Donald Trump has nominated Tammy Bruce, a right-wing lesbian, as the next spokesperson for the U.S. Department of State.
In a Truth Social post, Trump described Bruce, a former Fox News contributor, as a “highly-respected political analyst” who “after being a liberal activist in the 1990s, saw the lies and fraud of the Radical Left, and quickly became one of the strongest Conservative voices on Radio and Television.”
In her new role, Bruce will communicate the Trump administration’s foreign policy objectives, both within the country and abroad. The position does not require Senate confirmation.
Bruce will serve under Republican Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, whom Trump nominated to be Secretary of State.
She has been fiercely critical of Rubio in the past, mocking him as incompetent and irrelevant in various social media posts, comments that could lead to an awkward personal relationship between them.
In a statement, Bruce said it is “a pleasure to serve in President Trump’s administration” and that she is “thrilled to work with Senator Rubio.”
As reported by the LGBTQ magazine them, Bruce initially placed herself on the left side of the political spectrum, serving as the head of the Los Angeles chapter of the National Organization for Women from 1990 to 1996. She became the first openly gay woman in the United States to host a mainstream talk radio show, The Tammy Bruce Show.
However, Bruce was radicalized by the acquittal of former football player O.J. Simpson for the murders of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend, Ron Goldman.
As reported by The New York Times at the time, Bruce was accused of racial insensitivity for making comments some perceived as downplaying the role that race and racism played in how the media covered the Simpson trial.
She was criticized for refusing to appear on a Philadelphia talk show, with station officials accusing her of having said she did not want to “argue with a bunch of Black women” about the Simpson case. She was promptly denounced by NOW and fired from her radio job.
Subsequently, Bruce pivoted to conservative politics, appearing on news outlets with a more right-wing viewpoint.
She penned a book in 2002, The New Thought Police, criticizing the political Left for its alleged attacks on freedom of speech and its obsession with political correctness. More recently, Bruce has appeared on Fox News, using her platform to promote right-wing views and rail against common-sense liberal ideals.
Bruce has occasionally embraced the right-wing framing of LGBTQ-related issues. For example, Bruce argued, during a 2023 appearance on Sean Hannity’s Fox show, that corporate commercials that recognize Pride “really do damage to the gay and lesbian community.”
She criticized a marketing campaign for The North Face, an outdoor gear company, for using a drag queen to promote the brand. She criticized the marketing of Pride-themed products or partnerships with transgender influencers, citing the backlash that companies like Bud Light and Target have received for appearing to be pushing an “agenda.”
“I think most of the audience knows I’m a gay woman,” Bruce said. “[I]t’s not about homophobia, it’s about everything being politicized. Having messages, political messages of any type, being pushed onto us. None of us want that, no matter what your sexual orientation or your race or your background [is].”
Bruce has been critical of transgender identity and pronoun usage, which she has called a form of political correctness. Last year, she railed against paperwork that asks people to enter their pronouns, calling it a form of “forced speech.”
She has also promoted coverage of so-called “de-transitioners,” and penned a 2024 article alleging that a proposed bill making Maine a “sanctuary” state for transgender people seeking gender-affirming care would have “incentivized and protected” people engaging in the trafficking of minors.
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