Former Democratic congressman Barney Frank, the first member of the United States Congress to voluntarily reveal his homosexuality, has died at the age of 86.
You may not know his name, but Barney Frank will remain one of the leading figures in LGBT+ political history in the United States. In 1987, in the midst of the AIDS epidemic in an America still deeply hostile to gay people, he came out in the pages of the Boston Globe. “If you ask me directly the question: ‘Are you gay?’, the answer is yes. So what?”, he simply declares. A few years earlier, the homosexuality of Representative Gerry Studds had been revealed following a public scandal. Barney Frank, for his part, refuses shame. A pioneering public statement that opened the way for other LGBT+ elected officials.
Throughout his career, the Massachusetts legislator defended LGBT+ rights in the House of Representatives: combating discrimination, recognizing same-sex couples, the right of gays to serve in the military, support for funding the fight against HIV/AIDS, and reform of immigration laws that allowed exclusion on the basis of sexual orientation. In 1998, he helped found the Stonewall Democrats, the LGBT+ organization of the Democratic Party. Known for his biting humor and candor, he responded to accusations of an “radical gay agenda” by noting that this “agenda” consisted simply of being able to “marry, serve in the military and work”.
“Iconic champion”
In 2012, Barney Frank became the first member of the American Congress to marry a person of the same sex, tying the knot with his partner Jim Ready. In recent years, he drew criticism within the LGBT+ community for certain positions that ran counter to the times. While he had always fought discrimination against transgender people, the former Democratic official opposed some militant formulations around gender, and showed reservations about the place of trans women in women’s sports, illustrating the generational rifts that currently run through the LGBT+ movement.
On the announcement of his death, tributes poured in across the United States. Nancy Pelosi, the former Democratic Speaker of the House, praised him as an “iconic champion”, while several Democratic leaders paid homage to his pioneering role in advancing visibility for LGBT+ people in politics.
