The Normal Gay, the Rogue Pride Show, and the Cultural Coup at the Kennedy Center
“We exist in color, defiance, and joy.”
Photo by Delia Giandeini on Unsplash
Picture it: the Kennedy Center. Donald and Melania Trump showed up for one of their rare public date nights—opening night of Les Misérables.
Because of course the man obsessed with authoritarian nostalgia went out for a night of poverty, revolution, and regime collapse.
Then—because reality is rarely subtle—a crew of D.C.-based drag queens strolled in: Tara Hoot, Mari Con Carne, Ricky Rosé, and Vagenesis. The crowd? Absolutely erupted.
Trump and Melania got a mixed reception—some applause, some boos, and a few loyalists chanting “USA.” The queens? Standing ovation.
Melania looked… well, rich and polished in her sleek black dress, her expression exactly what you'd expect: somewhere between this was not my idea and don’t talk to me—while the self-described “campy and kind” queens smiled and waved like they owned the place.
Honestly, you couldn’t choreograph a better metaphor if you tried.
Trump Declares War on “Woke” Art (and Sends in a Gay Guy to Do It)
This wasn’t just any opening night at the Kennedy Center. It was a public clash between queerness, art, and political control. It was a protest.
Back in February, Trump fired the entire Kennedy Center board and declared himself chairman. In their place, he installed cabinet members and handpicked loyalists. Chief among them: Richard Grenell—former acting Director of National Intelligence, MAGA warrior, and now president of a national arts institution.
Because honestly, has Trump ever given one of his sycophants a job they were actually qualified for?
In Trump’s own words:
“THIS WILL STOP.”
“We are going to make the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C., GREAT AGAIN.”
“THE BEST IS YET TO COME!”
—Donald Trump on Truth Social, via Washington Classical Review
What he meant: ban drag, scrub anything deemed “woke,” and remove anyone “who does not share our Vision for a Golden Age in Arts and Culture.”
Sounds to me like a return to the actual Gilded Age—child labor, corporate monopolies—but this time with a healthy dose of 2025 fascism and zero subtlety.
When asked by reporters last week why he wanted to be chair, Trump said it was because the Kennedy Center didn’t need “woke.”
“Some of the shows were terrible. They were a disgrace.” When asked if he’d actually seen any of them? “I haven’t.”
—Donald Trump, as reported by People
So let’s recap: fire the board, install your cronies, call the art disgraceful, and declare yourself King of the Kennedy—all without watching a single damn show.
This censorship-by-vibe didn’t go unnoticed. Hamilton pulled its spring run. At least ten Les Misérables cast members reportedly opted out of the June 11 performance in protest of Trump’s attendance.
Grenell, in classic PR spin mode, waved off the boycott as:
“Fake news from CNN from the beginning—all anonymous sources.”
—Richard Grenell, via OperaWire
Because nothing says artistic integrity like channeling your inner press secretary while half your cast calls in sick.
Enter the “Normal Gay”: Grenell’s Queer Rebrand for the Right
Grenell wasn’t just hired to do press. He was sent to scrub the arts clean—of drag, disruption, and anything that dares to challenge power. He’s the kind of gay conservative who wants a cookie for being inoffensive. Who calls himself a trailblazer while carrying water for a regime banning the very people he claims to “respect.”
“I love drag queens,” Grenell said—as long as they’re adult, not sexually explicit, and not too over the top.
—Richard Grenell, Politico interview
So basically: not drag. Not political. Not queer in any way that matters.
He swears he supports First Amendment rights, would “go to the mat” for free speech—but also insists no one should boo before a performance.
“Any interruption is interrupting the play.”
—Richard Grenell, Politico
This was in response to the crowd booing Trump and J.D. Vance before Les Mis even started. But in Grenell’s version of civility, protest = impoliteness = cancel culture. And somehow conservatives “don’t do that.” (Right.)
He also painted Republicans as the real champions of inclusion:
“We want someone who voted for Trump sitting next to someone who voted for Bernie Sanders.”
—Richard Grenell, Politico
Which sounds cute—until you realize what it actually means: sit down, shut up, and clap when told.
He called the left “the intolerant party” and flat-out rejected the idea that extremism exists on both sides.
Projection has gone full performance art.
And of course, to complete the role of MAGA gay:
He said he’d “do anything for Trump,” and name‑dropped Melania.
—Richard Grenell, Politico
Is that normal? Maybe if your queerness is edited to fit MAGA aesthetics.
Grenell isn’t defending queer culture. He’s editing it. Packaging it. Selling it as safe for consumption—as long as it never bites the hand that funds it.
The Rogue Pride Extravaganza (and the Meltdown That Followed)
While Grenell was busy hand-waving drag and rewriting queer identity as a MAGA-friendly accessory, Broadway clapped back—live and in full glitter.
On June 23, four Democratic senators—John Hickenlooper, Elizabeth Warren, Brian Schatz, and Tammy Baldwin—quietly rented out a 144-seat theater at the Kennedy Center. They billed it as a “talent show.”
What they actually staged was a 90-minute Pride protest packed with Broadway royalty: Hamilton alum Javier Muñoz, Tony winner Brandon Uranowitz, composer Andrew Lippa, and more. The show sold out.
And it wasn’t subtle.
“This is our way of reoccupying the Kennedy Center. This is a protest. This is a political act.”
—Jeffrey Seller, producer of Hamilton, via The New York Times
Senator Hickenlooper put it even more plainly:
“Standing up for self-expression. At the core of it all, it’s about standing up for love.”
—Sen. Hickenlooper, as quoted in Newsbreak
Grenell? Full-blown meltdown.
He accused the senators of staging a political stunt. Claimed they were “larping” as victims. Reignited his beef with Lin-Manuel Miranda (who wasn’t even there), and issued a press statement whining that the Kennedy Center was being used for “political litmus tests.”
“We were only later notified by The New York Times that Senator Hickenlooper’s event was instead an invite-only political stunt…”
—Richard Grenell, official statement via OperaWire
They literally called it a Pride Extravaganza. What did you think was going to happen? A bake sale?
Palatable Queers, Bi+ Erasure, and the Myth of Safety
Grenell’s whole “normal gay” thing is just the latest version of an old story: Be queer, but not too queer. Be visible, but not loud. Be palatable—especially to people in power.
For those of us who are Bi+, this pressure is nothing new. We’re often seen as not queer enough, too confusing, too fluid, too much. We get erased in straight spaces and queer ones. We’re told to pick a side, prove our queerness, make it neat and understandable.
But here’s the truth:
You can pass—until you can’t.
You can stay quiet—until the silence swallows you.
Respectability won’t save us. It never has.
Queerness that only exists to make straight people comfortable isn’t liberation—it’s performance. It’s camouflage. And it’s lonely as hell.
Art Is Protest. Always Has Been.
Art is where queerness has always lived.
Not in boardrooms or press releases, but in bars, in basements, in backstages. In drag shows and punk sets and midnight screenings. In musicals about revolution, in poems about survival, in bodies that dance anyway.
When the world says shut up, art says sing louder.
Trump wants the Kennedy Center to be a shrine to sanitized “greatness”—an altar to nostalgia. But queerness has never belonged to the empire. It belongs to the misfits, the movement-makers, the ones who don’t wait for permission to speak.
Hell, the Kennedy Center is still scheduled to host Mrs. Doubtfire next summer—a literal drag role on stage in a post-drag-ban institution. You can’t script irony like that.
Final Note: We Are Here, We Exist, and You Can’t Stop Us
Let Grenell have his flag pin. Let Trump have his stage-managed nostalgia.
We’ll take the queens.
We’ll take the misfits.
The Bi+ folks still finding their way.
The artists who won’t be told what to sing.
“We are here. We exist. And you can’t ignore us.” —Jeffrey Seller
Damn right.
Disclaimer: This blog isn’t therapy. If you’re struggling, please connect with a licensed mental health professional.
