Editorial: Is FBI Director Kash Patel an Unsung Member of the LGBTQ+ Community?

Maybe “unsung” is too strong — perhaps “undocumented”?

The image above is not a deepfake, nor a leaked photo. It was posted (and maybe created) by Kash Patel himself — intentionally and publicly. In it, the newly appointed FBI director sits sprawled across a chair in a tight black leather outfit, one boot thrust assertively toward the camera. The studded footwear, captioned with a mock-advertising slogan — “Shoving boots up the Deep State’s ass since 1883” — completes a look that veers into hypermasculine cosplay but could just as easily be seen as an accidental homage to queer aesthetics.

Interpretation depends on cultural literacy. To some, this is a standard-issue display of “alpha male” bravado. But to others — particularly those familiar with the work of artists like Tom of Finland — the visual language strongly echoes gay-coded iconography. Leather culture, eroticized toughness, and camp performance all play a role in queer aesthetics, especially among gay men. The exaggerated masculinity isn’t just an aesthetic choice; it’s a historical pose of defiance, sexuality, and subversion.

Which is why the photo has sparked not just commentary, but cultural dissection — and, inevitably, memeification. Kash Patel, a longtime Trump loyalist and self-styled enemy of the so-called “Deep State,” doesn’t exactly have a record of LGBTQ+ advocacy. But his sartorial choices — paired with his reluctance to answer basic questions about his domestic life — have led to a flurry of online speculation. Is this a calculated display, an unintentional revelation — or something in-between, maybe both?

The speculation gained traction as new details emerged about Patel’s living situation. According to The New Republic and the Nevada Independent, Patel plans to run the FBI remotely from Las Vegas, where he’s registered to vote at the address of Michael Muldoon — a Republican megadonor with a checkered history of timeshare fraud allegations. Patel and Muldoon have overlapping legal and business ties, have vacationed together, and appear to share not just a house, but a political orbit.

Yet when asked about this arrangement, Patel has declined to offer clarification. No public record suggests he lives anywhere else in Las Vegas. Clark County voter records show that he cast mail ballots from Muldoon’s address in multiple 2024 elections. He receives political contributions there. And he proudly claimed the city as his home at a Trump campaign event in September 2024.

The public doesn’t need to know whether Patel is gay, straight, or somewhere in between. What it deserves is transparency — particularly when a senior federal official shares both financial entanglements and a private residence with someone facing credible allegations of business misconduct. Of course, two men sharing a residence is not inherently unusual. But when that living arrangement includes shared legal services, political donations, coordinated business activity, and golf vacations abroad, the distinction between “roommates” and something more becomes, at minimum, a question about which people will speculate.

Look, I’m not saying that two grown men with full incomes can’t be roommates that live together and vacation together platonically. It happens. For example: my brother and his boyfriend are just roomies, and they’ve been living together, going on cruises together, and attending weddings together for almost ten years.

Online, the reaction to Patel’s image — and his carefully guarded personal life — has ranged from curiosity to camp, from suspicion to satire. One viral tweet summed it up succinctly: “You’re telling me this guy might have a secret gay scammer life partner? I can’t believe it!” The post was attached to the very same leather-clad image that Patel posted himself — now circulating as both meme and cultural Rorschach test.

The image endures — less as a statement than an ambiguity inviting projection, parody, and speculation in equal measure. A black-leather-clad FBI director, lounging like a Tom of Finland pin-up, daring the viewer to ask questions — and daring them not to. It may be a performance of power — but one that reveals more than it conceals. Either way, it definitely tells us one thing: Kash Patel is not interested in blending in. But that doesn’t exempt him from scrutiny.

The leather may be tight, but the contradictions are even tighter.