‘I’m Hopeful’: The President of Gays for Trump Speaks Out [WATCH]
A decade after launching Gays for Trump, Peter Boykin shares how he thinks the president is doing over a year into his second term.
Peter Boykin used AI to create his “dream image” with President Trump. Photo courtesy of Boykin.
UNCLOSETED, with Spencer Macnaughton is a new podcast by Uncloseted Media, an investigative LGBTQ-focused nonprofit news publication. Follow and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. YouTube // Spotify // Apple
Peter Boykin founded Gays for Trump 10 years ago as an organization to “get out the vote” for gay Trump supporters during the president’s first run for office. The organization grew fast by creating Facebook campaigns and hosting events at the Republican National Convention. Now, over one year into Trump’s second term, Boykin’s group is smaller but still boasts 11,000 members.
In this episode of “UNCLOSETED, with Spencer Macnaughton,” Spencer sits down with Boykin to learn about why he remains “hopeful for Donald Trump” despite his disagreements about how the president has been handling LGBTQ issues.
Watch the video or read the full transcript below.
Spencer Macnaughton: Hi guys, welcome to Uncloseted Media’s new podcast with me, Spencer Macnaughton. Today, I am here with Peter Boykin. He is the founder of Gays for Trump, an organization he created during Trump’s first presidential run 10 years ago. Boykin’s group was prominent during Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign when they created social media campaigns and organized events at the Republican National Convention. Now, he’s the founder of the website Go Right News, and this year he’s running for county commissioner of Alamance, North Carolina. Peter, thanks so much for speaking with me and coming on our podcast today.
Peter Boykin: Thanks for having me on today.
SM: So we talked, I think over a year ago today, shortly after Trump was elected for his second term and you were optimistic and excited about him taking the reins for a second time. We’re a year out now, how do you think he’s doing?
PB: Well, first of all, I’m saying that you got a lot of slack for talking to me, so thank you for actually talking to me. But I think it helped a lot, but I think we’re doing pretty good. I’m hopeful for Donald Trump, as Donald Trump. I’m still wary of a lot of the Republicans and some of the people in his cabinet. Not the gay members per se, but the other people like Hegseth and other individuals that I’m not really satisfied with.
SM: It’s interesting you say you’re still hopeful for Trump. I mean, him and his administration in the last year, they’ve waged an unprecedented, relentless attack against the LGBTQ community. They’ve slashed HIV and AIDS funding and funding for many other LGBTQ healthcare issues, erased mentions of transgender people, and the people he’s surrounded with aren’t just anti-trans, they’re aggressively anti-LGBTQ. How do you square that away by saying you’re still hopeful despite all he’s done?
PB: Well, I’ll tell you. First of all, a lot of the people that he’s surrounding himself [with], the gay members, are a lot of Log Cabin type people, and if you’ve done the research on Log Cabin, they do include the LGBT, you know, possibly Q. As for Trump, unfortunately, he’s got a lot other fish to fry. And there’s other members, unfortunately, that have taken back over, you know? The evangelistical Christians, for one, love to take over our groups and good ideas and I feel like they’ve kind of weaseled their way back in unfortunately, and I don’t see a good future for the Republican party if they continue down that road. So I’m not optimistic on the future of the Republican party, I’m only going to be optimistic about what Donald Trump’s doing that’s not regarding the gay community. I can also say that a lot of these, if you break it down, it just seems to be a tax on the trans community per se. I’m not exactly happy with that, but I know a lot of the gays take up for it, but it’s usually the trans community that we’re seeing different rules and laws and things happen. And again, I’m not exactly happy on those issues. It’s again, not the same Trump that we had before, but it’s a different ballgame, and I guess that’s how politics are, unfortunately.
SM: Mm-hmm. And you’re 100% right. I mean, he’s passed a litany of executive orders rolling back trans rights, and the rhetoric that he’s projected toward the trans community has been unrelenting. But he’s also done a lot for gay and lesbian rights by wiping references to all LGBTQ people from certain spaces on White House pages. I find it interesting because a lot of folks I talk to who are Republican or conservative leaning want to blame everyone else but Trump for these things. And at the end of the day, he’s the president of the United States. So why can’t you say, “This is fucked, what Donald Trump is doing”? It’s not the conservatives. It’s not the people around him. He’s the man. He’s the number one and he’s in charge. What makes you have pause by pointing the finger right at him?
PB: Well, Donald Trump is one person. Our government is more than one individual. He might have appointed these individuals, but you’ve got people like [Pete Hegseth] that want to basically do a query search on gay, get rid of the null and gay and other things like that.
SM: Pete Hegseth, you mean? Pete Hegseth?
PB: Whatever his name is, he’s a drunk. I don’t care. I can’t stand the man. I want him gone. I think that you’ve got stupid people involved in this cabinet. Unfortunately, Donald Trump falls for people flattering him. And I don’t know if he exactly knows everything that’s going on. He’s an older man now, he had an assassination attempt, you’ve got other things on his plate and unfortunately you’ve got these individuals in his cabinet doing these. So I find it hard to believe, I find it hard to say it’s on Donald Trump per se. Maybe it’s a little bit. Maybe he could stand up and say, “Hey, I support Pride Month” or whatever it is. I would like to see that. I’ll tell you this, I think it was the election season. He came to North Carolina at our North Carolina dinner and he spoke about building a wall and things like that. Then he mentioned, I think there’s a common thing that Donald Trump said, something like trans for all or something like that, I don’t know. But he said something about trans. And unfortunately—
SM: He says consistently, he wants to get rid of, quote, “transgender for everybody.” That’s something he said dozens of times. Yeah.
PB: He said something into effect like that and then everybody stands up, clap clap clap, standing ovation. But Donald Trump also said, “Well, I wish y’all would clap like that, and be excited about things that actually matter, you know, like the wall and immigration.” So he literally called them out. So unfortunately I think he fell into the whole, “Well this is what the base wants,” you know? And all you hear is this woke, anti-woke, anti-woke which to me, all I hear is anti-gay, anti-gay, anti-gay. And I’m not happy. Again, I’m not happy with a lot of the Republican Party. I went and spoke to our local North Carolina LGBTQ Nation. I talked about it. There’s an article about that where I literally said, “The Republican party is barking up the wrong tree. They’re letting the social conservatives in too much.” But that doesn’t change my commitment as a gay Republican or a Republican because the only way that I can fight that BS is from within the party. You can’t fight it from outside the party, that’s just not how politics works. I’m having a fight internally with Republicans. I’ve got an 11,000-plus group of gay Republicans now on Facebook, that’s not just the gays for Trump now it’s gay Republicans and gays for Trump, and I’m dealing with this whole drop the T crap coming from the group and I am fighting with that daily. “I hate pride. I don’t like the rainbow flag. Oh good for what they’re doing in Stonewall.” And it’s irritating, I consider myself a constitutional for liberty. I consider myself a moderate, right-leaning moderate. I don’t really like the word conservative. And the more I’m getting down the rabbit hole of politics, I’m like a lot of individuals. We ar3—more and more people are becoming unaffiliated because they’re tired of both parties’ BS.
SM: And when you get frustrated and irritated by them, by conservatives who want to drop the T or do away with Pride Month or these sort of things, you mentioned that you don’t think that’s the best strategy for the party. Why does it irritate you and why don’t you think that is the best strategy?
PB: To me, personally, social policy should not be left or right, period. Like civil rights, gay rights, things like that, they should not be left or right. If I’m for gay rights you shouldn’t be able to consider me like some leftist. Unfortunately, we’ve got a lot of social conservatives in my party, and they’re ready to die on the hill because a guy in heels bothers them. And it’s stupid. It’s just ridiculous.
SM: And when you think about that, there’s a group of, I think, more than 40 socially conservative groups who just launched the Greater Than campaign, which is a new effort to overturn gay marriage. What are your thoughts on that? And again, these groups are directly tied to the Trump administration. I mean, it’s confusing to me how you can still stand by him when at the end of the day he’s the final voice on these issues a lot of the time.
PB: Trump can be the final voice, but unfortunately, again, he’s still just one voice. You’ve got these groups who will organize—
SM: But he’s the president of the United States and he’s surrounded by—
PB: He can be the president in the United States, but he can’t make other people do everything.
SM: He can’t make other people do anything, but he’s decided to appoint people like Pete Hegseth, people like Kristi Noem, people who have horrifically anti-LGBTQ and anti-gay backgrounds. So, you know, I think there’s a lot of people out there who still stand with him, but how can you stand with him when you’re denouncing these people who he decided to put in charge?
PB: I still don’t like ‘em. I mean, if you put other people like Scott Bessent and other individuals who are gay, he’s got a very good gay cabinet. Of course, you’re going to hear about the Petes and the Kristi Noems, you know, and I don’t like ‘em. I verbally have said I don’t like ‘em, that’s my only way I can fight it. I’m not Donald Trump, I can’t make him change his mind. Maybe he’s got a choice of, maybe the choice is worse, maybe he doesn’t have a choice. Shit, I’d like to take the job and there’s plenty of other people you can bring in. Unfortunately, I think he’s trying to keep some sort of legacy, but unfortunately to me it’s tattered a little bit. Again, I still support Donald Trump because I think he was the best person in office. Maybe if the Democrats had got off their ass and actually got a decent candidate? You know, I could support a decent candidate. I don’t hide the fact that I didn’t vote for our governor candidate of Mark Robinson. Unfortunately, Donald Trump, I don’t know. I don’t know if it was adjustment because of the almost the suicide—not the suicide—almost the assassination attempt. You’ve got the killing of Charlie Kirk. There’s a lot of factors in play. I’m not making excuses for Donald Trump. By supporting Donald Trump, I’m not making excuses. Ronald Reagan, and I say it all the time, 80% my friend, 20% my foe, does not make you my enemy. Donald Trump still sits in that 80% range. But everything I work on is not just because gay rights is not going to be the only issue like, oh, I’m out. I can still openly, I’m not hiding it, I’m openly disgusted with a lot of the things that happen. And I tell my group of 11,000 people that I might have to fight against half of them how I feel. And if they don’t like it, they can get the hell out.
SM: Mm-hmm. And for the record, you mentioned Mark Robinson and I’m glad you denounce him. He is a former North Carolina gubernatorial candidate who has compared gay and trans people to maggots and filth. And that was shortly before his porn history leaked and it was discovered that he had a strong affinity for trans porn, but that’s another story for another day and one you can read at UnclosetedMedia.com if you like. But Peter, what are you telling those 11,000 gay Republicans? Because I think a lot of people listening to this are like “how in the hell can you be a gay Republican at this point given everything that’s happened?” What are you hearing are their reasons at this point?
PB: I get a lot of comments, I take flack. People actually have discussions in there. I had to lay down the law on some people because I would post just something simple and all of a sudden it’d be a meme of cut the T, you know, cut the T and I literally just got like all caps like “Tired of hearing this crap. Don’t post it on this. Get the hell out.” You know? And I’m sure that some of them are like, “Oh, I won’t leave,” you know? “Oh, you’ve got this group turned leftist.” I’m like, bullshit. I’m the same as I was before. I established the group, not as a Republican group, as a group that supporters of Donald Trump and the big tent and the MAGA and everything. Unfortunately, MAGA has kind of devolved again. The Evangelisticals took over the Tea Party. They took over America First. They took over MAGA. They always take over our groups.
SM: But Peter, it’s interesting that you say you want to stick with the Republican party. You still believe in the Republican party. That’s really interesting. But when there has been such a strong evangelical takeover of the party, and you have a lot of the people in the highest positions of power who believe that gay marriage is akin to giving pets or pedophiles the right to marry, does part of you not just want to say, screw it? The Democrats are way more in line with who I am and my existence and my life with my husband?
PB: I would say that, again, that you’re separating the social part. [That] it should be left to right. I’m like, no.
SM: It’s still fiscally that you really feel strong about it.
PB: And the issue is, if you’ve got to think of it, you do a deep dive? The Democrat party, the people, members of the Democrat Party are really good at separating their politics from their religion. Unfortunately, the Republicans, it’s like you’ve got to embed the religion with the politics, which goes to the whole groups trying to get rid of our gay marriage.
SM: I mean, you know, speaking about the transgender community specifically, like it has been an all out war that the administration has waged against this community. There have been, you know, false claims that they’re linked to terrorism. A lot of the trans people that I’ve spoken with, they’re really afraid. They’re thinking about moving. There’s been a brain drain of people leaving the United States to other countries where they can feel safer. What would you say to trans Americans who are listening to this interview and saying, “You are supporting somebody still who is literally putting me in danger, not making me feel safe, making me want to leave the country”?
PB: Well I can still say, you gotta hold on to your constitutional values. I’m fighting for people’s constitutional values, and that includes transgenders. I do not like what Pete did with the military. Unfortunately, you’ve got, you know, far-right groups, far-right groups, I’m telling, and they’re all this trans-trans crap. Donald Trump’s fell into it, I don’t like it, and I can continue to say I don’t like it. But again... You gotta have a candidate on the Democrat side that can do the job of other things. We’re not gonna have a country if we have some great president up there then all he can do is gay issues. If he can’t do crap else other than gay issues then hey, I would say you probably still need to leave this country because honestly I don’t care how safe it is for gays and trans or anything if the rest of the country’s falling apart.
Then it’s not gonna do us any good. I even said it the other day, it was like a few months ago where there was illegals or whatever undocumented people raising hell in California setting fire to places and meanwhile there was a nice trans group of like what 50 people at a pride just walking you know with their flags and I literally posted, I said, I’d rather hang out with those 50 people than what’s going on in California. Meanwhile, I got Republicans griping about those 50 people and ignoring what’s going on in California. Like get your mind on what matters. And that’s what I always say all the time. Get your mind on what matters. Quit worrying about the trans. I’m telling people in my group that I didn’t create this group to bash trans or bash another group, because that’s BS. That’s just escapism. That’s actually, we’re no different, those people are no different than Republicans trying to blame the gays for everything. Like educate yourself on our history and our gay rights and our rainbow flag and you know, that’s the only thing I can do in my group is spend more time doing damage control trying to keep our group going the right path, not as in politically but going the right path, you know, for our Constitution and understanding what to do. Then fighting—you know, I’m exhausted, honestly.
SM: No, I think a lot of people are exhausted in every pocket of this country, perhaps. You also run Go Right News, which, and you say you’re a journalist, that the publication stands up for truth, integrity and accountability. Tell us a little bit more about Go Right News.
PB: Before I had like MAGA First News. I called it MAGA First News and then I’m like, “You know, MAGA is not gonna be around forever.” You know, I’m gonna think of, like, a direction for people. And then I think you had Melania with the be nice, do good, be nice kind of thing so I was like Go Right News. I know people are gonna think, “Oh well you’re talking about like go right politically,” and you can think that if you want. Especially as time goes, it’s more like, go right. As I say, do right, be right, think right, vote right. And it’s not exactly like, right wing. So when I do my articles in my news, and I’m not a journalist like, as in like, I’m more of a citizen journalist, I am more of an opinionist. I write articles, I change things, I try to wait, I try not to jump on the news right off the bat. I don’t care if somebody sees it as left or right, I write and I put my opinion out there.
SM: Yeah, and it’s interesting. And Trump has obviously coined the term fake news, right? And has really kind of introduced this concept to many Americans that you can’t trust mainstream media. You can’t trust professional journalists, you know? I’m curious for you, somebody who’s claiming to be producing news and calling yourself a citizen journalist, do you think you’re accurate news? And if so, what are the processes you go through to get an article out there? Like, do you have a legal department, a standards department, do you have fact checkers? What’s the process for your news articles?
PB: I research articles from all over the venue: right, left, middle, check on some of the AI sites. You can do some fact checks on items. I try to search different areas, I have a few people I talk to about individual things, but I’ve also stated if the news changes or if something’s different... I’m gonna be the first one to say, “Look, I got that wrong.” And then a lot of times what I’m putting out is my opinion. I’ll state it, it’s my opinion. If I have sources, I’ll put the sources in. But it’s usually based on my opinion but I’ll also put the fact that we know of at the time. And if I had a correction or whatever, I have no problem correcting it because I go on the, I go especially with these shootings and things they’ve had recently, and it does so much from the left and the right, sharing just bullcrap, you know, just like viral crap, you know, that got no facts behind it.
SM: And what do you think is the most accurate news source today in 2026? If you had to pick one, what would you say?
PB: I don’t really trust all of them. They’re all, everything is opinionated now, unfortunately. You have to really have to cross-reference all of them. I mean, you’re probably looking for me to say like Fox News or like, no.
SM: I’m not looking for, I’m just curious. Because I think a lot of people who create sites like you, I’m genuinely curious as someone who runs a news publication, like where do you guys distill the truth from, right? So like name some publications that you’d take to distill the truth. I’m super curious.
PB: I mean, I pull from all sides. I kind of see a cross-reference, you know, like say NBCU news, Fox News, Skynet—whatever they call it, Sky News—even Al Jiro, Al Jazeera, whatever. Mainstream media that tries to put out correct news, but you find a lot of stuff on telegram. You find a lot of stuff on… some things on Reddit. You know and you know Reddit’s very left-leaning.
SM: But how do you know that what you find isn’t just a robot or a bot in China or an AI machine?
PB: Well, I have to look at what they’re saying and I have to compare to see if there’s actually accurate news somewhere else that kind of agrees with it.
SM: You held an event on Facebook on February 5th, and that was called, “If Arresting Journalists Is a Dictatorship, What Was January 6?” Why do you compare those things? Why do you bring those two things up, arresting journalists and January 6? Because when I think about those two things, they’re starkly different.
PB: The article, and it was a comparison of that recent event, I can’t, what’s his name, um...
SM: Don Lemon?
PB: Yeah, Don Lemon, you know, went into the church when they were doing this protest, which I don’t believe they should have been going into the church. And I was comparing it, like they were saying, “Oh, I shouldn’t have been arrested because I was covering the news.” And in that retrospect, I was talking about [how] there was actually legitimate people there that were covering January 6. And those individuals got arrested, just like he got arrested. So if all of a sudden the First Amendment rights and your journalism rights work for the left, or him, then they should have worked just as easily for individuals on the right.
SM: But Don Lemon, I mean, didn’t cause any violence, didn’t break windows.
PB: There was a lot of journalists at January 6 that didn’t cause any.
SM: Yeah, and I think when you watch the videos of Don Lemon in that church versus the hundreds of rioters in the Capitol and compare the videos, we can let the audience decide how to compare those two things, and maybe we can agree to disagree. I don’t wanna take too much of your time, Peter, but I wanted to end just one last question, because it sat with me last year when we spoke that it really seems like you really do genuinely care about people’s lives, and that’s what motivates a lot of what you do. And I know you mentioned you care a lot about LGBTQ youth last year, right? And still, you know, roughly 40% of queer kids in America seriously considered suicide in the last year. You know, last June during Pride Month, Trump axed the 988 LGBTQ youth hotline option where queer kids struggling with mental health could call for assistance and help. I know I keep asking how you square it away, but I mean, I think a lot of people watching will be wanting me to ask this question. How do you still support a president who does something like that?
PB: To me, I agree that they should have the option there, you know? Just like the veteran option, just the LGBT—why not? What was it hurting to have a stupid number on there? How much money does it cost to really have an extra number on there? You know, “press 2 for if you’re LGBTQ.” I again, I think that’s just more of the BS bullcrap. Like oh we got to get rid of the woke stuff. Oh, we got to get rid of this. It’s ridiculous. It’s stupid. It doesn’t serve us at all.
SM: Well, let’s leave it there. Peter, I really appreciate you coming on and speaking with me and Uncloseted Media. I think it’s good to have these nuanced conversations and to hear your perspective. And yeah, thanks for chatting today.
PB: Thank you.
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