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A Republican candidate for Senate in Virginia bashed drag queens and those who like them during a debate this week, suggesting LGBTQ+ people are “not the people we want” to join the military because they aren’t “alpha.”
About 34 minutes into his debate with incumbent Democrat Sen. Tim Kaine on Wednesday night, retired Navy captain Hung Cao — hot on the heels of a complaint about “untested vaccines” for COVID and a false accusation that Afghanistan “took down the Twin Towers” — responded to a question about federal diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs with a graphic metaphor (or at least, we hope it was a metaphor) insinuating that drag queens and LGBTQ+ people are generally too weak to serve in the military.
“When you’re using a drag queen to recruit for the Navy, that’s not the people we want,” Cao said, likely referring to a now-scrapped Navy ambassador program that included drag queen Harpy Daniels (a.k.a. Petty Officer Joshua Kelley). “What we need is alpha males and alpha females who are going to rip out their own guts, eat them, and ask for seconds,” Cao went on. “Those are the men and women who are going to win wars.”
Responding to Cao’s statements, Kaine — formerly Hillary Clinton’s running mate in the 2016 U.S. presidential election — said he “did not understand [his] opponent’s argument.” When reached for comment by NBC News, Cao reportedly reiterated his statement and said he “just said what everyone believes as fact.” Cao was also apparently proud enough of that moment that he posted the clip to X, formerly Twitter, following the debate.
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Leaving aside the fact that Cao’s autocannibalism scenario kinda sounds like an alt-drag concept performance one might see in a queer Bushwick dive bar on a Saturday night, what he’s advocating sounds suspiciously like hiring discrimination. Some LGBTQ+ advocates have argued in favor of transgender-inclusive military recruitment if only to guard against further hiring and workplace discrimination in other fields, arguing that a drag queen (or even a fan of the art form) could, as a result, be denied a physically demanding non-military job based on stereotypical ideas about physical prowess. (It’s also worth remembering that drag performances have been a part of U.S. military culture since the 1940s or earlier.) Conversely, however, other left-wing queer and trans activists have argued against military inclusion as a cause worth supporting over others, pointing out the U.S. military’s long history of committing or facilitating rights abuses around the world.
Cao was endorsed earlier this year by Republican nominee Donald Trump, who said Cao will “defend our always-under-siege Second Amendment.” He has been a sharp critic of communism on the campaign trail and in TV ads, tying his family’s flight from Vietnam in the 1970s to the policies of the Biden administration. In May, Cao said the only way to “restore faith” in the federal government would be to “chop off the head of that Justice Department that’s doing really nefarious things.” His campaign website rails against an alleged “far-left ideological agenda” in schools, obliquely targeting trans-inclusive policies he characterizes as “driving a wedge between parents and their children.”
Like other candidates before him, however, Cao’s anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric has not clearly produced results. Multiple polls in September showed Cao 11 to 12 points behind Kaine in their race for the Senate. Possibly making things worse for Cao are questions about his own military service: Cao has said he was “blown up many times” and “100% disabled” during his Navy career, but an investigation by USA Today found he was never awarded a Purple Heart as that description would imply. Navy representatives reportedly declined to comment on why a servicemember would not receive a particular award. Given the Republican field day over Tim Walz’s statement that he carried “weapons of war,” we’re sure the “stolen valor” crowd will jump on this one any day now.
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