JD Vance's Gay Panic Set Straight by Foul-Mouthed Mamaw

JD Vance once thought he was gay.

Okay, he was only 8 or 9 years old and he was put straight – quite literally – by his Mamaw.

"According to Sen. JD Vance's best-selling 'Hillbilly Elegy,' the Ohio senator once told his grandmother that he thought he might be gay," reports Business Insider. (Note: link behind a firewall.)

He wrote in "Hillbilly Elegy":

"I'll never forget the time I convinced myself that I was gay. I was eight or nine, maybe younger, and I stumbled upon a broadcast by some fire-and-brimstone preacher. The man spoke about the evils of homosexuals, how they had infiltrated our society, and how they were all destined for hell absent some serious repenting. At the time, the only thing I knew about gay men was that they preferred men to women. This described me perfectly: I disliked girls, and my best friend in the world was my buddy Bill. Oh no, I'm going to hell."

He addressed his feelings with his grandmother (affectionately known as "Mamaw") who answered him in curiously salty language, considering she was speaking to a child.

"Don't be a fucking idiot, how would you know that you're gay?" she asked him.

When Vance explained his reasoning, she laughed.

"JD, do you want to suck dicks?" she said, according to the book.

The young Vance, apparently "flabbergasted," said: "Of course not!"

"Then you're not gay. And even if you did want to suck dicks, that would be okay," she replied. "God would still love you."

The exchange is problematic in many ways, from Mamaw's coarse language to Vance even knowing anything about sucking dicks at that young age. Also, doesn't Mamaw's inclusive rejoinder at the end sound like some sort of revisionism on Vance's part, especially since he later described his grandparents who raised him as Blue Dog Democrats who were "socially conservative?"

But he stood by it in his book, adding: "Now that I'm older, I recognize the profundity of her sentiment: Gay people, though unfamiliar, threatened nothing about mamaw's being. There were more important things for a Christian to worry about."

Nor does it at all reflect his attitude towards the LGBTQ+ community. God may love them, but Vance clearly does not. When running for the Senate in 2022 he said he would vote against codifying same sex marriage into law. "Republican Ohio U.S. Senate nominee J.D. Vance would oppose legislation to codify the right to marriage for same-sex couples, according to Mission: America, a Columbus based non-profit which bills itself as a ministry," reported the Ohio Capital Journal.

Not only does Vance oppose same sex marriage, he espouses conservative views regarding careers for women and marriage, according to the New York Times. "He has called Democratic leaders 'childless cat ladies.' And he said that 'if your worldview tells you that it's bad for women to become mothers but liberating for them to work 90 hours a week in a cubicle at The New York Times or Goldman Sachs, you've been had'."

While opposing queer rights, Vance cozied up to queer money in the person of out conservative Peter Thiel, who, according to the Times, was Vance's employer after he graduated from Yale. Thiel also gave $15 million to Vance's Senate bid two years ago, and he was brought back into the Trump camp with Thiel's help.

"The mogul brokered a meeting at Mar-a-Lago," reported the Times. "Mr. Vance had been trailing in the polls during his primary race in Ohio. Mr. Trump backed him, with just two weeks left in the race, and Mr. Vance went on to win his crowded primary by nearly 10 points."