A progressive U.S. Senate candidate in Maine, who has already apologized for earlier misogynistic and racially insensitive remarks and said he did not realize that a tattoo on his chest resembled a Nazi SS emblem, is again under scrutiny, this time for anti-LGBTQ+ comments.
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In an interview on Wednesday afternoon with The Advocate, Graham Platner, a 41-year-old Marine and Army veteran running in Maine’s Democratic primary, seeking to become the nominee to challenge Republican U.S. Sen. Susan Collins, confirmed that he authored a series of Reddit comments that include homophobic slurs, anti-LGBTQ+ jokes, and sexually explicit stories denigrating gay men.
The existence of the comments, posted under the handle P-Hustle between 2016 and 2021, has not previously been reported. The Advocate obtained the posts independently this week. The revelations come on the same day Platner is scheduled to hold a town hall in Ogunquit, a seaside resort long known as one of New England’s most prominent LGBTQ+ destinations, featuring a thriving gay community and Pride celebrations that draw visitors from across the region.
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“I have no reason to deny [that the posts are mine],” Platner said in a Zoom interview. “I made a lot of comments over the years and talked a lot of shit on the internet. I have no reason to doubt that at some point I used language that I would not be using today.”
He paused, then added, “It’s indefensible.”
The posts obtained by The Advocate
The unearthed posts show a pattern of homophobic language and rhetoric that mocked or demeaned LGBTQ+ people. In some cases, Platner appeared to use slurs casually in discussions unrelated to sexuality; in others, he explicitly framed gay people as the punch line.
In June 2016, Platner wrote in a thread about life on military guard duty, “No, seriously. Flog that fucker as often as possible … write gay poetry about how gay your current job is … Congratulations! You’ve made it through one shift! Now do it all again in 12 hours. Welcome to the world of standing post, where sanity is a sliding scale.”
In March 2018, he recounted in explicit detail what he described as a “gay off” between Marines and British sailors in Bahrain: “Pull into Bahrain in ’07 on a MEU, a Royal Navy submarine happens to be in port at the same time. … Before we even realize what’s going on, the other weird bastard just leans down and licks the damn thing from the bottom of the ballsack all the way up to the top of the dick. Stands up, looks dead at us and yells ‘BEAT THAT!’ … I proudly withdrew our team on the grounds that one cannot play gay chicken if one is actually gay.”
In July 2018, Platner joked in another thread, “I suppose some gay fellas still prefer holes as well. Party on top bros.”
A month later, in August 2018, he used a homophobic slur while arguing with another user: “Betcha not a single downvoter is a real combat vet. Feel free to back it up with facts, fags.”
In December 2019, Platner mocked military officers, writing, “Officers are gay. Army or navy, I really don’t give a fuck about your frat.”
By March 2020, he was still using the word “gay” as a punch line: “This was the gayest (not in the fun dick sucking way) thing I’ve ever seen. This dude is literally everything I hate all rolled into one.”
And in June 2021, Platner posted about military “pranks,” writing, “I like how our gay antics make him so uncomfortable he hates us. I’m doubling down on gay chicken next time in honor of this Air Force pussy.”
All of the posts came years after Platner left the Army in 2012.
“That language is not who I am today”
Platner told The Advocate that he no longer uses the slurs or dismissive language that appeared frequently in the posts. “These were words that I used for a long time in ways that I did not take seriously,” he said. “Because of personal relationships that I’ve developed over the years, I do not use [them] now and find [them] to be quite offensive. I stopped using that specific kind of language a while ago … and today I find that stuff abhorrent. And I am sorry that I ever used it.”
He attributed his change in perspective to friendships with LGBTQ+ people, both gay and transgender, that deepened after he returned to Maine. “When I lived in Washington, D.C., I had a number of very close gay friends,” Platner said, with whom he often “attended showtunes night at JR’s,” a popular gay bar near Dupont Circle. “It was only later, when I moved back to Maine, that I became friends with a number of trans people, and that really opened my eyes.”
“Even though I thought I was open-minded,” he continued, “there were elements to their existence that I had been entirely unaware of. That was when I began to really take far more seriously the damaging nature of language, the damaging nature of even just discussing whether people exist or not.”
He said that realization led him to speak publicly in defense of LGBTQ+ students. “Earlier this year, I testified at a local school board meeting in defense of a policy that was protecting LGBTQ students,” he said. “For me, at this point in my life, you either stand for what you stand for or you don’t.”
A campaign shaped by contrition
The new revelations add to a cascade of controversies that have defined Platner’s campaign. In recent days, Platner admitted to having a tattoo resembling the Totenkopf, a skull-and-crossbones emblem used by Nazi SS units, which the Associated Press reports he has since had altered. Platner told Pod Save America’s Tommy Vietor that he got the tattoo in 2007 while on leave in Croatia and “didn’t know” of its Nazi association until this month.
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“Maybe he didn’t know it when he got it, but he got it years ago, and he should have had it covered up because he knows damn well what it means,” Platner’s political director, Genevieve McDonald, who recently resigned, wrote on Facebook.
Before the tattoo controversy, Platner had already apologized for earlier Reddit posts that included misogynistic and racially charged remarks. He described those as coming from a “dark period” after his military service. That defense is complicated by the fact that these newly discovered comments were written years later.
“People can change, and they can evolve”
Asked on Wednesday whether he understood why voters might question his judgment after so many revelations, Platner said the controversies reflect his past, not his present.
“This is all of the same piece,” he said. “It’s not indicative of things that I’m doing now. People are digging through my entire life because I, frankly, am running for Senate on an anti-establishment platform, and that comes with a lot of scrutiny.”
He continued, “I think we need a politics that is reflective of the fact that people can change and they can evolve. I’m very proud of who I am now. I’m very proud of what I’ve become. I only got here because of the struggles along the journey, and I would just like people to judge me off of who I have become throughout all of this, not who I was at a darker point in my life.”
Platner added that, unlike many politicians, he never lived intending to run for office. “I have not been living a life under the assumption that I was going to run for Senate someday,” he said. “I’ve lived a normal life, fighting in wars, working jobs, and being online like anyone else. We need a politics that reflects that normal people make mistakes and grow. Most people in this country have a lot more in common with each other than they do with the people in power. If we want a politics for regular people, we have to accept that regular people evolve.”
LGBTQ+ advocates react
In response to The Advocate’s reporting, a spokesperson for GLAAD, which advocates for fair representation of LGBTQ+ people in media, said voters have a right to know a candidate’s record and to expect genuine growth, not just regret.
“Voters deserve to know the LGBTQ records of all candidates, and we all deserve leaders who work hard to fairly and respectfully serve all constituents, including those who are different from them,” the spokesperson said in a statement.
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“When fair-minded voters see a candidate making mocking, degrading comments about LGBTQ people, they first look for a genuine apology,” the spokesperson continued. “Next, they look to see whether the candidate has publicly acknowledged how they have unlearned bias — showing evidence of growth and their ability to represent everyone.”
“It is up to LGBTQ people and our allies,” the spokesperson added, “to hold leaders accountable to the American values of freedom, liberty, and equality for all.”
Spokesperson for the Human Rights Campaign, Sam Lau, told The Advocate, “If true, these comments are disturbing and degrading to the LGBTQ+ community. He will have to answer to the voters of Maine, who have a long history of backing pro-equality policies.”
On protecting LGBTQ+ rights
Asked what he would do in office to defend LGBTQ+ Americans, Platner said, “I would never vote for a piece of legislation that would treat LGBTQ Americans any differently than any other. Equality is equality. Period.”
He added that he would support any measure expanding LGBTQ+ protections and said he believes the U.S. Senate should use its authority to “push back against the Supreme Court,” which he described as “one of our biggest hurdles against defending equality in this country.”
The politics of regret
Platner acknowledged that his past comments and the scrutiny they’re receiving reflect an emerging reality of American politics: the permanence of online behavior and the difficult question of what accountability looks like in an era when every digital trace endures.
“I think there is a place for [looking back], to a point,” Platner said. “But if we are going to just litigate every comment somebody makes on the internet, we will never have a politics that functions. I think the important part is, is there a believable story of change?”
This article originally appeared on Advocate: Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner admits using ‘indefensible’ antigay slurs in unearthed Reddit posts
