WASHINGTON, D.C. (WTVO) — President Joe Biden has appointed Sam Brinton, an outspoken drag queen and “queer activist”, to oversee spent fuel and waste in the nuclear energy office of the Department of Energy.
Brinton, a graduate of MIT with dual master’s degrees in nuclear engineering and technology, has also been an activist for Global Zero and the gay and transgender suicide prevention organization, The Trevor Project, and has advocated against gay conversion therapy.
He previously advised President Donald Trump on nuclear waste matters, according to The Washington Examiner.
“I have accepted the offer to serve as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Spent Fuel and Waste Disposition in the Office of Nuclear Energy for the Department of Energy,” Brinton wrote on LinkedIn. “In this role I’ll be doing what I always dreamed of doing, leading the effort to solve the nation’s nuclear waste challenges.”
Brinton has raised eyebrows on social media for his open advocacy of sexual fetishism and expressed enthusiasm for “puppy play,” a sexual “kink” involving role-playing as animals, in a post in the student newspaper at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 2017.
Terry Schilling, president of the American Principles Project, called Brinton a “complete sexual degenerate.” Another tweeted: “If this is what’s in charge of nuclear waste issues in the Biden Administration, it should start with itself.”
LGBTQ+ advocates have been praising Brinton’s appointment, including Marti Cummings, a drag performer who ran for New York City Council last year, who said “I think these right-wing attacks are gross and rooted in homophobia. It’s mind-boggling that in 2022, we’re still dealing with this.”
Maebe A. Girl, the first known drag queen voted into public office, on the Silver Lake Neighborhood Countil in Los Angeles in 2019, told Yahoo News, “Having this appointment is not a negative. It’s a positive for our country.
“The real negative is trying to overthrow the government and trying to not teach kids about the real history of this country,” Girl continued. “How we are built off of a patriarchal, racist system that needs to be rebuilt to be truly equitable for all people, Black and brown, indigenous, AAPI, Jewish, Muslim — everyone, and that includes queer people, nonbinary, transgender and genderqueer people, like Sam.”