Out lesbian Karine Jean-Pierre will become new White House Press Secretary

Authored by lgbtqnation.com and submitted by Sariel007

Karine Jean-Pierre, an out lesbian, has been named the next White House Press Secretary. Jean-Pierre will be the first out LGBTQ person and the first Black person to hold the office.

She was the first gay woman and only the second Black woman to lead a White House press briefing in the James S. Brady Briefing Room when she led the briefing last year.

Related: How strongly does President Biden support LGBTQ rights? We asked the man who knows best.

During the 2020 presidential campaign, Jean-Pierre served as Kamala Harris’s chief of staff, making her the first Black person to serve as chief of staff to a vice-presidential candidate and one of the highest-ranking LGBTQ people in the Biden/Harris campaign.

She currently serves as Deputy Press Secretary under Jen Psaki. Jean-Pierre will replace Psaki, who had announced she would vacate the role after a year in the role for a job with MSNBC. Her last day will be May 13.

Jean-Pierre led the White House’s participation in Spirit Day last year and said it was important to her because “I could only hope that young people who might be watching or see clips of this briefing will know that they are supported and represented in the highest levels of government today.”

“Karine Jean-Pierre is a brilliant communicator and person of tremendous intelligence, humor and poise, skills that will serve her and our country well in her new role. There are few jobs more visible or more important to our democracy than to share information with the White House press corps and answer their questions,” GLAAD President and CEO Sarah Kate Ellis said after the news of the promotion surfaced.

“To have an out queer person of color speak for the President of the United States says everything about Karine’s talent and heart, and recognizes that LGBTQ people can belong, contribute and succeed in every room. Our whole community looks forward to seeing Karine deliver for our nation and represent every LGBTQ person with pride.”

Psaki also praised Jean-Pierre on Twitter in a lengthy thread.

“She is passionate. She is smart and she has a moral core that makes her not just a great colleague, but an amazing Mom and human. Plus, she has a great sense of humor,” Psaki tweeted.

“I can’t wait to see her shine as she brings her own style, brilliance and grace to the podium.”

She will be the first black woman and the first openly LGBTQ+ person to serve as the White House Press Secretary. Representation matters and she will give a voice to many, but also make many dream big about what is truly possible. — Jen Psaki (@PressSec) May 5, 2022

She is passionate. She is smart and she has a moral core that makes her not just a great colleague, but an amazing Mom and human. Plus, she has a great sense of humor. — Jen Psaki (@PressSec) May 5, 2022

I can’t wait to see her shine as she brings her own style, brilliance and grace to the podium. — Jen Psaki (@PressSec) May 5, 2022

The first Black woman to conduct a White House press briefing was Judy Smith in 1991. She served as Special Assistant to the President and Deputy Press Secretary under President George H.W. Bush from 1991 to 1993. Her crisis management skills guided the administration through the public controversy around Clarence Thomas’s nomination to the Supreme Court, beginning her reputation as a “fixer.”

The first LGBTQ person to conduct a White House press briefing was then Deputy White House Press Secretary Eric Schultz in 2014.

Originally from the French West Indies island of Martinique, Jean-Pierre was raised in New York City and attended graduate school at Columbia University. She started her career in politics working for the John Edwards campaign in 2004 and later worked for Barack Obama’s 2008 and 2012 campaigns as well as Martin O’Malley’s 2016 presidential campaign.

During Obama’s first term, she worked in the White House Office of Political Affairs, a position said was important to her as a lesbian.

“What’s been wonderful is that I was not the only; I was one of many,” she told The Advocate in 2011. “President Obama didn’t hire LGBT staffers, he hired experienced individuals who happen to be LGBT.”

“Serving and working for President Obama where you can be openly gay has been an amazing honor. It felt incredible to be a part of an administration that prioritizes LGBT issues.”

Outside of her work with political campaigns and the government, she was the national spokesperson for the progressive organization MoveOn in 2016, a commentator for NBC News and MSNBC, and a lecturer at Columbia University.

People who have followed the 2020 Democratic primary closely may remember Jean-Pierre from a viral video of a white, male animal rights activist taking Harris’s microphone away from her during a 2019 MoveOn forum. Jean-Pierre leaped to her feet to grab the mic back, throwing herself between the intruder and Harris.

daddydomingue69 on May 6th, 2022 at 16:12 UTC »

these article titles suck. people saying “i want the most qualified” say that because of articles titled like this. makes it seem like she has 2 qualifications. a better title “trilingual columbia graduate Karine Jean-Pierre, who previously worked with Obama’s presidential campaign, becomes first LGBTQ and black press secretary.” she’s more than a gay black woman. act like it

EDITS: I’ve gotten a bunch of feedback on this, I’m gonna explain the points with some rational

I understand trilingual isn’t a very helpful qualification for her position, I made that post within a few minutes before work and didn’t really think it through. My rational was the assumption that bi/trilingual correlates with intellegence, however after some googling, there isn’t much of a correlation. I’m not gonna remove it from the original post, but it proves she does have a pretty good understand of language, which is important in politics. Using one wrong word instead of a synonym can hinder many things in your political career.

Example: Saying “This Russian War is an evil thing” vs “This Russian War is an atrocity” gives off different responses to your brain.

My title is too long. I completely agree. I’m not a journalist, and I’m pretty bad at writing. Especially in an extremely summarized way like a title. There can be a better version of my title. Sadly, these companies have to get their clicks because of the way journalism is today. So my title would most likely reduce clicks due to the way my title says everything you really need to know. Sucks, but its the way journalism is.

People saying “Why should we tailor to racist” You have to understand one thing. The changed title is quite literally shutting up people who look at life through a racist lens. If you remove all racists’ talking points by making it readily available in the title (which is mostly what they will only read anyways) it very well could subconsciously remove racist thoughts from their head, barring they’re not COMPLETE racist. Those can burn. Think about it from their prospective. People hate doing this, but understanding their side is the best way to shut them up. They think the nominees are only being nominated for their race and sexuality, so why not just shut them up from the start?

I don’t hate her. Honestly, I barely know shit about her. I just hate how journalist play the black and gay card. You could legitimately make an entire article based on just her qualifications without using those sentiments.

“This is a LGBTQ website, of course they would” y’all got me there. I didnt look at the website, as I am one of those title readers a lot of the time. However, you can add that she’s gay in the title while also discussing the insane qualities she brings to the table. Why blatantly give homophobes/racist more ammo by not including ANYTHING she’s done aside from what she was born with.

6: im a straight white guy. i dont relate to her, nor am i apart of a minority group. so i don’t have a full concept of how important race and gender is to people. so there may be some disconnect within my post.

edit tldr 1. trilingual isn’t very useful

my title is mid, but better than theirs

titles like this only give unintelligent racist more ammo

i dont hate this woman

i didn’t notice it was from an lgbtq site

im a straight white guy (single and 6’0 btw)

throwawayainteasy on May 6th, 2022 at 14:06 UTC »

I get being the first out LGBT person, but I'm pretty shocked that she's the first black person.

We've already had a black president, black SCOTUS justices, black high level cabinet members, etc. And press secretaries churn much more frequently than them. I'm pretty amazed there hasn't been a black press secretary before.

Edit: people confused saying "oh neat, the first time X" with thinking positions should somehow be race based.

You can think it's notable that a particular type of person is in a position without thinking that attribute is somehow a key component of the position.

WittyWitWitt on May 6th, 2022 at 13:33 UTC »

Is jen psaki (sp?) not the press Secretary?