The United States’ first openly gay congressman, Barney Frank, has died aged 86. With a long career of being a civil rights advocate, the “sharp tongued debater” faced much discrimination during his life. In his final interview given when he was in hospice, he expressed views on trans rights that some have strongly condemned.

At the end of his life, Frank suffered with congestive heart failure. This led to him entering hospice care until his passing on May 19, 2026. Born in New Jersey in 1940 to a Polish-Russian immigrant family, he would later go on to attend Harvard Law School.

Frank would also become the first congressman to marry someone of the same sex. He married his husband Jim Ready after same-sex marriage was legalised in 2012 in Massachusetts.

His political career was filled with hard battles and widespread discrimination. In 1980, Frank entered the US House of Representatives with a 52-48 vote, and in this first term he would represent the western and southern suburbs of Boston. In all the other 12 elections he faced between 1982 and 2008, he won with at least a 66% majority, one time with a 97% vote.

While he did not publicly come out of the closet until 1987, it was a known secret. In 1985, Frank hired male prostitute Steve Gobie to be his aide, housekeeper, and driver; he also paid for his attorney and court-ordered psychiatrist.

This relationship however ended in 1987, when Frank discovered Gobie had still been performing escort services without his knowledge. Gobie would then try to sell his story to multiple publications, eventually giving it for free to The Washington Post.

While this did stir up some controversy for the congressperson, he was again re-elected in 1990 with 66% of the vote. This was likely due in part to his presence in Congress, with The New York Times calling him “a sharp-tongued and quick witted debater”, but also to his championing of civil rights.

Some of the more notable moments in Frank’s career included his support in 1987 for reparations for Japanese-American Internment during World War 2, his 2006 co-sponsoring of the Compassionate Assistance for Rape Emergencies Act, which demanded emergency contraceptives for rape victims, and finally the introduction of the Ending Federal Marijuana Prohibition Act to remove marijuana from the Controlled Substances Act. 

In Frank’s own constituency during the mid 1970s, he was a staunch defender of the ‘Combat Zone’, Boston’s famous red-light district. Regarding this, he introduced a bill to the Massachusetts General Court that proposes legalising prostitution businesses but contained them to the zones like the Combat Zone. 

The congressman would face public discrimination from his peers, with Republican John Hostettler accusing him of having a “Radical homosexual agenda”. In 1995, Republican House Majority Leader Dick Armey referred to Frank as “Barney F##”, which he claimed was a “Slip of the tongue.” 

Showing off his sharp tongue, congressperson Frank replied to these attacks by saying, “I do want the right to marry the individual of our choice and the right to a job based solely on our own qualifications, I acknowledge that this is an agenda, but I do not think that any self-respecting radical in history would have considered this a terribly inspiring revolutionary platform.”

In a 2011 interview with The Boston Globe, the ex-congressperson said, “Prejudice is based on ignorance, and the best way to counterbalance it is with a living example, with reality.” 

In his final ever interview, which he gave from the hospice earlier this year, Barney Frank caused controversy for his comments on trans rights. He stated that Democrats should rethink their strategy around trans rights and used outdated language to refer to members of the trans community.

He also said that “in the interest of the transgender community, as well as others, it could be better to go at that in a more granular way, and not simply announce that if you don’t support it, you’re a homophobe”, stressing that even when he agrees with those goals, strategy matters.