In a viral post, transgender author alleges anti-LGBTQ+ senator Lindsey Graham hired her for sex work

This story originally appeared on Them.After longtime U.S. Republican Senator Lindsey Graham died on Saturday night, reportedly from aortic dissection, the reaction from the LGBTQ+ community was immediate.The South Carolina Republican had served in the U.S. Senate since 2003, spending his final years as a loyalist to President Donald Trump despite having run against him in the 2016 Republican primary. Throughout his tenure, Graham was a staunch opponent to the advancement of LGBTQ+ civil rights, opposing marriage equality; advocating against the 2011 repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” a policy which required military service members to hide their sexuality; and voting against workplace discrimination protections. On transgender rights, specifically, Graham supported state-level bans on gender-affirming care for minors. The bitter irony of this record is that Graham spent much of his political career denying rumors and speculation about his own sexual orientation — a task that became more difficult in the social media age.Indeed, some young queer people weren’t made aware of the senator’s death via a push notification from a publication. Instead, a now-viral Instagram post from trans author and actress Jesse James Rose, in which she details an alleged experience of being paid by Graham for sex work prior to her gender transition, while she attended college, ended up inadvertently being the way many found out about the politician’s passing. The author attended New York University and holds a degree in Music Theatre and Child & Adolescent Mental Health Studies, according to her bio. Them has reached out to Rose for comment. “Most of you know him as the homophobic Senator from South Carolina but to me he will always be the man who paid a twinky pre-transition college student a fat stack of cash to do unspeakable things to him in a hotel room while he wore red lingerie,” the Sorry I Keep Crying During Sex author wrote in the three-slide post, accompan