THE ADVOCATE: Clinton’s pioneering ways have, of course, met with fierce resistance in the past. Her detractors are legion, and many people simply hate her for being a powerful woman. The animosity is such that as soon as her husband was inaugurated in 1993, rumors started circulating that she was a lesbian, Lattimore recalls. “Where that came from, I just could never figure out,” he says. “It was so ridiculous.” One man would call the press office repeatedly, posing as a reporter for different newspapers, seeking comment on his scoop that Clinton was gay. Lattimore eventually transferred him to the Secret Service, letting them deal with him.
“I never talked to Mrs. Clinton about it, but we had to be responsive to that question in a way that didn’t make it sound like being a lesbian was a bad thing,” he says. “No, she’s not a lesbian, move on. Next story.”
If she wasn’t aware of the speculation then, she surely heard about it when author Edward Klein brought
it to the surface in his 2005 smear job The Truth About Hillary, in which he dubiously asserted that “the culture of lesbianism has influenced Hillary’s political goals and personal life since she was a student at Wellesley.”
No one is ever courteous enough to ask Clinton directly how she feels about the lesbian chatter. So I do.
“People say a lot of things about me, so I really don’t pay any attention to it,” she responds. “It’s not true, but it is something that I have no control over. People will say what they want to say.” MORE
