Lesbian Farmer Conspiracy

Submission 27,911

Part of a series on Conspiracy Theories. [View Related Entries]

About

The Lesbian Farmer Conspiracy is a theory put forth by American conservative radio personality Rush Limbaugh which alleges that the United States government has been quietly subsidizing a rural settlement program for "lesbian farmers" to relocate to rural states traditionally affiliated with the Republican party ("Red States") in order to swing their votes in favor of the Democratic party.

Origin

On August 16th, 2016, conservative blog the Washington Free Beacon^[1] published an article about an upcoming summit held by the U.S. Department of Agriculture to discuss LGBT people in rural America. The piece suggested that the summit would "teach lesbian and transgender hillbillies how to get subsidies from the government like rural housing loans and 'community facility grants.'"

Spread

The day after the article was published, Rush Limbaugh took to his radio show to proclaim that President Barack Obama's administration has been trying to send lesbians to rural states to make them more left-leaning.^[3] “Here comes the Obama regime with a bunch of federal money and they’re waving it around,” he said. “And all you gotta do to get it is be a lesbian and want to be a farmer and they’ll set you up… They’re going after every geographic region that is known to be largely conservative. They never stop, folks. They are constantly on the march.”

The story began spreading on August 23rd, 2016, when The Daily Dot^[2] and New York Magazine^[4] picked it up. Soon after, The New York Daily News,^[5] Salon,^[6] and more published articles about Limbaugh's conspiracy.

Online and LGBT Community Reaction

The instantly drew the mockery from comedians and the LGBT community. On Wednesday, August 24th, Los Angeles comedian and pianist Kathryn Lounsbery improvised and recorded a trailer to a 15-act musical called "Lesbian Farmers!" with songs like "Gay for Hay" and "I'm A-tractor-ed to You." She posted the video to Facebook,^[7] where it has gained 2,900 likes and 6,800 shares as of August 29th, 2016.

In Iowa, the Des Moines-based company Raygun began making shirts that read "America Needs Lesbian Farmers."^[8] Both Lounsbery's musical and Raygun's shirts were covered by The Daily Dot^[9] on August 25th, 2016.