Grindr’s Party Is the Hottest Ticket at D.C. Media’s Big Weekend

The White House Correspondents’ Association dinner may be the media industry’s buzziest night, but the hottest ticket this weekend isn’t at the dinner itself. It’s the blowout party the night before, thrown by a popular gay dating app, Grindr — and it has attracted so many RSVPs from Republicans and Democrats alike that the app was forced to close its guest list last week.The Friday night bash will unfold at a $9 million Georgetown mansion and promises to gather “policymakers, journalists, and LGBTQ community leaders” to “toast the First Amendment,” according to the invitation. Grindr’s head of global government affairs, Joe Hack, called the interest level “insane,” telling Politico that RSVPs had rolled in from “very high level people from both sides.”Author James Kirchick, whose book “Secret City,” issued in 2022, chronicled Washington’s hidden gay history, sees the fete as a sign of the times. “That a party sponsored by a gay hookup app is shaping up to be the most exclusive event of White House Correspondents Dinner weekend illustrates just how far the nation’s capital has come from the days when J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI was rooting homosexuals out of government,” he tells the Sun.The event comes as the dating app has pushed to establish itself as a player in Washington and, specifically, in the Trump White House. Mr. Hack stated that Grindr “represents a global community with real stakes in Washington,” among them HIV funding, privacy, and gay rights.“Nobody does connections like Grindr and WHCD weekend is the most iconic place in the country to make them. We figured it was time to host,” he added. Grindr has reportedly spent $1.6 million on lobbying since April 2025, with a particular focus on HIV prevention funding. Lobbying disclosures show that Grindr specifically targeted a Trump-backed bill that would have slashed $400 million from a global HIV–AIDS program launched under President Bush. The administration eventually backed down. Much of that Washington offensive can be credited to Grindr’s chief executive, George Arison, who took over in 2022. A self-identified conservative, Mr. Arison has said he wants the app to welcome people of all political affiliations and has insisted that the company has no desire to wade into partisan politics.The party’s bipartisan guest list reflects the unusual alliance between the White House and the gay community, even as the administration has pursued policies to align the federal government with stricter definitions of sex which have been criticized by LGBTQ advocacy groups. The administration has also appointed several openly gay men to prominent roles, including the former acting director of national intelligence, Richard Grenell, and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. In 2025 Mr. Bessent became the first openly gay Senate-confirmed Cabinet member in a Republican administration. There is no word on whether Mr. Bessent or Mr. Grenell will be in attendance on Friday.________This dispatch has been updated from the bulldog to include the comment from Mr. Kirchick.

Grindr’s Party Is the Hottest Ticket at D.C. Media’s Big Weekend

Grindr’s Party Is the Hottest Ticket at D.C. Media’s Big Weekend

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