The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) briefed US President Donald Trump on the possibility that Iran's new Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei could be gay, the president confirmed in a Thursday interview with FOX News.
“They did say that,” Trump said, confirming a report by the New York Post earlier in March. He did not elaborate on the intelligence’s reliability.
"A lot of people are saying that," Trump further noted, adding that the alleged claims regarding Khamenei's sexual orientation "puts him off to a bad start in that particular country."
In Iran, where same-sex relations are criminalized and can carry the death penalty, the Islamic regime has long been accused of systematic persecution of Iran's LGBTQ+ community.
Homophobia within Iran is state-sponsored, leaving gay Iranians to face systemic discrimination, abuse, and persecution. Conversion therapy, discredited by several international health organizations, is still promoted within Iran in several forms, with groups such as the US-based Center for Human Rights in Iran documenting cases of coercive treatment targeting gay individuals.
Furthermore, the Hengaw Organization for Human Rights classified Iran as a gender apartheid state in a May 2025 report, citing its “systemic discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, its enforcement of anti-queer ideology through legislation and state policy, and its structurally enforced gender segregation.”
'Treated like a criminal'
Most documented cases of executions of gay individuals in Iran per year amount to single digits or those in the low tens. However, experts say that homosexuals are usually tried on charges of sodomy and rape by the Islamic regime as a means of imposing the death penalty.
Nonetheless, reliable figures prove difficult to verify due to the lack of transparency in Iran. According to a 2008 British WikiLeaks cable, the Iranian regime has executed between 4,000 and 6,000 LGBTQ+ individuals since the 1979 revolution.
The Jerusalem Post has previously reported on several cases of persecution of homosexuals by the Islamic regime, including executions carried out in recent years.
In January 2022, it was reported that two men were executed in an Iranian prison, six years after their arrest, after being found guilty of charges related to homosexuality. In the same year, a gay man was one of 10 executed in Karaj under the label of sodomy.
Later in 2022, two Iranian activists of the LGBTQ+ community were sentenced to death by the Revolutionary Court of Urmia in a joint case on the charge of ‘Corruption on Earth’ through the promotion of homosexuality.”
“Being interrogated was a nightmare. They made fun of me, taunted me, and treated me like a criminal. Even soldiers who were supposed to be impartial joined in the abuse,” one Iranian shared with Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA), quoted in a 2024 report. “When I was finally taken to prison, I was so humiliated that I wanted to disappear.”
“The regime actively fuels animosity against us,” a second individual told HRANA. “They even burn our flag in government marches and use derogatory language to perpetuate negative stereotypes about us.”
“They exploit existing societal taboos to bolster their campaign of humiliation and oppression. This rhetoric reinforces deeply ingrained prejudices and strengthens the stigma surrounding our community.”