Credit: Dangerous Minds / Gage Skidmore / Album Cover

For a song about young men feeling free to express themselves at a place where you can meet other young men, sung by a moustachioed gentleman dressed like a go-go dancer, it can be easy to miss the gayness at the heart of the Village People’s deathless hit ‘Y.M.C.A’, at least at first. After all, this is the first disco song many people have ever heard.

Its maddeningly catchy chorus and simple dance moves have made it a school disco staple ever since its release in 1978. The vast majority of kids hearing it for the first time would probably not understand the references to gay culture embedded in its very soul. The album it’s from is titled Cruisin’, for Christ’s sake. However, then you (hopefully) grow up. Then you actually engage with the art you consume, and you realise what the song actually means and who it actually speaks to. Again, hopefully.

Maybe that’s a pipe dream, though, because the person that ‘Y.M.C.A’ is most associated with these days is one Donald John Trump, who, over the past six years, seems to have made ‘Y.M.C.A’ a MAGA anthem. This curious phenomenon began way back when Trump began hosting his rallies in 2015, and the soundtrack to all these congregations began making waves for two reasons. First, how broad they were, everything from Motown to jock jams to hair metal and everything in between. Secondly, for how unlicensed they were.

I don’t know why we were surprised, stealing shit comes second nature to Trump, but at the time, the artists seemed scandalised. Many of them took Trump to task for using their music without permission, including Victor Willis, lead singer of The Village People. By 2020, Trump had begun this bizarre ritual of ending his rallies by dancing on stage to ‘Y.M.C.A’, presumably to show how much fitter and more active he was than his opponent, Joe Biden.

Willis was one of the many artists who demanded that Trump stop using his work to promote his politics. At least, he was at first.

Why did Trump keep using ‘Y.M.C.A’?

You see, the Village People have often shied away from being known as a “gay band”. In their minds, they were pop stars first and foremost. They were for everyone, happy to do Pepsi adverts and make the 1994 World Cup anthem for the German National Football Team (it’s called ‘Far Away in America‘ and it’s much worse than you think). Yet despite that, being used in Trump rallies was a step too far… until suddenly it wasn’t.

There’s actually something weirdly admirable in how completely Willis owned up to selling out in a Facebook post he made in December 2024. He wrote, “The financial benefits have been great, YMCA is estimated to gross several million dollars since the President-elect’s continued use of the song. Therefore, I’m glad I allowed the President-elect’s continued use of YMCA. And I thank him for choosing to use my song.”

At least he wasn’t throwing out some meekly mouthed platitudes about “displays of unity” and how “music should be for everyone”. He got paid, end of story.

Thus, this song about bottoming for bicurious Gym bros in a dark shower cubicle at 3am gets the worst second life it possibly could. A group that began life showing that queerness was nothing to be afraid of literally dancing for a regime actively trying to kneecap the very progress they stood for. Except that if you ask them, they weren’t standing for anything. Willis and his wife (I know!!!) actively threatened people who called ‘Y.M.C.A’ a “gay anthem” with legal action, showing the world the horrible truth of the matter.

They were simply pop stars, their morals available to the highest bidder.