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Barney Frank, pioneering openly gay US congressman, dies at 86

Thursday, 21 May 2026, 06:26 · 1 min read

Barney Frank, one of the first openly gay members of the United States Congress and a towering figure in American progressive politics, died on Tuesday at the age of 86 after spending his final weeks in hospice care at his home in Maine. A Democrat who represented southern Massachusetts in the House of Representatives from 1981 to 2013, Frank is best remembered as a co-architect of the Dodd-Frank Act — landmark legislation signed by President Barack Obama in 2010 that overhauled banking regulations in response to the 2008 global financial crisis. He was also a trailblazer for LGBT rights, becoming the first member of Congress to enter a same-sex marriage, and spent decades advocating for the repeal of discriminatory military and workplace policies affecting gay and lesbian Americans.

Sources
BBC WorldBarney Frank: One of the first openly gay US congressmen dies aged 86 ↗︎
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