FBI Director Wray leads diversity training with White House official with famed pentagram tattoo

Two years after the FBI allegedly pulled a mandatory "sexual orientation and gender identity" course amid negative reviews from employees, the bureau incentivized employees to attend its Pride Month event – featuring a White House official known for his pentagram tattoo and pentagram-shaped leather harness – by offering credit toward mandatory training.

FBI whistleblower Steve Friend, who resigned from the bureau this year amid months of unpaid leave for a security clearance review he deemed retaliatory, posted a screenshot of a bureau-wide email dated June 1 that invited all FBI employees to attend the June 6 event, in person or virtually.

It's sponsored by the FBI's Office of Diversity and Inclusion and led by Director Chris Wray, according to the screenshot. The speaker is the deputy coordinator for national monkeypox response Demetre Daskalakis, who will discuss "the importance of LGBT+ [sic] visibility in the government and health care industry." The White House confirmed to Just the News that Daskalakis was the speaker.

Conservatives were quick to note upon Daskalakis'  appointment in August that he repeatedly shows off symbols associated with Satanism in personal and professional capacities.

He wore the leather harness in a photo exposing his chest, with its tattoo, for New York City's 2021 pride parade. Daskalakis wore the same outfit in a cover profile of "the CDC's unconventional new HIV czar" for HIV Plus Magazine in February 2021.

Billed by the FBI as a "national expert" on LGBT+ health issues whose clinical practice focuses on care for "underserved" members of that community, Daskalakis routinely appears shirtless – and occasionally, pants-less – on his Instagram profile. 

He told Politico he's not a Satanist and that his voluminous "thirst trap" photos are just to show off the work he put into his tattoos and exercise. Daskalakis also has a Jesus tattoo on his stomach.

Friend told Just the News he was informed by an employee at the event Tuesday that Wray gave Daskalakis a "certificate of appreciation," later confirmed by a screenshot, and that the White House official deemed the word monkeypox "racist." The World Health Organization shortened the term to "mpox" last fall for the same reason.

Wray honoring Daskalakis "makes it obvious why they're trying to shut down traditional Catholics having Latin Mass and treating disgruntled parents at school board meetings like domestic terrorists," Trump administration Assistant Attorney General Jeff Clark tweeted, referring to widely criticized proposals for investigation within the bureau.

The FBI appears much less eager than Daskalakis to show off its body of work. Just the News could not find a website for its 10-year-old Office of Diversity and Inclusion or a link to the webcast. 

An FBI diversity jobs page briefly mentions the work of the office but focuses on "diversity agent recruitment" events, "diversity advisory committees" such as LGBT-focused Bureau Equality that employees can join and "employee resource groups" that also serve employees by race, sex and sexual orientation. 

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FBI Director Chris Wray and White House monkeypox coordinator Demetre Daskalakis

Steve Friend

The page lists Scott McMillion as its "former" chief diversity officer, a position created two years ago. But he's still listed as the current CDO on the FBI's leadership page. A former FBI special agent blasted the DACs and ERGs as "gratuitous DEI efforts," in a recent New York Post column.

An FBI receptionist took a message from Just the News on Tuesday morning regarding seeking access to the webcast. And Just the News separately sought the webcast and website for the office in an email to the FBI national press office. The bureau did not provide answers to either.

Friend initially told Just the News he expected the video to remain saved on the bureau's internal servers, since it qualifies as training credit and that he was hoping to obtain clips from his sources. Hours after the event ended it was not available on demand, Friend said he learned.

A previous FBI stab at mandatory diversity training, in spring 2021, got such a bad reception the bureau stopped requiring it within two months, according to fellow FBI whistleblower Kyle Seraphin, known for revealing the intelligence product that portrayed some Roman Catholics as radical extremists worthy of investigation.

The sexual orientation and gender identity training received "incredibly significant amounts of negative feedback" in the FBI's five-star rating system and comment forms for employee feedback, Seraphin told Just the News. He refused to take the training, expecting to get a "wrist slap," but nothing happened to him or others who resisted, he said.

Seraphin shared with Just the News a 56-page scanned rendering of the online course, which he said was hosted on unclassified FBI servers at the time. It was also sponsored by the diversity office and created "with assistance" from Bureau Equality. The Daily Caller reported some of the content in December.

It purports to demonstrate "proper conduct" in the office related to "LGBT+ employees" but overwhelmingly focuses on transgender and gender identity issues and minimizes sexual orientation.

The course implies sex is subjectively determined by using terms such as "assigned at birth" and describes sexual orientation through the lens of gender identity. It says women who are attracted to men, but identify as men, are gay – the opposite of the conventional understanding of sexual orientation.

Employees must not refer to individual transgender colleagues as "a transgender" or "transgendered," or ask questions about genitalia, surgeries, medical conditions and treatments, a person's "real name" or whether "you are in the right restroom." If they are transitioning, whether medically or socially, "treat it like a pregnancy."

The training tells employees to volunteer their pronouns to make others comfortable in stating their own and asks them to report to human resources as harassment "repeated, intentional refusal" to use a colleague's "chosen name and pronoun."

It warns them against silence, however, saying that making a "mistake" in service of inclusivity is better. Employees should intervene when they hear colleagues use "inappropriate" language toward an LGBT+ policy, such as telling them "that's not funny."

A gray-area term is "queer," the training states, citing its "generational significance" – older groups have experienced it as a slur, while some younger groups have adopted it. "Mirror the language a person uses" about themselves and "use good judgment!" the document states.