A City Journal report published Tuesday details California’s “gay-certification program” — and the state’s penalties for gayfishing (that is, pretending to be gay when one is not). 

Why would a California business owner pretend to be gay? Because California provides patronage to gay-owned businesses. 

California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) oversees privately owned utility companies, including “electric, natural gas, telecommunications, water, railroad, rail transit and passenger transportation companies.” (RELATED: California Knew This Was Coming. It Did Nothing.) 

Large utility companies are required to submit plans to “encourage, recruit, and utilize” businesses owned by non-whites, women, disabled veterans, and individuals who identify as LGBT.

Someone’s race can be fairly easily verified (Rachel Dolezal notwithstanding). As can their sex and veteran status. But how does California ensure that those claiming gay status are actually gay? 

City Journal points to Supplier Clearinghouse, a group that verifies the eligibility of minority/female/gay/veteran owned businesses for CPUC benefits.

Supplier Clearinghouse provides applicants several means of proving their gayness: a marriage license, joint living arrangement paperwork which names a same-sex partner, three reference letters from “personal contacts” who have known the applicant for over one year and can “vouch” for his gay status. 

Like most dudes, I would have no trouble finding three friends to call me gay on official letterhead https://t.co/BwY2zdTOhJ

— Geoffrey Ingersoll (@GPIngersoll) June 16, 2026

If the newspaper “explicitly” refers to your gayness, you can submit a copy of that article as proof of your homosexuality.

By far, the funniest evidence accepted by Supplier Clearinghouse is a “[p]hysician or attorney letter establishing LGBT status of owner.”

That is to say, a doctor’s note.

“Yeah, my back’s been bothering me lately. By the way, did I mention I’m a lesbian?”

There’s much to be gained by being gay, or pretending to be gay, in California. A business owner might be incentivized to go to the doctor, admit he’s been a deeply repressed bisexual all along, and profit. (RELATED: Jesse Watters Explains How ‘Gavin Newsom Could Be The First Woman President’) 

Not so fast. Any person who falsely represents a straight-owned business as a gay-owned business in the procurement of utility company contracts may face a $5000 fine, imprisonment in a county jail or prison for up to a year, or both.

Gay fraud is an international issue. 

I’m reminded of the United Kingdom’s ill-conceived asylum system, which gives special consideration to applicants who claim that they are gay and that returning to their native countries would result in persecution and death.

Migrants, with the help of immigration advisors, regularly pretend to be gay in order to gain residence in the United Kingdom, according to an excellent BBC investigation published in April. 

An undercover BBC reporter spoke to men at an “Eid Milan Party” organized by an LGBTQ+ asylum advocacy group. 

“Nobody is a gay here. Not even 1 percent are gay. Not even 0.01 percent are gay,” a man named Zeeshan told the BBC reporter.

Will California suffer a similar wave of gay fraud? I’m not sure. I doubt anything short of a lawsuit would cause California to abandon its blatantly discriminatory policies. If anything, rampant gay fraud would probably inspire California to pay some guy from the Castro a six-figure salary to go door to door performing Homosexual Confirmation Assessments.