Sasha Obama said her father, former U.S. President Barack Obama, is gay and her mother, Michelle Obama, is a trans woman.
A rumor that the younger daughter of former U.S. President Barack Obama, Sasha Obama, said her father was gay and her mother, Michelle Obama, was a trans woman spread in May 2026.
For example, an X user shared the rumor (archived) on May 21, 2026, purporting to quote Sasha Obama as saying "We have always known that we have two dads. The First Lady' thing was a fraud meant to cover up my father Barack's sexual orientation and my father Mike's biological gender." (People spreading the false claim that Michelle Obama is trans often refer to her as "Mike.")
The claims about Barack and Michelle Obama weren't new. Snopes has debunked rumors of the former president's alleged homosexuality since at least 2015, and his wife's gender identity since at least 2023. However, some users seemed to interpret the rumor about Sasha Obama as true, and Snopes readers contacted us to investigate its legitimacy.
The post about Sasha Obama cited a purported New York Times story as making these revelations. A search on the Times site turned up no such article. To further investigate the rumor's legitimacy, we also used search engines such as DuckDuckGo, Google and Yahoo. If Sasha Obama had said such things about her parents, reputable news outlets, such as The Associated Press or Reuters, would have reported on it, and our searches would have uncovered such evidence.
That was...
Sasha Obama said her father, former U.S. President Barack Obama, is gay and her mother, Michelle Obama, is a trans woman. A rumor that the younger daughter of former U.S. President Barack Obama, S...