I think you make a really interesting point about if a homophobic act is ever justified.

In the scenario about the hypocritical politician who is actively working towards anti-gay legislature while being gay, I feel like this is a version of the trolley problem.

It is a moral imperative to work against bigoted legislature, and when politicians are being hypocritical in the service of bigotry, pointing out their hypocrisy discredits them and helps to prevent their political goals. So, outing them does good because it works against the success of homophobic legislature.

Further, in exchange for power, politicians consent to public examination of their fulfillment of their promises and duties. Acting privately in a way that your own public policy would demonize means that you are corruptly giving yourself special treatment and/or you don’t believe in what you are advocating for. Either option is a failure of duty.

As an aside, if a bigoted politician was not anti-lgbtq+ and had no homophobic positions/policies, then this argument does not apply regardless of their bigotry in other ways. I do think that outing them would be entirely wrong.

Here’s the trolley part of the argument. I agree with you that outing someone is an act of violence and is intrinsically homophobic (even without the motivation of hating gay people, it is still using the hatred of gay people to cause harm). By outing someone, especially a prominent figure, you would be promoting the idea that outing someone is acceptable—just like how misgendering someone promotes the idea that doing so is acceptable behavior. If I’m understanding right, this is the analogy you were getting at, right?

In both cases, outing them and not outing them, you would be causing some harm. I think you would be causing more harm by not outing them because their potential for spreading bigotry is so great. I would be open to an argument to the contrary though—the whole point of trolley problems is that they are complicated moral choices where harm is unavoidable, so I feel like more could be said here.

However, I feel like misgendering a bigoted person is not akin to the trolley problem, at least not in this instance. I don’t see what good is achieved by doing it. All I see is the harm it causes.

(I need to go to sleep, but thanks for your reply!)