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It was 1999.
The previous year, Matthew Shepard, just 21, had been beaten, tortured, and left to die on a fence post in Laramie, Wyoming because he was openly-gay.
I had just turned 12 in Central Texas, and as a closeted trans girl—very much in the closet—I was terrified by what I saw in the news. I couldn’t talk about it to the adults in my life. I just knew it wasn’t safe to be me.
And so did millions of closeted LGBTQ youth around the country.
About a 14-hour drive from Laramie—in Mankato, Minnesota—a 35 year-old social studies teacher was starting his third year at the local high school.
His name was Tim Walz.
He had grown up in a tight, rural family and earned a degree in social studies education and went to grad school for educational leadership.
He had been serving in the Army National Guard as a senior sergeant for nearly two decades by that point. He was a coach for the football team.
He would help lead his team to a state championship that season, and it was only the second most impressive thing he would do that year.
A gay student was being bullied and wanted to start a chapter of the gay-straight student alliance (GSA). Mr. Walz didn’t hesitate to take on the role of faculty advisor.
Why?
“It really needed to be the football coach, who was the soldier and was straight and was married,” he said.
This was only three years after same-sex marriage had been banned, over a decade before openly-gay-lesbian-and-bisexual troops were permitted to serve, a decade and a half before the Supreme Court would enshrine marriage equality.
At the time, according to Gallup, most of the country thought being openly-LGBTQ was morally wrong, to say nothing of whether or not LGBTQ marriages should be legal.
He wasn’t running for any office (and wouldn’t for another seven years). He had nothing to personally gain in a socially conservative part of a country that was already opposed to LGBTQ equality.
But he did it, anyway. He didn’t want LGBTQ students to feel alone and afraid.
I have to admit to you all that I’m tearing up while I write this because I would have given anything to have an adult in my life tell me at that time: You are not alone, and I am in your corner.
When he became Governor of Minnesota two decades later, Mr. Walz had no time or patience for those attacking LGBTQ people in his state.
He signed bills banning conversion therapy, protecting access to gender-affirming care, and stood tall against bigotry.
Under his leadership, Minnesota has codified abortion rights, legalized cannabis, required paid family leave, mandated universal background checks for firearms, banned noncompete agreements for workers, and introduced universal free meals for hungry schoolchildren.
He has done all of this while offering a common sense approach to governing: meeting people where they are, having hard conversations, and fighting to ensure no one gets left behind.
It is no surprise to me that Vice President Harris chose Mr. Walz as her running mate this morning.
I want go back to 1999 and tell that 12 year-old closeted girl that someday she’ll get to vote for yet another ticket with two leaders who don’t back down when it comes to protecting all Americans from violence and discrimination, regardless of who they are or who they love.
I can’t wait to vote for Vice President Harris and Governor Walz.
Y'all, we got a winning ticket. And I'm talking the possibility of a landslide, if we put our hearts into this.
VP Harris and Gov. Walz are THAT ticket.
Let's make it abundantly clear where we stand.
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Let’s go win the future. We got this.
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