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Dem Vice-President Candidate Walz Has Always Been An ally to LGBTQ Teens

The late ‘90s and early 2000s were a rough time to be a gay teen. Don’t Ask Don’t Tell was still in effect, the U.S. was many years away from the Supreme Court legalizing same-sex marriage, Mathew Shepard was murdered in a horrific anti-gay hate crime that made national headlines in 1998, homophobic jokes were the norm on TV, and LGBTQ+ students were being harassed at schools all across the country.

Today, we are living through a moment when history is being made by a woman of color becoming the Democratic nominee for president of the United States for the first time — and by Kamala Harris' side is Democratic vice-presidential candidate Tim Walz, who has been breaking down barriers and standing up for the rights of the LGBTQ+ community since his days as a high school teacher in the '90s.

It was during this turbulent period that gay attorney and LGBTQ+ rights activist Jacob Reitan attended Mankato West High School in a Minnesota suburb where Walz taught social studies and coached the football team.

“I did receive a fair bit of bullying,” Reitan told PRIDE. “My house was egged, my car window was smashed in the school parking lot, gay epithets were chalked in my driveway, a brick was thrown through my dad’s office window.”

Born out of his “activist spirit” and his desire to come out of the closet and stop the bullying, Reitan founded his school’s first Gay Straight Alliance in 1999 with the help of the man who is now delivering stump speeches alongside presidential hopeful Harris.

When Mankato West High School principal John Barnett suggested Walz for the role of GSA faculty advisor, Reitan knew he’d be the right fit because of how accepting both Walz and his wife Gwen — who was also a dedicated high school teacher at the time — had always been. In fact, Gwen Walz was the third person Reitan ever told he was gay after first coming out to his sister and a close friend.

“Gwen was my teacher in the 10th grade, and [she] started her 10th-grade class by saying, ‘This is a safe space for LGBTQ+ people.’ I’d never heard a teacher say positive things about gay people from the front of the classroom,” he said.

Starting a group for LGBTQ+ students and their allies in a small city in the Midwest during the late '90s was no easy feat, but choosing the ultimate All-American teacher to lead it turned out to be a brilliant decision.

GayTies.com is strongly supporting the Democratic ticket of Kamala Harris and Tim Walz. We encourage all of you to vote to support LGBTQ rights by voting for Harris and Walz. (9/3)