Now that Tim Walz is officially Kamala Harris’ pick for vice president, everyone’s digging into the Minnesota governor’s past. That includes a chapter from his teaching career in Mankato, Minnesota, when Walz took a stand for queer students.

In 1999 — after the Clinton administration had enacted the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy and banned same-sex marriage through the Defense of Marriage Act — a gay student at Walz’s high school wanted to start a GSA, or gay-straight alliance.

Politically, the nation wasn’t friendly toward queer folks, and Walz, both the high school’s football coach and an enlisted soldier in the Minnesota National Guard, seemed like a left-field choice to be their champion. But Walz defied stereotypes and became the GSA’s faculty advisor.

“It really needed to be the football coach, who was the soldier and was straight and was married,” Walz recalled to the Star Tribune during his campaign for governor in 2018.

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Walz’s support meant the world to queer students at the time, said Jacob Reitan, who attended the high school when Walz was a teacher. 

“There was no mandate to do this,” Reitan said. “It was one teacher saying I know kids are suffering in the silent closet of fear and misunderstanding. What an important moment that was for me.”

Now, Walz’s decades-old choice to stand up for queer students is having the same impact on LGBTQ+ folks across America, who are hopeful that Walz will be a vocal ally to the queer community if he’s elected vice president.

Check out Walz’s complete track record on LGBTQ+ issues on our sister site LGBTQ Nation.

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