Tim Walz helped make Minnesota an LGBTQ ‘refuge.’ Could he do the same for America?

Minnesota’s Democratic Gov. Tim Walz, who’s emerged as a top contender for Vice President Harris’s running mate, helped turn Minnesota into a refuge for LGBTQ Americans, signing laws that shield access to gender-affirming health care and abortion, ban conversion therapy and make it illegal for libraries to ban books solely because they have LGBTQ themes or characters.

Under Walz’s leadership, Minnesota has solidified itself as a liberal stronghold in the largely conservative Midwest, though the governor has long supported progressive issues like LGBTQ equality.

In 1999, Walz, then a 35-year-old social studies teacher at Mankato West High School, advised the school’s first gay-straight alliance (GSA), a student-led club supporting LGBTQ students and families. Later, in 2006, Walz ousted a longtime Republican member of Congress in a largely rural district, running on a platform that included support for same-sex marriage, which the state banned in 1997.

“It wasn’t a popular position at the time for a red-district Democrat. It didn’t score him any political points. But he stood up for families like mine because he believed it was the right thing to do,” Rep. Angie Craig (D-Minn.), one of 12 out LGBTQ members of Congress, wrote on the social platform X last month in endorsing Walz for vice president. “His bravery made a difference in my life and the lives of thousands of Minnesotans – and it’s a bravery that would make our country better.”

In Congress, Walz advocated for the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” a military policy that barred gays and lesbians from serving openly. “Not once did I see that this nation was safer because a soldier was removed because of sexual orientation,” Walz, who spent 24 years in the Army National Guard, said in a 2009 House floor speech. That same year, he facilitated the passage of the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, a landmark law signed by former President Barack Obama that protects against crimes motivated by anti-LGBTQ animus.

Walz was an early supporter of the Respect for Marriage Act, a proposal to codify same-sex and interracial couples’ right to marry that Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) introduced in 2009. President Biden signed the measure into law in 2022.

“Tim, just as an individual, has had a long-standing commitment to inclusion as a general value,” said Kat Rohn, executive director of OutFront Minnesota, a state LGBTQ rights group.

Rohn, whose organization worked with Walz and the state Legislature to ban conversion therapy — a discredited practice that aims to change a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity — in Minnesota last year, said she sees Walz as an opportunity for LGBTQ people, and transgender people in particular, to have their voices heard and their needs met.

“That carries a lot of weight,” she said. “Even if a vice president isn’t necessarily driving every piece of a policy agenda, to have somebody who is unapologetically supportive of the community, who will stand for the community and has signed bills into law that really pushed the needle forward nationally, makes a huge difference.”

Walz, who has served as governor of Minnesota since 2019, in a March 2023 executive order made the state among the first to protect seekers and providers of gender-affirming health care from prosecution by states with bans in effect. The following month, Walz signed legislation safeguarding access to care.

On both occasions, Walz held signing ceremonies at the state capitol in St. Paul, where he was flanked by supporters. While signing his executive order, Walz held the hand of 12-year-old Hildie Edwards, a transgender girl who testified in support of the state’s trans refuge bill in February.

“Governor Walz didn’t just rubber-stamp pro-LGBTQ legislation, he held celebrations and celebratory signings for things like the trans refuge bill that some governors might sign quietly,” said Rohn, of OutFront Minnesota. “That’s a really important quality for LGBTQ folks to see, that this is not something that is just necessary, but it’s something to celebrate and something that can be a winning issue.”

“Tim Walz has definitely showcased what is possible. He’d be a great asset to the ticket,” said Sean Meloy, vice president of political programs at the LGBTQ+ Victory Fund, which works to elect more LGBTQ people to public office.

Walz’s Democratic competitors — Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly and Govs. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania and Andy Beshear of Kentucky — also have strong positive records on LGBTQ rights, Meloy noted. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, who is also being considered for Harris’s running mate, could be the nation’s first gay vice president.

“No matter what, we’re going to have a great ally,” Meloy said, adding that support for LGBTQ rights will likely play well politically in November.

Most voters support federal nondiscrimination protections for LGBTQ people, recent polling shows, and more than 50 percent of voters surveyed by the LGBTQ media advocacy organization GLAAD in March said they oppose political candidates who speak frequently about restricting the rights of transgender Americans, specifically.

Former President Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, and his running mate, Ohio Republican Sen. JD Vance, have backed policies targeting transgender Americans, including a federal law recognizing only two genders, which would effectively end the legal recognition of trans people in the U.S. Trump has also promised to outlaw gender-affirming health care for transgender minors, ban trans student-athletes from competing on teams that match their gender identity and cut federal funding for schools that accommodate transgender students.

While Walz appears to be viewed favorably by LGBTQ Americans, he’s drawn backlash. In June, Mary Moriarty, a Minnesota county attorney, accused Walz of differential treatment because of her sexual orientation. That claim was quickly rebuffed by the governor and his allies, including Rohn, Craig and Rep. Dean Phillips (D-Minn.).

“He’s very open-spirited, very generously spirited. He asks questions about you, and he remembers the answers. He encourages me,” said Minnesota Rep. Leigh Finke, a Democrat and the first openly transgender person elected to the state’s Legislature.

Finke, the author and primary sponsor of Minnesota’s trans refuge bill, said Walz was a source of moral support last year, when Finke was the target of a nationwide pressure campaign led by far-right conservatives, who falsely claimed the bill would allow children to medically transition without parental consent and promoted the baseless claim that Finke and other trans people were “grooming” children to abuse them.

Transgender people from all corners of the U.S. — and the world — have fled to Minnesota since Walz signed Finke’s bill in April 2023. More than 40,000 transgender and nonbinary Americans surveyed by the National Center for Transgender Equality in 2022 said they had considered moving to another state because of anti-LGBTQ legislation, including restrictive laws curtailing access to gender-affirming health care for minors — and adults, in some cases. Five percent, or roughly 4,500 people, said they had already moved.

In March, Erik Beda, a transgender Russian man, moved to Minneapolis after he and his partner were forced to divorce following Beda’s transition, the St. Paul Pioneer Press reported in April. Russia, which has increasingly adopted laws and policies hostile to LGBTQ people, does not recognize same-sex unions.

The evening after the Pioneer Press story ran, Walz texted Finke a link to the article. “I’m grateful for your work and decency,” Walz wrote in an accompanying message, which Finke shared with The Hill.

“It was a very powerful moment for me to see that, not only was he supporting us when we were in the House and I was publicly being targeted, but he was also thinking about the work we were doing on some night when he was just at home. That, to me, says a lot about the kind of person he is,” Finke said.

“I’m very concerned about a future where trans people get left behind,” she added. “We’re a small community, and we have needs that need to be met. With a Harris-Walz administration, I don’t worry that trans people get forgotten.”