“I am not skilled enough or energetic enough to craft a persona. I just have to be who I am and hope people like it.”
Pete Buttigieg
Image is everything in politics. Elections are often won not based on a candidate’s position on the issues, but on what the voters think of the candidate. Many candidates have lost an election because of their race, their gender, their religion, or their sexual orientation. When Pete Buttigieg publicly came out as gay in 2015, he risked ruining his political career, a career for which he had been preparing his entire life.
Born and raised in South Bend, Indiana, Pete Buttigieg started preparing for a life in politics at an early age. His parents were both professors at the University of Notre Dame, so doing well in school and getting the proper education was always important. He was the valedictorian of his high school class before going to Harvard University where he majored in history and literature. After Harvard he got a Bachelor of Arts degree with first-class honours in philosophy, politics, and economics from Oxford University, which he attended on a Rhodes Scholarship.
During this time Buttigieg was involved in various competitions and clubs that would enhance his political resume. He won the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum’s Profiles in Courage essay competition with his essay on the integrity and political courage of Bernie Sanders, who at the time was serving as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives. At Harvard he became the president of the Student Advisory Committee of the Harvard Institute of Politics. At Oxford he became an editor of the Oxford International Review as well as co-founding the Democratic Renaissance Project. After college he worked on several political campaigns for various candidates, including John Kerry’s 2004 Presidential Campaign.
After an unsuccessful run for Indiana State Treasurer, Buttigieg ran for mayor of his hometown of South Bend, Indiana in 2011. He won that election with 74% of the vote. He spent the next several years working to reinvigorate South Bend. His impressive accomplishments as mayor brought him quite a bit of notoriety. It looked as if there was no limit to what he could do in politics.
Then in 2015, shortly before the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Obergefell v. Hodges, the ruling that guaranteed same-sex couples the right to marry, Buttigieg did something very uncharacteristic of his mid-western desire to keep personal things private. He wrote an essay that was published in the South Bend Tribune’s Voices page. The essay, Why Coming Out Matters not only publicly declared that he is gay, but it explained that he did so to help other people who may be struggling to deal with their own sexuality. He felt LGBTQ youth needed role models that they could look up to. In a conservative state like Indiana, that declaration could have very easily shattered any hopes of winning reelection or any other election.
In spite of the very real threat to his career, Buttigieg felt it was necessary to be true to who he is. He has said in other interviews that he felt it was time to be open about his sexuality because he wanted to find a partner he could love and share his life with. He found that partner when he met Chasten Glezman, a junior high school teacher. The two men were married in 2018 and in 2021 they welcomed a son and a daughter into their home.
Buttigieg’s courage to be open about his sexuality didn’t have the fatal blow to his life in politics like many had predicted. He ran for president of the United States in 2020, being the first openly gay candidate to win electoral delegates. Although he had success in some of the early primaries, when it became evident that he wouldn’t win the Democratic party’s nomination, he gracefully bowed out of the election and endorsed Joe Biden. When Biden won the presidency, he appointed Pete Buttigieg as the Secretary of Transportation. Buttigieg became the first openly gay person to serve as a member of the President’s Cabinet.
“I don’t think I’ve ever done this before, but he [Pete Buttigieg] reminds me of my son Beau. I know that may not mean much to most people, but to me, it’s the highest compliment I can give to any man or woman. Like Beau, he has a backbone like a ramrod.”
President Joe Biden