Tim Walz Has Spent Decades Championing LGBTQ+ Rights

 

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz

By Lil Kalish

When Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz introduced himself at a rally Tuesday night — his first public appearance since becoming Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris’ running mate — he imparted a bit of Midwestern wisdom to the Philadelphia crowd.

“In Minnesota, we respect our neighbors and their personal choice that they make,” he said. “Even if we wouldn’t make the same choice for ourselves, there’s a golden rule: Mind your own damn business.”

Walz, a former high school teacher, football coach and military veteran, has upheld these values of personal freedom as a core tenet during his two stints as governor, signing laws to protect access to gender-affirming care and abortion, to ban conversion therapy and to block libraries from banning books that include LGBTQ+ characters.

Last year, Walz issued an executive order to safeguard trans people’s ability to receive gender-affirming care. The order protected out-of-state patients, their families and medical providers from being punished by other states for seeking that care. He did so just as a slew of nearby Republican-led states, including North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska and Iowa, enacted laws banning gender-affirming care for minors.

Soon after, Walz signed a law with broad protections that supporters said would make Minnesota a “trans refuge.” The legislation barred the use of subpoenas to investigate doctors providing gender-affirming care for their patients. It also allowed Minnesota courts to assert “temporary emergency jurisdiction” if a minor has come from another state to obtain gender-affirming care.

Together, these policies have made Minnesota an attractive option for many families of transgender youth and other LGBTQ+ families that are living in other states. In 2023, a record number of bills were introduced barring access to gender-affirming care for minors and the ability of trans kids to participate in school sports or use school restrooms and facilities because of their gender identity.

See: Trump attacks Tim Walz as ‘very into the transgender’