Vice presidential candidate JD Vance speaks at his rally inside Middletown High School, Monday, July 22, 2024. The Ohio senator is the running mate of former President Donald Trump. Photo: Cara Owsley/The Enquirer / USA TODAY NETWORK via IMAGN
Years before Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) became one of Ohio’s U.S. senators and the Republican vice presidential nominee running with a staunchly anti-trans former president, he had a transgender classmate and friend that he met at Yale Law School. Her name was Sofia Nelson, and she recently shared about 90 email and text message exchanges between her and Vance from 2014 through 2017 with The New York Times.
Vance wrote about Nelson in his well-known 2016 memoir Hillbilly Elegy, referring to her as “an extremely progressive lesbian.” When Nelson underwent gender-affirming surgery, Vance wrote to her, “I don’t understand what you’re doing, but I support you.”
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In 2014, Vance wrote of the now-deceased anti-LGBTQ+ Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, “He’s become a very shrill old man. I used to really like him, and I used to believe all of his stuff about judicial minimalism was sincere. Now I see it as a political charade.”
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In October 2014, after white Ferguson, Missouri police officer Darren Wilson killed 18-year-old Black man Michael Brown, Vance wrote to Nelson, “I hate the police. Given the number of negative experiences I’ve had in the past few years, I can’t imagine what a Black guy goes through.”
In 2015, Vance said that the public flying of the Confederate flag — the flag flown by racist, pro-slavery Southern states during and after the Civil War — was ideologically connected to a white supremacist who killed nine people by shooting EmanuelAfrican Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina.
On June 28 of that year, he wished Nelson “Happy Pride,” adding, “I’m thinking of braving the crowds in S.F. just to people watch.” After attending the Pride Day parade, he wrote to Nelson, “It felt more like a frat party than I expected. But still nice to see a lot of happy people.”
In his messages to Nelson, Vance called Trump a “morally reprehensible human being,” criticized Trump’s “racism,” and noted that lots of “dumb racists” were supporting Trump, adding, “If he would just tone down the racism, I would literally be his biggest supporter.”
In a December 9, 2015 email to Nelson, Vance wrote, “I’m obviously outraged at Trump’s rhetoric, and I worry most of all about how welcome Muslim citizens feel in their own country… And there have always been demagogues willing to exploit the people who believe crazy s**t.”
In a September 2016 email to Nelson, Vance wrote, “The more white people feel like voting for Trump, the more Black people will suffer. I really believe that.”
A month later, Vance called Trump a “disaster” and a “bad man.”
“I’ve been very critical of other Repubs for the LGBTQ issue, especially [then-Texas] Gov. Rick Perry,” Vance wrote around the same time.
Vance and Nelson ended their friendship in April 2021 after Vance made a social media post supporting a ban on gender-affirming care passed by then-Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson (R). When Nelson asked about Vance’s stance on the issue, Vance inaccurately wrote, “The trans thing with kids is so unstudied that it amounts to a form [of] experimentation.”
Nelson responded, “It deeply saddens me that you feel that way, especially given that it has been studied and there is a consensus [in] the medical and psychological professions, the treatment is completely reversible, is only given after extensive therapy, with the consent and desire of child and parents, and saves lives.”
“I know I can’t change your mind,” Nelson added, “but the political voice you have become seems so far from the man I got to know in law school.”
Vance replied, “I will always love you, but I really do think the left’s cultural progressivism is making it harder for normal people to live their lives.”
When asked about Nelson, Luke Schroeder, a spokesperson for the Vance campaign, wrote the Times, “It’s unfortunate this individual chose to leak decade-old private conversations between friends…. Senator Vance values his friendships with individuals across the political spectrum. He has been open about the fact that some of his views from a decade ago began to change after becoming a dad and starting a family, and he has thoroughly explained why he changed his mind on President Trump. Despite their disagreements, Senator Vance cares for Sofia and wishes Sofia the very best.”
Vance’s previous statements against Trump in which Vance called him a “total fraud,” a “moral disaster,” “reprehensible,” an “idiot,” “cultural heroin,” “unfit for our nation’s highest office,” “a cynical as**ole” and “America’s Hitler.” Vance also said in 2016 that he would rather vote for his own dog or then-Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton than help elect Trump.
Vance has expressed opposition to codifying same-sex marriage rights. He referred to gender identity as a “harmful ideology” and “unscientific and untrue”. He introduced the “Protect Children’s Innocence Act,” which would ban gender-affirming care for individuals under 18 and make providing such care a federal felony. He proposed the “Passport Sanity Act,” which would prohibit the use of “X” gender markers on passports and limit gender options to only male or female.
Vance also criticized conservative Supreme Court justices after they ruled in favor of protecting LGBTQ+ employees from job discrimination in the case of Bostock v. Clayton County.
