J. D. Vance speaking at a Turning Point USA in Phoenix, Arizona. Photo: Gage Skidmore
Sen. J.D. Vance’s (R-OH) trans former friend is questioning the sincerity of his anti-trans rhetoric, accusing the GOP vice presidential nominee and other Republicans of political “opportunism.”
Last weekend, The New York Times published excerpts from 90 email and text message exchanges between Vance and former friend and Yale Law School classmate Sofia Nelson that shed further light on the Ohio senator’s evolution from a Never Trumper who attended San Francisco Pride and expressed support for his friend when they underwent gender-affirming surgery to Trump’s VP nominee.
Related:
Since the Times story was published, Nelson, a Detroit-based public defender, has been making the media rounds, speaking out about Vance’s radical rightward shift.
Your LGBTQ+ guide to Election 2024
Stay ahead of the 2024 Election with our newsletter that covers candidates, issues, and perspectives that matter.
“The J.D. that I got to know in law school—and it’s reflected in our correspondence after law school—was thoughtful and compassionate,” Nelson, who maintained a friendship with Vance and wife Usha until 2021, even attending their wedding, told the Detroit Free Pressthis week. “We obviously didn’t share a common politics, but growing up in Wayland, Michigan, it was nothing new to me to develop friendships and respect across the political divide.”
“There was no path forward for him as a never-Trumper,” Nelson said. “He essentially turned his back on his values and reconstituted himself, not only changing his position on every imaginable issue, but also his tone. The decency, the thoughtfulness, and the desire to understand disappeared, and now he mimics Donald Trump with this cruelty and name calling.”
According to Nelson, Vance “never exhibited the kind of cruelty that he exhibits now in his public persona” when they were friends. Vance, they said, hasn’t just changed his position on everything from LGBTQ+ issues to immigration and police brutality, “he’s also changed the way he talks about people.”
“I think that to succeed in the MAGA world, you have to adopt a Trump-like persona, and that’s what he’s chosen to do,” they added.
“J.D. Vance never used to speak in those terms,” Nelson told Detroit’s Fox 2 earlier this week. “He was a kind person, which I think is indicative of how we’re raised here in the Midwest — to treat people with kindness. And he’s totally abandoned that in order to advance his career.”
Nelson explained that they released their email exchanges with Vance to the Times for two reasons. First, they wanted to expose what they see as “a lack of core values or a willingness to turn your back on core values to advance your career and amass money,” evident in Vance’s shift to the right.
“I think that hypocrisy is deeply concerning,” they told the Detroit Free Press, “and the American people have a right to know where he used to stand on the issues compared to where he stands today so they can evaluate for themselves whether he’s trustworthy.”
But Nelson also aims to expose the hollowness and cynicism of Vance and the Republican party’s demagoguing of trans youth in recent years. Noting that Vance “had a meaningful and respectful relationship with a trans person… and is now demonizing trans people and trying to prevent parents from accessing medical care for their children,” Nelson said they “want trans kids to know that these politicians, they don’t actually think you’re bad.”
Republicans, they said, are “engaging in opportunism to win elections. I know that because [Vance] was very loving and respectful of a trans person in his life and is now choosing to use trans kids as a political ploy.”
Nelson’s email exchanges with Vance also indicate another essential betrayal on the part of both the senator and Trump’s GOP. As both the Times and the Detroit Free Press note, their conversations show two people reaching across the political divide to try to understand each other’s perspective. While Nelson is clear that they think “Trump is advancing a racist and dangerous agenda,” they think it’s a mistake to dismiss all Trump voters as “stupid or racist.”
“The Democratic Party does need to take seriously the concerns of working-class Rust Belt voters, and I take those concerns seriously, and I serve those constituents,” Nelson said.
MAGA Republicans like Vance, however, seem unwilling to do the same, choosing instead to stoke fear and prejudice to appeal to turn out their most reactionary voters.
“I think the thing that the Republican Party gets deeply wrong is those [Rust Belt voters] aren’t just white people, right? I grew up in the Midwest, I’ve lived in the Midwest the vast majority of my life,” Nelson said. “Working class Michiganders are LGBTQ+ people, they are immigrants, they are Black Americans. They are people of many different faiths.”
“I see protecting trans people, protecting immigrants, protecting Muslims, protecting all LGBTQ+ people, as about protecting my community, because I live in a diverse community,” Nelson said. “Michigan, and the Rust Belt, are diverse places.”
