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As A Teacher In 90s, Gwen Walz Brought Up Sexual Orientation On First Day Of Class
Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Walz’s wife discussed sexual orientation in the classroom as a high school teacher, and spoke to at least one student about his sexuality before he had told his parents he identified as gay, the student said during a campaign event aimed at LGBTQ voters.
Jacob Reitan, a former student of Gwen Walz when she taught at Mankato West High School in Minnesota, has said on numerous occasions that Gwen Walz told his entire class “on the very first day” of sophomore year that her class was a safe place for any student that identified as gay or lesbian.
Fifteen-year-old Reitan, like many other students, had never heard a teacher discuss gender in the classroom before. Reiten, who had not yet come out publicly as gay, shared that he had been bullied and accused of being gay since the seventh grade, but did not know anyone who identified as gay, nor seen LGBTQ people portrayed on television.
“I was stunned,” Reitan, who is now a 42-year-old lawyer in Minneapolis, said during a Thursday “Out for Harris and Walz” virtual Zoom call attended by Hollywood celebrities and Tim Walz himself.
Reitan said on the call that Gwen Walz was the first person he came out as gay to, and was immediately told stories about how supportive the Walz family was to other gay students.
“After coming out to Mrs. Walz, she shared stories with me about how her and Mr. Walz had been supportive of other gay students that they had when they were teachers in Nebraska,” Reitan said on the call with LGBTQ activists, referring to the Walz’s time teaching at Alliance High School in Nebraska.
The call came as Tim Walz and his wife take point on the Harris campaign’s outreach to LGBTQ voters. On the same night as the call, Gwen Walz spoke at an event in Philadelphia hosted by the far-left Human Rights Campaign, which supports transgender procedures for children. The activist group says it has made contact with 75 million “LGBTQ+ voters and allies” as part of its work for Democrats this cycle.
American voters have grown increasingly interested in what goes on in classrooms since the coronavirus pandemic, when many parents were shocked and horrified to discover how teachers, both public school and private school, were speaking to their children about gender, sexuality, religion, and race. Republican Governor Glenn Youngkin’s victory in Virginia is widely attributed to his embrace of the parental rights cause, particularly in contrast with Democrat Terry McAuliffe’s infamous claim: “I don’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach.”
(Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
Reitan has discussed his experience with Gwen Walz on many occasions before, telling the New York Times her remarks on being gay on the first day of class came “out of the blue.” The paper reported that her comments “gave him the confidence to confide in his parents” about being gay.
“I’d never heard a teacher ever talk about gay issues from the front of the classroom,” Reitan previously told the Associated Press, adding that the comments “meant the world to me,” and “made me feel welcome in the place where I’m supposed to learn.”
Gwen Walz’s opinions on discussing LGBTQ topics with students appear to have been decided in the 1990s: “Long before there was a national debate over what — if anything — teachers should be allowed to say about sexual orientation and gender identity in the classroom, Ms. Walz had concluded that a reassuring word from an adult could make a huge impact,” the Times reported.
The Times reports that the couple “had grown close to a gay student years earlier in Nebraska” whom they took to an Indigo Girls concert — “the rare queer-friendly event in that time,” according to the Times, and “one of the decade’s strongest bastions of queer community and camaraderie,” according to “Them,” an LGBTQ outlet.
It’s not clear who that student was, though a spokeswoman for Gwen Walz confirmed to the Times that the couple took a student to the concert.
Reached by email for comment, Alliance Public Schools Superintendent Troy Unzicker distanced the high school from the idea that it would allow teachers to initiate conversations about gender without parental consent.
“There are no public records to confirm or deny this allegation,” he told The Daily Wire. “The current school board and administration did not work with Mr. Walz. I personally do not know Mr. Walz so I can be of no help.”
After Walz was arrested for drunk driving in 1995, the couple moved to Minnesota to teach at Mankato High School. Walz, who was reportedly deeply disappointed in himself over the incident, says he no longer drinks and prefers diet Mountain Dew.
When Reitan wanted to start a Gay-Straight Alliance at Mankato High School, he went to Gwen Walz’s husband for support. Tim Walz, who taught social studies and coached football at the high school, offered to be the group’s faculty adviser. “It really needed to be the football coach, who was the soldier and was straight and was married,” Walz said in October 2018.
Tim and Gwen Walz are also widely described by former students as educational trailblazers in the LGBTQ space at a time when the topic was largely controversial, especially in schools.
During the Walzes’ time at Mankato West High School, when some LGBTQ-promoting students made a massive banner promoting “Gay Awareness Day,” around 150 Mankato West High School students threatened to leave the school, according to the Washington Post.
“Kids were tearing down signs that said stuff about gay tolerance,” one high schooler named Amanda Hinkle wrote at the time, the Washington Post reported. The publication noted that some parents kept their kids home from school on another day (the Washington Post did not clarify which day) that the school reportedly devoted to “discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.”
Mankato West High School didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment explaining what this day was. The Walzes did not immediately respond to requests for comment for this story.
Tim Walz has drawn scrutiny during the campaign for his promotion of far-left transgender activism in Minnesota. He signed an executive action a year ago, to “protect access to gender affirming health care in Minnesota.” Gender-affirming-care is an activist euphemism for transgender surgeries, hormones, and puberty blockers, all of which can be accessed by minors with or without parental permission, depending on the state.
“In Minnesota, you will not be punished for seeking or providing medical care,” Walz said when he signed the order, referring to transgender procedures. “This Executive Order delivers the urgent action that our LGBTQ Minnesotans deserve.”
Despite evidence showing that growing numbers of young people deeply regret transgender surgeries and procedures — and evidence that “gender-affirming care” does not make trans-identifying youth less suicidal — Walz’s lieutenant governor incorrectly stated that “gender affirming health care is safe, scientifically proven, and lifesaving.”
“When our friends and neighbors tell us that this care will help them feel safer, happier, and more themselves, it is our job to listen and to believe them,” said Minnesota’s Lieutenant Governor Flanagan. “Our number one job is to keep children safe. This Executive Order does just that.”
As The Daily Wire’s Mairead Elordi reported, Walz also signed a cluster of legislation in April 2023 that established Minnesota as a haven for children who want puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, or transgender surgeries. One of these laws allows Minnesota to seize custody of a child whose parents refuse to provide these procedures, and says that Minnesota will refuse to come to the aid of a child whose parents are pushing through transition treatments.
Walz also signed legislation requiring boys’ bathrooms in public schools to stock up on free tampons or pads, beginning in January 2024, earning him the nickname “Tampon Tim” from Donald Trump.
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