"In 1999, when Reitan came out, Gwen Walz was the third person he told after his close friend and his sister, as he said during his appearance on MSNBC. Reitan subsequently approached Tim Walz to become the advisor for the GSA, and Walz agreed. “Both Tim and Gwen were incredibly supportive of their gay students. They modeled values of inclusivity and respect. That helped not just me — I was bullied in high school — but it also, I think, helped the bully. It helped show the bully a better path forward,” Reitan continued. Reitan went on to have a storied career in LGBTQ+ advocacy before working as a lawyer. In 2006, at age 23, he founded the Soulforce Equality Ride bus tour campaign, which brought LGBTQ+ students to Christian colleges for debates on queer issues. In addition to his work to help repeal Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell (DADT) policy, which barred U.S. military servicemembers from disclosing their sexual orientation, Reitan joined the Minnesota Governor’s Task Force on the Prevention of School Bullying in 2012, as the Mankato Free Press reported in a 2017 profile on his work. (Them has reached out to Reitan for comment on this story.) In many respects, that history of LGBTQ+ advocacy lines up with Walz’s own: As a United States congressman, Walz opposed DADT, voting to repeal the policy in 2010. Walz also ran for Congress while openly supporting same-sex marriage in 2006. “He’s a remarkable individual,” Reitan told MSNBC."