National news is not how San Diego City Councilmember Marni von Wilpert imagined coming out.
“You’re hoping to have maybe private, quiet conversations with folks. Instead, I came out in The New York Times.”
Von Wilpert represents District 5, which stretches from San Pasqual in the north to Scripps Ranch in the south. A reporter interviewed her after anti-LGBTQ+ protestors checked out all the books from a Pride month display at the Rancho Peñasquitos Branch Library and refused to return them.
“When the reporter asked me, ‘Are you a member of the LGBTQ community?’ I didn’t want to hide it,” she said. “It’s not anything I’m ashamed of.”
She said in many ways it was an easier way to come out, like ripping off a Band-Aid. She said she was told to brace for an onslaught of hate emails and calls that never came. Instead, she said it’s been nothing but love and thank you notes.
“It was very interesting to come out as a politician because everyone assumed it was political,” she said, “but it is not. But it is very freeing to be able to say that I'm out.”
The article did prompt tough conversations with family members, she said, but they were supportive in the end. She knows that’s not the case for everyone.
LGBTQ+ youth form up to 40% of San Diego’s homeless youth population, often after being evicted by their families. Von Wilpert said she’s pushing for another shelter just for them.
Even as she celebrated Pride — her first being out as a member of the community rather than just an ally — she watched gay rights being taken back across the country.
The Supreme Court ruled in June, for the first time, that businesses could refuse some services to LGBTQ people — a protected class.
In July, the Temecula Board of Education tried to remove Harvey Milk — a gay civil rights leader and politician — from its curriculum.
A month later, Grossmont Union School District ended a contract with a suicide prevention nonprofit that also assists LGBTQ+ youth.
The current fight for gay and trans rights reminds von Wilpert of the Civil Rights Movement she studied growing up. She said she didn’t think she would see such regression in her lifetime.
“I’m not sure what my future looks like sometimes in this country,” she said. “Which is something I never thought I’d say.”
Even so, she said, coming out has been worth it. She doesn’t have to hide who she is dating or worry about being recognized with them on the street.
“Being able to be who I am has been so freeing, and I've really found even more community this way,” she said. “And as someone who is a very public figure, it's a lot easier to just be who I am.”
To everyone else who came out this year or will come out on Wednesday, she said: “Congratulations.”
