Former GOP State Rep And Obama Backer Discusses Switching Party, Gender

By Mehgan Sellers

In the Houston neighborhood of Montrose, a gay and lesbian-friendly place that locals call "the gayborhood," I met Rebekah Lee. She walked up to me, put her hand on my shoulder, and asked if I was there to cover the canvassing event. What I didn't know is that she was also slapping a "GLBT-for-Obama" sticker on my back -- which came as a surprise to me later.

But that was nothing compared to what came next.

Lee wasn't always an Obama supporter; in fact, she didn't always identify with the Democratic Party. From 1989 to 1993, Lee served as the 49th District of Montana's representative to the state legislature.

Back then her name was Tom, and he was a Republican. Not just any Republican, Lee told me, but one who was "a raging homophobe".

"It's really hard for me to imagine that I was ever that way," Lee said, her voice breaking and tears swelling in her eyes, "God it's really hard, it was so wrong and so hurtful."

While in office, Tom Lee was approached by human rights activist and lobbyist Christine Kaufmann. Kaufmann, now a state senator in Montana, asked Lee to support a bill that would extend equal rights to include sexual orientation.

"She said I'd really like to have your support," remembered Lee, "but I said I'm sorry Christine I just can't do it."

But wait, there's more: "Not only did I turn her down," Lee added, "but I sponsored the amendment that would outlaw anything gay and lesbian in the state of Montana."

A year ago, after her transformation to Rebekah, Lee met with Kaufmann and apologized for not supporting the legislation at the time.

"She emailed me using the name Tom," said Kaufmann when I called her at her Montana home. "We arranged to meet at a local restaurant. She appeared and I think kind of enjoyed the surprise."

"I met with Christine and the first thing that she lies down on the table is the copy of the Helena Independent Record," remembered Lee. "And it was there, Rep. Tom Lee sponsors amendment...I apologized to her for ever doing that."

Kaufmann offered her thoughts on the conversation with Lee.
"It's disheartening to me that people who are struggling with any issue around identity wouldn't be open and free to explore these issues, that they wouldn't be open to supporting equality," she said. "It's just a crime to society."

For Lee it was a difficult personal journey.

"I had to cross all of these bridges within myself," she said, "because these were all part of who I had grown to be, the way I was raised and the cultural values put into me."

Kaufmann said that the Tom Lee she petitioned to back in 1991 was extremely conservative. "He was just so locked in," she said.

"I was like a raging homophobe at that time in my life. When I started to transition, everything changed. It's just like walking out of a dark closet with light and I was just like 'Wow, okay yeah I get it'," she said.

Lee traveled from Bellingham, WA, to Texas as a volunteer for the Obama campaign in advance of the March 4 primary.

"I wasn't sure this was the right place for me to come help out, with Texas being Texas," she told me. However after a phone call from a friend, Lee decided to fly down and join the effort.

As a volunteer, Lee helped get out the vote through phone banking and putting canvas packets together.

She recently returned to the Pacific Northwest from the Virgin Islands, and in the Washington caucuses on February 9 was elected a delegate to the county convention.

"I'm going to try to be a GLBT delegate as far as I can go up in the state of Washington," she said.

Lee has donated a lot of volunteer time to the Democratic Party both up in Washington and in Texas. She said she'll be returning to Bellingham on Thursday, but added with a grin "that is unless Barack gets me a cabinet position of course."

Comments

[accountability]

Thanks for this post.
Rebekah Lee sounds like someone I would like to know.

She certainly sounds like she is kinder and more thoughtful and committed than many of the people I know.

[TN]

I saw this program on TV where they took approx 30 men and grouped them, without their knowledge, based on how they felt about homosexuality. One group consisted of homophobic men, the other didn't have strong feelings about homosexuality. Then they showed them gay pornography, oh yeah, they had devices strapped to their privates to measure excitability. Go figure the homophobes got more excited, way more excited, watching the films than the other group.

[Egghead]

What an incredibly inspiring story! It takes a lot to really look at yourself and know who you are, let alone transform yourself and then begin transforming the world.

I get the sense that the "T" of GLBT is possibly least understood by outsiders. I hope this essay gets lots of attention and to begin getting it some, I'm sending email links to my family and friends.

And congrats to you, Rebekah! You're an asset to Barak Obama's campaign!

[dr4Will]

typical obama supporter--weird and ingenious

[Cybesq]

typical former republican - out of the closet and remorseful

[sleeperd]

Wonderful! Truly, the face of the Democrapic Party.

[mike53]

This guy/gal wants a cabinet position in the Obama administration? Or did he/she mean closet?

[WilliePilgrim]

It does seem to me that the best way to change the GOP would be if all the closeted characters in the GOP were to stay in their party, continue to advocate those philosophical aspects that they admired presuming that's why they were in the GOP in the first place, and show their fellow party members that one can belong to their party as a conservative or even as a moderate or liberal (they are rare but they do exist, but not in openly acknowledged numbers great enough to form a powerfull coation just yet) in philosophy and realistic about their sexuality. It is possible to be a strong advocate of human liberty and dignity and not be a hostage to the religious nuts who think that conservatism and the bible are synomymous...or else how is it that Jessie Jackson is a liberal?
There's no shortage of hurtfull ideological claptrap in either party...just look at what the democrats are accusing each other of being right now! Rabbid dogs and self-jmmolating idealogues are always welcome in either party as long as they're primarily targetting one's political opponents, but rest assured, one day the dog with the muzzle will one day bite the owner's children.

[Nic]

You're out of the closet,into a dress and what...align yourself w/Obama? The same Obama who aligns and panders to McClurkin..a homophobe self hating GAY preacher. Please. You were not a raging homophobe. You were a SELF hating GOP man who didn't make a difference when you could.
Obama doesn't care about GLBT issues, he only cares about their votes.

[newunderground]

Oh, for god sake, you don't really believe that crap? Obama is not a homophobe, and Hillary is not a racist (as far as I know). Just because one of his supporters didn't jump through enough gay hoops, doen't make him insensitive to their issues. Grw up!

[PioneerKing]

Is McClurkin as homophobic as Sen. McCain's man crush and number one supporter Rev. Hagee?

[theJuanStar]

There is no less homophobia in the AA community than in the Caucasion, Hispanic, or Asian community. What impresses me about Obama is that he addresses LGBT issues regardless of the audience. This includes standing at the pulpit at Ebenezer Baptist Church on MLK Day. The Clinton's lost my pink vote with DADT and DOMA.

[lungfish]

Wow. I am impressed. I grew up in Montana. Went to Charles M Russel High in Great Falls. I will tell you that at that time it was a dangerous place to be gay. I met some gay people, one or two. My best friend's brother and his father both turned out to be gay... I think he did to. But it was dangerous to be different there in any noticeable way. It was a place that was incredibly intolerant of just about anything that smacked of personal identity. In those days, calling someone a faggot was fighting words if you were on the recieveing end and perfectly ok if you were dishing it out... bullying was a fact of life and we had many of them... a lot of ignorant., beer drinkin, psuedo wannabe tough guys who seemed to think that it was just great to bash on Indians and Niggers and Faggots (don't worry, I saw some of them get bashed by the very folks they denigrated - Indians and Niggers and Faggots can be tough as hell, God bless em...)... So to see someone like this see the light, even through personal experience, is really heartening. Just wish the rest of the homophobes would grow up and join the real world.

The state still has a long way to go, though....

I believe in a secular gov that accepts diversity and is fair and supportive to all of its citizens regardless of the individual agendas of any special interest. Given the last seven years of GOP "Compassionate Conservatism" I think we can afford to try something more friendly to our citizens.

[accountability]

yes!

the oppression inflicted on anyone deemed "different" than the dominant culture(in our case straight white Wasp males) is a universal human trait that I hope someday will vanish from all societies. How many people do we lose that would be contributors to so many areas of society because they are struggling with identity and can't figure out where they fit and because of fear of the ugliness that will most likely haunt them.

Throughout history there are stories of transgendered individuals, from royalty to soldiers to "cowboys" and pioneers. From the stories I have read it seems to often be women living as men, though not always.

I think we have moved forward so much since the 50's and 60's when people started coming out, few at that time except in "gay neighborhoods" where there was a comfort level of sorts.

But we still have far to go on all the phobia's and ism's that are an anathema to a civilized society.

Was it Montana that Mathew Shepard was essentially crucified in?

[JayFlanders]

Greetings,
I know Rebekah a little from around my hometown. She has been, by far, one of the most loyal and hard working Whatcom County Democrats for a long time. Reading this story explains why she's so smart about politics. She has been very brave and out. She is a very sincere person. When the database needed building, guess who put in the hours? Armchair critics can type their little annon blogger fingers off, but I suggest they give her the benefit of the doubt, and look to their own pasts for things to pick on.
Rebekah Rocks.
Mark Jay Flanders
Bellingham, Wa

[SFreeborn]

I am a friend of Rebekah's and proud to know her. Change is not always an easy thing and it doesn't always come the way we might like it to come either. All I can tell anyone who reads this is that my friend is a wonderfully authentic person today who is doing everything that she can to support all of the things that make life worth living for each and every one of us.

Proud of you Rebekah, glad to see you are back in Bellingham.

XOX Susanne

[darker]

change your party, change your gender, change your shirt, just CHANGE.

Be an adult voter, not a media-hystericized voter who is prey to republican manipulators
who want to keep screwing middle-income Americans every-which-way.

Vote for competence.
Next time, vote for competence.

Vote H.Clinton for a change. Republicans intend to wipe the floor with Obama, sad but true.

[AvgPseudoIntellectual]

Um, and they wouldn't wipe the floor with Hillary?

I am finding, truthfully, that the pro-HRC posters are including fewer and fewer actual arguments and points -- just cheerleading.

[DanOregon]

This is the most interesting thing I've read on the Internet in months and I expect the former legislator to get a book deal out of it. I was hoping to learn more about Tom Lee's transformation, but the only reference I found to the former legislator on the Internet was this story.

[NewRiver]

Yes, you'd think that there would be much more information about Tom/Rebekah Lee than one story on HuffingtonPost.

[xdevildawg4u]

I wonder if he went public in Montana and PUBLICLY apologized to the gay people of that state. I wonder if he told his story of WHY he was so anti-gay

This story needs to be told and told often. The point MUST be made that the most homophobic lawmakers are the ones most likely to be not only gay but also closeted perverts (sex with kids, drug induced S&M sessions with prostitutes, bathroom/public park sex addicts, etc),

If Lee hasn't told this story to the people of Montana then her words are empty. She has a lifetime of making up to do.

[ramal]

Sorry, but saying you're sorry just doesn't cut it anymore.

[mvj]

I don't understand your comment.

Why did saying sorry "cut it" before, but not anymore?

What's the alternative? Not everyone was born perfect, some people make mistakes. Should they adopt the Bush approach and keep charging ahead ignoring the mistake, or apologize and try to make amends?

[LBKN]

... consider this...

this agenda to amend the viability of an apology...

could it be an unconscious effort to make it non-essential for Hillary to apologize for the most doofus vote of our generation?

It's just a thought.