Portrait
Pete Buttigieg
Born
19 January 1982South Bend, Indiana, USA
PoliticianUnited States

Pete Buttigieg

Pete Buttigieg became the first openly gay US cabinet member confirmed by the Senate after a career in local government and a national presidential campaign.

Pete Buttigieg was born in South Bend, Indiana, in 1982. He studied at Harvard and Oxford, worked in consulting and served in the US Navy Reserve, including a deployment to Afghanistan.

Elected mayor of South Bend in 2011, he took office at twenty-nine. During his first term, he came out as gay in a local newspaper article. He won re-election and later married Chasten Glezman, a teacher.

His campaign for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination brought national attention. In Iowa, he narrowly won the largest allocation of delegates, becoming the first openly gay candidate to achieve that result in a major party’s presidential contest.

From 2021 to 2025, Buttigieg served as transportation secretary, overseeing infrastructure programmes and a department facing pressures ranging from airline disruption to rail safety. His Senate confirmation marked a milestone for LGBTQ representation. He and Chasten became parents to twins in 2021. His career has made a gay family part of the ordinary public life of a senior American politician.

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