The Gay Teacher Running to Unseat the Most Powerful Anti-LGBTQ+ Politician in America
What does it take to run for Congress as the first openly gay candidate in your state's history — against the most anti-LGBTQ+ Speaker in American history — with zero corporate money, on a teacher's conviction, and your mom's push?
My guest today is Matt Gromlich, and this conversation stopped me in my tracks.
Matt is a math teacher and college professor from Shreveport, Louisiana, running to unseat House Speaker Mike Johnson in Louisiana's 4th Congressional District. He is the first openly gay congressional candidate in Louisiana history. He has raised zero corporate dollars. And he is doing it anyway.
In this episode, Matt takes me back to 2016 — standing in a gay bar watching the election results roll in, then walking into his classroom the next morning to find his Hispanic students making contingency plans.
If my parents aren't home when I get back today, who takes care of my seven-year-old brother? That moment never left him. And when 2024 hit the same way, it was his mom — a lifelong Republican until that year — who finally asked him the question that changed everything: Why aren't you the one stepping up?
We get into what it's actually like to knock on doors as an out gay man in northern Louisiana. What happened when he threw an event at the gay club in Shreveport. Why he thinks 10-15% of Trump voters in his district are open to voting for him. And what he said when I asked him what he would tell trans students in his classroom who are watching their rights get dismantled in real time.
We also go deep on the headlines — the Supreme Court's 8-1 ruling striking down conversion therapy bans, anti-trans legislation in 42 states, the EEOC's refusal to enforce workplace protections for trans workers, and Trump's $1.5 trillion defense budget gutting the domestic programs Matt has spent his career fighting for.
TIMESTAMPS
00:00 — Introduction
01:12 — Why Matt decided to run: the 2016 classroom moment that never left him
03:30 — His students making contingency plans while he taught the quadratic formula
05:29 — The conversation with his mom that started the campaign
06:23 — The voter turnout data that shows a path to victory
08:59 — How to give people something to hope for, not just fight against
13:19 — What people are actually talking about at the doors
16:25 — How he would use Congress to check the executive branch
20:23 — Universal pre-K, healthcare access, rural hospitals closing
25:35 — Anti-Johnson vs. pro-future: his campaign strategy
26:17 — Zero corporate money, zero PAC outreach, all small donors
33:20 — What it's like being an out gay man running in Louisiana
35:30 — The coffee shop meeting with parents of LGBTQ+ kids in northern Louisiana
40:42 — The gay club event, the drag queens, the community response
45:03 — What he would say to Mike Johnson if they were in a room together
47:10 — Johnson's DHS shutdown reversal and the $1.5 trillion defense budget
54:22 — The Supreme Court's conversion therapy ruling — personal and political
57:09 — What he says to trans students right now
01:00:39 — The first LGBTQ+ legislation he would push for if elected
01:02:21 — His final word of persuasion to undecided voters
RESOURCES & LINKS
Matt Gromlich
Campaign Website: fightersforourfuture.com [http://fightersforourfuture.com]
Donate: ActBlue — Matt Gromlich
Volunteer: tally.so/r/WO9yzk [http://tally.so/r/WO9yzk]
Instagram & Threads: @matt_gromlich_for_congress
TikTok: @gromlich4congress
Bluesky: @mattgromlichla4.bsky.social [http://mattgromlichla4.bsky.social]
