'I do miss him:' Trans Michigan attorney mourns loss of JD Vance they knew at Yale

Sofia Nelson, born in Wayland, Michigan, is a public defender in Detroit. But the Allegan County native was a first-year law student, out as trans, when they met a young JD Vance during orientation at Yale Law School. Nelson felt lucky to win acceptance to Yale, and always hoped to come home and work in the public interest. Nelson and Vance — also from a Midwestern, working class family — quickly became close friends. They stayed in touch after law school, visiting each other and respectfully and thoughtfully debating politics and policy via email.

The Vance that Nelson knew was sympathetic and empathetic, interested in robust debate underpinned by mutual respect, appalled by many of then-candidate Donald Trump's statements and positions.

Suffice it to say, Vance's politics have changed.

A decade later, Vance would win a U.S. Senate seat, representing his home state of Ohio. Earlier this month, former President Donald Trump, the Republican Party's presumptive presidential nominee, tapped Vance as his running mate.

Luke Schroeder, a spokesman for Vance, said via email, “It’s unfortunate this individual chose to leak decade-old private conversations between friends to the New York Times. Sen. Vance values his friendships with individuals across the political spectrum. He has been open about the fact that some of his views from a decade ago began to change after becoming a dad and starting a family, and he has thoroughly explained why he changed his mind on President Trump. Despite their disagreements, Sen. Vance cares for Sofia and wishes Sofia the very best.”

I spoke to Nelson this week about their friendship with Vance, and their disappointment in his hard-right persona. 

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Public defender Sofia Nelson met JD Vance at Yale

When did you first meet JD Vance?  

The way that Yale structures its program is that the incoming class is divided into small groups of 16. Your first-semester classes are with the same 16 people, with other small groups mixed in. So I took all my first-semester classes with JD, and also the small groups are encouraged to bond and spend time together and socialize. ... So that's how JD and I met, and both being from the Midwest, both growing up in working class communities, we bonded over that.  

What was your first impression of him? 

I really liked JD. I still care about him and (wife) Usha (also part of the Yale small group). Obviously, I'm heartbroken by the transformation that they've decided to undergo ... The JD that I got to know in law school — and it's reflected in our correspondence after law school — was thoughtful and compassionate. We obviously didn't share a common politics, but growing up in Wayland, Michigan, it was nothing new to me to develop friendships and respect across the political divide.

In excerpts of your conversations, what struck me was two people really trying to understand the other's perspective, which is so rare these days. 

I think that that's really important. One of the things that I think JD has been right about is, and he's not the only one that says these things ... is (it's wrong) to dismiss anyone who voted for Trump as stupid or racist. 

I certainly think that Trump is advancing a racist and dangerous agenda. But there are real concerns amongst Trump voters, many of whom I grew up with that I don't believe that the Trump/Vance ticket is doing anything meaningful on a policy front to address those concerns. ... The Democratic Party does need to take seriously the concerns of working class Rust Belt voters, and I take those concerns seriously and I serve those constituents.  

I think the thing that the Republican Party gets deeply wrong is those aren't just white people, right? I grew up in the Midwest, I've lived in the Midwest the vast majority of my life. ... Working class Michiganders are LGBTQ+ people, they are immigrants, they are Black Americans. They are people of many different faiths.  

The values that I grew up with are that above all else, you treat everyone with respect. You adhere to basic decency when interacting with people, even when you disagree with them. And you treat others as you want to be treated. You might not understand somebody, but they're your neighbor, and you know how to live in community. And so I see protecting trans people, protecting immigrants, protecting Muslims, protecting all LGBTQ+ people, as about protecting my community, because I live in a diverse community. Michigan, and the Rust Belt, are diverse places. 

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After law school, you stayed in touch via email.  

We also visited each other. I attended his wedding. He came to Detroit for work a few times. One time I think they came, both him and his wife, solely for a social visit. I had gone to Ohio as well. 

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When did you start to notice a shift in his public profile?  

Around 2020, 2021. 

He was going to run, or was considering running, for Senate in 2018 against (Democratic Ohio U.S. Sen.) Sherrod Brown.

(Editor’s note: Around that time, Vance started a nonprofit to help offer opportunities for disadvantaged children. Critics say the nonprofit was intended to give Vance a path to the ballot in Ohio, a state he hadn’t lived in for years. Polling around that time reportedly showed that Vance’s anti-Trump statements weren't popular with voters. The nonprofit quickly folded.)

There was no path forward for him as a never-Trumper. He essentially turned his back on his values and reconstituted himself, not only changing his position on every imaginable issue, but also his tone. The decency, the thoughtfulness and the desire to understand disappeared, and now he mimics Donald Trump with this cruelty and name calling.  

I think that is well captured in the “cat lady” controversy. (Editor’s note: A 2021 clip of Vance calling Vice President Kamala Harris and other Democrats “childless cat ladies” recently surfaced.) That was just never present in him. I mean, he was sarcastic and contemptuous of some elitism, for sure, as am I. But he never exhibited the kind of cruelty that he exhibits now in his public persona. That really changed when he decided to reconstitute himself as a MAGA Republican. So it wasn't just his position on LGBTQ+ issues or immigration or police brutality that's completely changed — I mean, this is a man who was incredibly sympathetic and understanding about the overpolicing and the brutality of policing against Black Americans, and that's reflected in our email exchanges. ... Every conceivable issue he's changed his position on, but he's also changed the way he talks about people.

It sounds like that desire to empathize is gone. 

I think that to succeed in the MAGA world, you have to adopt a Trump-like persona, and that's what he's chosen to do. 

When was the last time you spoke? 

In April of 2021, when his Twitter started being quite anti-trans, I reached out to him and that was our last substantive conversation. I did reach out when he announced when it came to light that Peter Thiel had given him $15 million and we had a brief exchange. I find Peter Thiel to be a terrifying figure ... and that's who's bankrolling JD’s rise.   

Do you communicate at all anymore? 

No.   

I don't wish JD or his wife any ill. I have a lot of fond memories of the man that I knew for over a decade. But he's now advancing a political agenda that's trying to strip me, and the people that I love and have built community with, of our civil rights, and I felt a duty to speak out as a result. Once you try to take power and control over other people's bodies is where I draw the line as far as friendship is concerned. 

What should people know about Vance?

What do you want people to know about him? 

What I think is key, and why I released those emails, is two reasons. One, we all evolve our thinking on certain issues with new information. But to change your position, to flipflop on every conceivable issue, whether it be Donald Trump or LGBTQ+ rights ... shows a lack of core values or a willingness to turn your back on core values to advance your career and amass money. I think that hypocrisy is deeply concerning, and the American people have a right to know where he used to stand on the issues compared to where he stands today so they can evaluate for themselves whether he's trustworthy.  

And two, the fact that he had a meaningful and respectful relationship with a trans person — that being myself — and is now demonizing trans people and trying to prevent parents from accessing medical care for their children. We need to trust medical providers, parents and the children to make these decisions for themselves. This is about freedom. It's about choice. Every parent loves their child unconditionally, and is going to be be cautious and thoughtful in making these decisions, but parents are best equipped to make those decisions, and to try to deny them that freedom, I think, is deeply concerning.  

What I want trans kids to know — because I was a trans kid once, and it, it was deeply scary to think that there was something wrong with me that was going to prevent me from leading a full and happy life — I want trans kids to know that these politicians, they don't actually think you're bad. They don't actually believe there's anything wrong with you. They're engaging in opportunism to win elections. I know that because he was very loving and respectful of a trans person in his life, and is now choosing to use trans kids as a political ploy. 

So you don't think it's a sincere change in belief, your feeling based on the person you knew, is that it’s a put on. 

I feel that there isn't an issue that he isn't willing to change his opinion ... I think that's what he's demonstrated. I mean, in his emails to me, he said I would never vote for, I would never support Donald Trump when it really mattered. Well, it really matters now, and he is Donald Trump's number one spokesperson, and not only that, but he's advancing an ideology even weirder and more extreme than Donald Trump's agenda.  

Do you miss your friend? 

Of course. I'm heartbroken over the way he's changed, or the way he's been willing to sacrifice his core values ... even if I disagree with someone's, you know, tax policy or whatever it may be, I think all Americans are served when we have leaders from both parties with integrity. ... The man that I knew in law school, while we had those political disagreements, I believe to be a person who valued decency and had integrity, and to see him turn his back on those things is heartbreaking.  

And yes, I do miss him. 

Nancy Kaffer is the editorial page editor of the Detroit Free Press. Contact: nkaffer@freepress.com. Submit a letter to the editor at freep.com/letters and we may publish it online and in print.