Tim Mains: New York State's First Openly Gay Elected Official

by Evelyn Bailey

It is November.  What comes to my mind?   November 3, Election Day and Thanksgiving.  These two occasions are linked very closely.  Our OUT Politicians give us a great deal to be thankful for.  The Shoulders that our Rochester GLBT community identifies as the first openly gay candidate to run for political office is Tim Mains.

When Tim Mains began his career in public education, he believed that the word “gay” and “teacher” didn’t belong in the same sentence, let alone the same classroom. He assumed that he would keep his private life and his professional life strictly separated. After all, such beliefs and practices were common in 1971, when Mains graduated from Ball State University and left his home in Indiana to teach high school social studies in a suburb of Rochester, New York.