Vance emails show a different person. Sofia Nelson mourns that friend

Sofia Nelson is a public defender in Detroit. But the Michigan native was a first-year law student, out as trans, when they met a young JD Vance during orientation at Yale Law School.

Sofia Nelson, a native of 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 fortunate to have won acceptance to Yale and always hoped to return 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 e-mail.

The Vance Nelson knew was likable 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 US Senate seat, representing his home state of Ohio. Last month, former President Donald Trump, the Republican Party’s presidential nominee, named Vance as his running mate.

Nobody likes JD Vance and his “cat lady” misogyny. Trump needs to dump him, fast.

Luke Schroeder, a spokesman for Vance, said via email, “It is unfortunate that this individual chose to leak decades-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 began to change a decade ago after he became a father and started a family, and he has carefully explained why he changed his mind about President Trump and wish Sofia the very best.”

I spoke with Nelson this week about their friendship with Vance and their disappointment with his tough personality.

Public defender Sofia Nelson met JD Vance at Yale

When did you first meet JD Vance?

The way Yale structures its program is that the incoming class is divided into small groups of 16. Your first semester classes are the same 16 people, with other small groups mixed in. So I took all my first semester classes with JD , and even the small groups are encouraged to bond with each other and hang out and socialize. … So that’s how JD and I met, and both from the Midwest, both raised 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) Rush (also part of the Yale small group). Obviously I am heartbroken over the transformation they have decided to undergo. … The JD I got to know in law school—and this is reflected in our correspondence after law school—was caring and compassionate. We obviously didn’t share a common politics, but growing up in Wayland, Michigan, developing friendships and respect across the political divide was nothing new to me.

I’m from Appalachia. JD Vance is not. He misunderstood our story.

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

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

I truly believe that Trump is pushing a racist and dangerous agenda. But there are real concerns among Trump voters, many of whom I grew up with, that I don’t think the Trump/Vance ticket does anything meaningful on a policy front to address those concerns. … The Democratic Party really needs to take the concerns of working-class Rust Belt voters seriously, and I take those concerns seriously and I serve those voters.

I think what the Republican Party is deeply wrong about is that they’re not just white people, right? I grew up in the Midwest, I’ve lived in the Midwest most of my life. … Working-class Michiganders are LGBTQ+ people, they’re immigrants, they’re Black Americans. They are people of many different faiths.

The values that I grew up with are that above all 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 may not understand someone, but they are your neighbor and you know how to live in community. And so I see protecting transgender people, protecting immigrants, protecting Muslims, protecting all LGBTQ+ people as protecting my community, because I live in a diverse community. Michigan and the Rust Belt are different places.

After law school, you kept in touch via e-mail.

We also visited each other. I was at his wedding. He came to Detroit to work a few times. Once I think they came, both he and his wife, purely for a social visit. I had also gone to Ohio.

JD Vance’s faith changed, then came the “childless cat lady” controversy.

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

Around 2020, 2021.

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

(Editor’s Note: Around that time, Vance started a non-profit organization to provide opportunities for disadvantaged children. Critics say the non-profit organization was supposed to give Vance a path to the ballot in Ohio, a state he hadn’t lived in for years. Polls around that time reportedly showed Vance’s anti-Trump statements were unpopular with voters. The non-profit quickly folded.)

There was no way 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, thoughtfulness and willingness to understand disappeared, and now he is imitating Donald Trump with this cruelty and name-calling.

I think it is well captured in “cat lady“controversy. (Editor’s Note: A 2021 clip of Vance calling Vice President Kamala Harris and other Democrats “childless cat ladies” recently surfaced.) It was just never present in him. I mean, he was sarcastic and despised certain elitism, sure, just like me. But he never displayed the kind of cruelty that he displays now in his public persona. That certainly changed when he decided to reconstitute himself as the MAGA Republican. So it wasn’t just his position on LGBTQ+ issues or immigration or police brutality that has completely changed—I mean, this is a man who was incredibly sympathetic and understanding about the overpolicing and brutality of policing against black Americans, and that’s reflected in our email exchanges. … He has changed his position on every imaginable question, but he has also changed the way he talks about people.

It sounds like the desire to empathize is gone.

I think 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 talked?

In April 2021, when his Twitter became quite anti-trans, I reached out to him and that was our last conversation. I got in touch when he announced when it came out that Peter Thiel had given him $15 million and we had a brief exchange. I think Peter Thiel is a terrifying figure … and it is the one responsible for JD’s rise.

Do you communicate at all anymore?

No.

I do not wish JD or his wife any harm. I have many fond memories of the man I knew for over a decade. But he is now pushing a political agenda that seeks to strip me, and the people 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 other people’s bodies, that’s where I draw the line when it comes to friendship.

What should people know about Vance?

What do you want people to know about him?

What I think is the key, and why I released these emails, are two reasons. First, we all evolve our thinking on certain issues with new information. But to change one’s position, to flip-flop on every imaginable issue, whether it’s Donald Trump or LGBTQ+ rights … shows a lack of core values or a willingness to turn one’s back on core values to advance your career and raise money. I think the hypocrisy is deeply troubling, 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 is trustworthy.

And two, the fact that he had a meaningful and respectful relationship with a transgender person—being myself—and now is demonizing transgender people and trying to prevent parents from accessing health care for their children. We must trust doctors, parents and children to make these decisions for themselves. This is about freedom. It’s about choice. Every parent loves their child unconditionally, and will be careful and considerate in making these decisions, but parents are best equipped to make these decisions and to try to deny them that freedom, I think, is deeply troubling.

What I want trans kids to know – because I was a trans kid once, and it was deeply scary to think that there was something wrong with me that would prevent me from living 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 think there’s anything wrong with you. They engage in opportunism to win elections. I know because he was very loving and respectful to a trans person in his life and now chooses to use trans children as a political ploy.

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

I feel that there is not a problem that he is not willing to change his mind. … I think that’s what he’s shown. I mean, in his emails to me, he said that I would never vote for, I would never support Donald Trump when it really mattered. Well, it really matters now, and he’s Donald Trump’s #1 spokesperson, and not only that, but he’s pushing an ideology that’s even weirder and more extreme than Donald Trump’s agenda.

Do you miss your friend?

Obvious. I am heartbroken at how he has changed, or how he has been willing to sacrifice his core values. … While I don’t agree with anybody’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 these political differences, I think 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 miss him.

Nancy Kaffer is the editorial page editor for the Detroit Free Press, where this column originally appeared.