State Rep. Adrian Tam has good news from Hawaii about Tulsi Gabbard’s father’s change of heart

Thirty-one-year-old Hawaii state Rep. Adrian Tam (D) is running for his third term in Hawaii’s District 24, which covers iconic Waikiki Beach in Honolulu. When he was first elected in 2020, the freshman rep was Hawaii’s only out elected official.

Tam started government work as a temporary hire at the Hawaii State House of Representatives before moving across the capitol building to become a Senate staffer. Four years later, at just 27 years old, he challenged a longtime Democratic incumbent for his seat and eked out a win. We went on to trounce his MAGA Republican opponent in the general.

Despite the audacious decision to take on a well-liked establishment candidate in the primary, Tam is one of the nicest, and by all indications most sincere, politicians you’re likely to meet in Hawaii, or any place on the mainland. He spoke from his office in the state’s iconic capitol building on a breezy but beautiful day in Honolulu.

Still marveling after nearly four years at his good fortune to occupy a seat in state’s House, Tam shared, “It’s amazing here.”

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LGBTQ Nation: So how did an alt-right MAGA Republican leader of a local Proud Boys chapter come to be nominated in 2020 as your opponent for state representative in the general election?

State Rep. Adrian Tam: I don’t know. It’s shocking. The people of Hawaii would never elect someone like that. Usually, when there’s a potential nominee that everyone knows is absolutely terrible, the party or someone in the community would step up to run against them and hopefully win their primary so that you have two candidates in the general that are somewhat sane. But he was the only one that the Republicans put up, and they vehemently defended him and his antics. Even after he lost, they still defended him. It’s just disappointing.

Do you ascribe that to Trump fever?

Partly. I also sometimes think that the Republican Party would just do anything to win. In 2022, they touted that they had fielded candidates to compete in every Senate district, something that they’ve never done before. But when I hear that, it’s like, well, you’re just putting up whoever, hoping just to win? You don’t care about whether or not they can actually do the job, whether they actually have good policies, whether they actually can fight for their community and their neighbors at the State Capitol.

Describe the electoral environment when you ran against Republican candidate Nick Ochs in 2020. What was the reaction of his MAGA supporters to a 28-year-old gay Chinese guy running against him?

Surprisingly, I’ve had a lot of support from Republicans in the district, because they know that this is unacceptable. When I ran, my primary focus was on policies pertaining to housing and the cost of living and COVID-19, as well as the concerns of my own neighborhood, from infrastructure projects to noise pollution.

When you talk about policy, it really does resonate with neighbors, because you have Nick Ochs on one side talking about how we need to reelect Donald Trump and how he’s going to change everything in America, and talking about these “woke” issues. It turns people off when they can’t even afford to put food on the table and they’re barely making it by to keep a roof over their heads.

You trounced Ochs with 67% of the vote, beating even Joe Biden’s margin in that election. Why did you win so definitively?

I think the reason why we won is because I had an amazing group of supporters within the district, and we worked hard as a campaign. We called people, we knocked on doors. And even when it was COVID, and we couldn’t knock on every single door because so many are condominiums in the district, we were able to phonebank and use something we call the “coconut wireless” here, which is word of mouth.

We never really mentioned Nick Ochs. We focused on the issues. And I think that resonated with voters because they don’t want to hear what the other side can’t do, or how scary the other side is. They want to hear how you’re going to actually improve their lives.

I guess there’s no interregnum for electeds in Hawaii; you started serving the very next day after your election.

Yeah, the very next day after the election. Well, I had one day just to like, you know, rest (laughing). But the next day, training begins, so I got to the Capitol that morning, and it was just me without my team or anyone, and there are all the other freshmen elected officials that are sitting in the chamber, and we went over the procedures of the House. And it was actually one of the more surreal moments for us because we all finally had these name tags that say “Representative,” and we got the chance to just take it all in.

What was the very first thing you did when you walked into the state House?

I had to find my seat (laughing). It really was surreal, and I feel the same way every time I walk into the chamber where we meet.

Shutterstock Hawaii state Capitol building

It also must be nice to work in such a beautiful building. It’s one of the most iconic buildings in Hawaii, and one of the most handsome government buildings in United States.

Yeah, it is. It’s a really nice building. It’s also a very old building. Something interesting about it is that the elevators are the original elevators from the Governor [John Anthony] Burns days when it was built in the 1960s. And because they’re pretty old, there are multiple incidents where reps or senators or members of the public get stuck in the elevator.

It happened once this past session already, when a group of us were all leaving the floor and got stuck.

When you were elected, you were the only LGBTQ+ lawmaker in the legislature, which I guess made you an LGBTQ+ caucus of one. How were you received by your colleagues?

I was the only one back in 2020. In 2022, we did elect one more LGBTQ+ person. And in 2023, the governor did appoint an LGBTQ+ person to fill a vacancy.

So you do have a caucus now.

Yes, a caucus of three. Just in the House. On the city council of Honolulu, there are two LGBTQ+ members, and that’s pretty significant, too, considering there’s only nine members.

In a lot of red states and in areas of some blue states, the culture wars are still raging. How would you describe the climate in Hawaii? And what are some examples of how the fight is being waged on either side?

The culture wars are definitely raging in Hawaii, as well. In 2022, we elected two Republicans that took the culture wars and really made it their platform. One of them introduced a Don’t Say Gay bill, and another one toured a middle school and saw a Pride flag sticker on a door and made an entire video trying to dox the principal and asking his followers to call the school.

But what ended up happening was that the community didn’t buy it, and there was swift backlash. He’s being challenged by several Democrats right now, so it would be good to get one of them in.

Tulsi Gabbard has a long electoral history in Hawaii, like you, as a state legislator, and later as a U.S. Congresswoman from the state. She’s also got a long history of hostility to the LGBTQ+ community. She worked for the Alliance for Traditional Marriage and Values, which was founded by her father, who serves down the hall from you in the Hawaii State Senate. She’s also voiced support for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis‘s Don’t Say Gay legislation, which she told Hannity didn’t go far enough. What do you say to the junior and senior Gabbards? Do their views represent Hawaii?

I don’t believe that their views currently represent Hawaii. Interestingly enough, her father Mike Gabbard, Senator Gabbard, is actually a pretty nice person.

Really?

Yeah. On my birthday, he always gives me some of his homemade toffee, as he does with almost everyone (laughing). But this past legislative session, there was a bill that proposed a referendum to repeal a provision in our state constitution that reserves marriage to between a man and a woman. He sat on the committee that was hearing that proposal, and he took the time to basically apologize to the community for what he had done in the past. And he voted in favor of putting that constitutional amendment on the ballot.

Wow. So why the change?

I don’t know. I think everyone evolves at their own speed. For some it takes longer than others. And I think as time goes on, you slowly understand the people that you’re surrounded with, and you come to realize that they’re just like you, and they’re just like everyone else. So why shouldn’t they be deserving of being treated equally in the eyes of the law?

That’s some good news out of Hawaii.

Yeah.

Before you were elected, you helped write legislation banning conversion therapy in the state. What are the statistics on that practice in Hawaii? Is it widespread, and what are the effects you learned about while writing the bill?

As I was writing the bill, I already knew that conversion therapy happened in Hawaii. I didn’t have any friends that went through it, but I do know that it’s very popular elsewhere, and it really does a lot of harm to people. It was also a consumer fraud issue, that someone can go out there advertising that they can change someone’s sexual orientation, and basically swindle parents out of their savings, on top of the fact that it doesn’t work.

But I really approached it with that argument, because I felt like that would resonate more with many legislators that might not know what it is, or come from a more conservative-leaning background. They had tried and tried again in years past to make it a reality, and this time a lot of advocates made one final push, and they pushed it over the finish line.

You served as vice chair of the Committee on Health, Human Services, and Homelessness. You’ve also introduced and passed a number of bills related to mental health. How do you think the efforts to erase LGBTQ+ identity by the far right are affecting the mental health of LGBTQ+ youth?

Very negatively. As a kid, you oftentimes look up to people in positions of leadership for guidance and inspiration. But what happens when someone in that position basically doesn’t acknowledge your entire existence or believes that, you know, you’re living a life of “sin”? It’s really sad. But it motivates advocates like myself and those in the Stonewall Caucus of the Democratic Party, as well as the LGBT Legacy Foundation here in Honolulu, to do more outreach so that these kids don’t feel alone, don’t feel like they are unwanted, and that they do have a place here in Hawaii.

Before your election, you were a staffer for a state senator and you were designated a member of the Medical Cannabis Outstanding Issues Working Group in the Edibles Permitted Interaction Subcommittee, which is a mouthful of edibles.

Yes (laughing).

What were your qualifications for that assignment, what’s the status of legal weed in Hawaii, and do you partake?

The status of legal weed is that it is still illegal. But for medical purposes, it’s allowed. And I basically filled in for my senator because the working group was working so often, and he was a member of other working groups. So he basically asked if I could just do it, which I was really happy to do. That was my first-ever role in making decisions for our state government. But the bills that were written in the committee never made it to the governor’s desk, hence why cannabis is still illegal here.

Do you partake?

I have. I’ve tried it (laughing).

Your parents are immigrants from Hong Kong and Taiwan. Why does the U.S. remain such an attractive destination for immigrants despite the hurdles to getting here and getting legal?

So, in many countries, for you to be successful, you have to have the highest grades, you have to have some of the wealthiest parents, you have to have a lot of connections, and you have to be in a high government position or in the military, etc., etc. There’s all these barriers.

But in the United States, you can basically be the dumbest person in your class, you could come from a family that makes almost nothing, and still you could become a CEO of a company or get elected a United States senator. It really is what you make of your life, and the work that you’re willing to put in on your own. That gets you far in this country. And I think that resonates a lot with immigrants that come here.

The wildfires that devastated Lahaina on Maui last year prove that Hawaii is not immune to climate change. What’s the most important thing that the world should do to address the climate crisis?

We need to invest in clean energy. People oftentimes think that it’s scary because it’s replacing something that we’ve used for so long, which is oil and fossil fuels. But change can be a good thing sometimes, especially when it comes to the environment.

In Maui, we have passed several bills to help with wildfire mitigation and recovery, as well as future planning to house many of the affected families. We have definitely made Maui a priority.

Online, your personal life is pretty much an enigma. I’ll give you an example. I looked you up on Wikipedia, and the only thing in that section on your page is the sentence, “Tam lives with his dog Winston.”

(Laughing) Yes.

And you also don’t mention being gay anywhere on your campaign website. Does this mean, aside from time with your dog, that in fact, you don’t have a personal life?

I do have a personal life. I think my personal life is more interesting than my than my government life, actually. I have an amazing boyfriend. His name is Tony. If I have the time, and this is mostly like, after dinner, I enjoy playing on the Nintendo Switch. And I love playing tennis, which is pretty much the way I stay active. And of course, we go to the gym.

How long have you and Tony been together?

We just celebrated our two-year anniversary.

Where did you meet?

So we met in 2021 at a Turkish restaurant. He was having dinner with someone else, and I was having dinner with a friend. And my friend knew his friend. So he kind of asked, “Hey, let’s go say hi to my friend,” and we both went over to the table and we both said hi to each other, and that’s how I met Tony.

And afterwards, we decided to go to a karaoke bar, and we kind of connected. We dated for a bit and then things kind of fell through, and then a year later we hit each other up again, and we started dating again, and we made it official.

So I guess you’re going steady.

(laughing) Yes.

Do you have marriage plans?

As of right now, we are just taking it day by day. We will know when the time comes.

I saw some pictures of you and Tony on Instagram. There’s one of the two of you in front of Cinderella’s castle at a Disney park. Which one is it, and are you a big-time Disney nerd?

I am. I love Disney. That was in Tokyo Disneyland. And this was his first time at Disneyland and definitely not my first time.

President Barack Obama is a Hawaii native like you and spends a lot of time there. Have you had occasion to meet him?

I’ve never had a chance to meet him. He still vacations in Hawaii, but we don’t know whether or not he’s here. There’s really no announcement or anything, and I think that’s kind of for the best. He’s human and he deserves privacy, right?

What’s the best thing about serving the people of District 24 in Waikiki?

The best thing about serving the people of this district is that it’s also pretty much addressing the concerns that I have for this district, too, because I am also a constituent. And I may be biased, but I love interacting with my constituents. They’re probably some of the nicest people you’ll ever meet on the islands.

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