TEMPE, Ariz. — Former Tempe Mayor Neil Giuliano made history when he became the first openly gay elected mayor in the country in the mid-1990s.
It's not a title he ever thought about having. He said it just happened that way and it changed the direction of his life.
Giuliano had a great childhood. He had loving parents and three siblings, growing up with a close bond.
"My father was a college football player. He was a marine. My mother was the homemaker," he recalled.
He knew about public life too; his dad was a city council member before they moved to Arizona. While it piqued his interest, he never thought it was in the cards for him.
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"Even in late high school and early college, I knew that I was gay, but I certainly was never going to do anything about it," he remembered.
Instead, he focused on being the best student at Arizona State University and kept himself busy with extracurricular activities.
That's what brought him to the Tempe Leadership program. It was there he was encouraged to run for office by mentors who could see his passion for the work.
He first held city council seats and then in 1994 he ran and won the race for Tempe mayor. But he was still hiding a secret.
He said, "You kid yourself when you think you're totally in the closet and no one really knows... You leave clues, right? People are observant."
When he ran for re-election in 1996, amid growing whispers about his personal life, he decided to step into his truth.
"…When I came out publicly Tempe became the largest city in America with an openly gay mayor,” he recounted.
After he made the announcement, he tried to focus on the work, helping establish Tempe Town Lake among several other accomplishments. But he faced two recall efforts that he says were really spurred by homophobia.
The first one failed. The second, however, did go to a vote on September 11, 2001.
"The September eleventh. And it was a very frightening day for the country," he said. He would go on to win undeniably and would serve ten years total as mayor of Tempe.
During his last term in 2004, he learned a space in Tempe Town Lake was going to be named Giuliano Park. And in 2014 it was dedicated on the 20th anniversary of his election.
Giuliano was proud of the work he did in the city, but he said he wanted to grow. He next worked for the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation and focused on the one thing that, as a child, he wanted to deny.
"People that I know today, were out and were marching and were protesting, I was in the safety of the closet in Arizona, right? So now that I'm out and I have an opportunity to make a contribution and do something, I absolutely had to," he said.
Throughout his time as mayor, he was a registered Republican and was close with the late GOP U.S. Sen. John McCain.
But in 2008 he changed parties to Democrat and recently supported Gov. Katie Hobbs during her election.
He now works with the LGBTIQ+ Victory Institute to help other LGBTIQ+ members with political aspirations like he had.
"When other people who are trying to take you down and trying to fight you and trying to take away the rights you've already earned, it's critical that members of the LGBTIQ+ community are in that room as equals. As elected officials."
After all, he knows from experience.
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