Air Force veteran Gina Ortiz Jones has become the first out LGBTQ+ person elected as mayor of San Antonio, Texas. After beating conservative Rolando Pablos in a runoff election on Saturday, she will also become the third woman to hold the office.

“It was my name on the ballot,” she told supporters at a victory rally that night, “but you and I know decency was on the ballot, kindness was on the ballot, compassion was on the ballot, and San Antonio showed up and showed out.”

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“Let us be clear,” Kamala Harris told rallygoers, “No one should be made to fight alone. We are all in this together.”

She added, “So I look forward to being a mayor for all.”

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The win followed a contentious battle between Jones and Pablos, who is known for his close ties with anti-LGBTQ+ Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R). Jones called Pablos “Abbott’s puppet” and Pablos accused her of using the name Ortiz to appeal to the city’s Latino majority even though she is Filipino-American.

In response, Ortiz called him “racist” and said she’s “proud of my identity.”

“As we think about what’s going on in this moment in time… [we] reminded folks what San Antonio stands for. We reminded them that our city is about compassion and it’s about leading with everybody in mind.”

Jones also brought Brandon, a transgender drill instructor in the United States Air Force, to the stage. She told the crowd he is being kicked out due to the president’s anti-trans executive orders.

“Leadership matters. Leaders do three things: They create opportunities, they protect opportunities, or they erase opportunities… It’s unfortunate that the United States Air Force is not going to benefit from your talents because of bigotry,” she told him.

“Our country, I think we’re going through a blip right now, but San Antonio has had the opportunity to say. you know what, we’re going to move past this.”

Jones ran under the slogan, “There is no time to waste.” A two-time candidate for Congress, Iraq War veteran, Defense Intelligence Agency analyst, and an Under Secretary of the Air Force in the Biden administration, she has certainly done a lot with hers.

She came out to family and friends at 15 and served as an Air Force captain in Iraq under Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. “I learned a long time ago, transparency leads to accountability, and accountability leads to trust,” she said.

Jones most recently served as Under Secretary of the Air Force, where she managed a $173 billion budget and led 600,000 people.

“That job came down to asking yourself two questions every single day,” she recently told LGBTQ Nation, “which is 1) Do my folks have what they need to be successful to do the nation’s work? And 2) Are we making smart investments? I think those are ultimately the questions that a mayor has to ask.”

Jones has voiced tackling poverty as a big priority, since almost 20 percent of San Antonio residents live below the poverty line – a number that has held steady since the 1980s.

A first-generation American, Jones grew up in San Antonio, and her mother is from the Philippines. She raised Jones and her sister as a single mother. They lived in subsidized housing and relied on reduced lunch programs.

In a 2020 interview with LGBTQ Nation, Jones emphasized that these programs were not handouts for her family, but rather critical investments in their future.

In the Air Force, she served as an intelligence officer. She has spent almost fifteen years working in national security, including serving as the Director for Investment at the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative under President Barack Obama.

“I’ve seen firsthand the importance of American leadership,” she also told LGBTQ Nation. “I know how important our example is in so many ways.” She emphasized “the importance of electing good, competent people that can lead in times of crisis and not cause them or exacerbate them.”

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