Anti-LGBTQ+ Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH), the man former President Donald Trump recently selected as his vice presidential running mate, once told his grandmother that he thought that he might be gay, according to his 2016 autobiography Hillbilly Elegy. She convinced him he wasn’t gay by asking him if he wanted to “suck d**ks.” He is now married to a woman.

“I’ll never forget the time I convinced myself that I was gay. I was eight or nine, maybe younger, and I stumbled upon a broadcast by some fire-and-brimstone preacher. The man spoke about the evils of homosexuals, how they had infiltrated our society, and how they were all destined for hell absent some serious repenting,” he wrote in his book. “At the time, the only thing I knew about gay men was that they preferred men to women. This described me perfectly: I disliked girls, and my best friend in the world was my buddy Bill. Oh no, I’m going to hell.”

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When he told his grandmother about his worries, she said, “Don’t be a f**king idiot, how would you know that you’re gay?” When he explained his thinking, she reportedly laughed and asked, “J.D., do you want to suck d**ks?”

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Vance replied, “Of course not!”

“Then you’re not gay,” she said. “And even if you did want to suck d**ks, that would be okay. God would still love you.”

Vance’s book describes the shift in his hometown’s region from Democratic to Republican, as well as his childhood growing up with a drug-addicted mother and alcoholic stepfather. Vance moved out of his mother’s house around when he was in tenth grade and was subsequently raised by his grandmother. He later served in Iraq as a marine and attended Yale Law School on a scholarship.

He married his wife, Usha Chilukuri, in 2014; they have three children together.

Despite his childhood worry that he might be gay, he has since proved anti-LGBTQ+ as a senator.

Vance opposes same-sex marriage rights and gender-affirming care for transgender youth. He has referred to gender identity as a “harmful ideology” and has proposed legislation to prohibit the use of nonbinary gender markers on passports. He has also criticized the use of LGBTQ+-inclusive language.