← Chief Change Officer
Chief Change Officer
#342 Brian Sims: From State House to Soul Work—Driving Change With Smarter Tools — Part One
00:25:36
Brian Sims, the CEO of Agenda PAC, made history as the first out gay man elected to Pennsylvania’s legislature. But he didn’t stop at the symbolism. In this two-part series, he gets candid about getting his mic cut, writing bills that never passed, and realizing that yelling louder isn’t always the answer. From military bases to the House floor to a data-driven advocacy firm, this is a story about changing systems—without losing yourself.
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- [02:24]
Vince Chen
Foreign.
- [02:30]
Brian Sims
Welcome to our show, Chief Change Officer. I'm Vince Chen, your ambitious human host. Our show is a modernist community for change, progressives in organizational and human transformation from around the world. Today's guest is Brian Sims, former Pennsylvania State representative, civil rights attorney, an LGBTQ advocate who sees both the inside of power in ways it's just people up. Brian and I met in Hong Kong about two, three years ago at one of the city's largest LGBTQ events. A powerful moment for visibility, inclusion and connection. In this two part series, Brian shares what it was really like to make history, to get silenced, meet speech, but to keep showing up anyway. He has traded the might for new kind of advocacy, one that is built on strategy data and a little less ego. Let's dive right in. Good morning to you, Brian. I haven't seen you in person for like how long? Two, three years?
- [04:28]
Vince Chen
About two years. Good morning or good evening, Vince.
- [04:32]
Brian Sims
Well, lot of things have happened in two years time, Brian. How are you? How have you been?
- [04:40]
Vince Chen
It always feels like such a loaded question and I'm I at least here in the United States, especially where minute by minute, hour by hour, things seems there's a lot of change, often change for the bad. I find myself asking people how they are today. How are you this moment? To answer your question, in the two years since we've seen each other in person, I've gotten married. Um, I actually, right about the time that we were meeting, I proposed to my then boyfriend and we've been planning a wedding for the this upcoming September for quite some time with friends and family. But with the recent political changes in the United States, I'm extremely fearful that a marriage equality won't exist for LGBTQ people by the time that we had our wedding planned for. So we went ahead and got married just about two months ago. And, and so to answer maybe more of your question, I'm personally good, I'm in love and I'm living with the person that I love. And those things are important. But I also, I not only work in politics, I work where politics meet civil rights. And here in the United States, those two things are colliding right now in ways that we've never seen before.
- [05:43]
Brian Sims
You are trained lawyer. You studied business, politics and law. Then at some point you entered politics, serving as a House representative. We'll dive deeper into each of those roles. But first, give us a quick overview of your journey, what you've done professionally. Then we'll trace things back to your roots, your family, your upbringing, and circle back to the different roles you played throughout the year and the rights you've been fighting for.
- [06:25]
Vince Chen
I started my career, my. My career as a lawyer in Philadelphia. I moved to Philadelphia after law school and practiced first disability law and Civil rights law. I became what's called the in house counsel for the Philadelphia Bar association, the sort of collective of lawyers in Philadelphia, which was the, and still is the oldest in the country, and really began my career around lawyers, being a lawyer for lawyers in addition to doing civil rights work. And as is often the case with, with people trying to pay off student debt and student loans, there were, there was work I needed to do to earn an income, and there was work I needed to do to, to sleep well at night. And I. Those two things happened. I had a day job and a gay job, as I like to describe it. And ultimately, at some point, I had the privilege or the benefit of being able to make a decision between doing work that was more morally important to me, that was more ethics and value driven than income driven. And I left my work as an attorney to run our LGBTQ equality organization in the state that I lived for some time and in doing so was required to interact with the politics of my state. I was living in a state that had very little civil rights for LGBTQ people like myself, even though I was living in a city that had almost all of the equality that we could ask of a municipal government. And I existed in that space for a little while, trying to impact equality through an equality organization and hoping that we could have an impact on our elected officials, on our, on, on our decision makers. And at some point, I, after being unable to change those minds, I tried. I decided I needed to change the people whose minds we were focusing on. And I focused a little bit more on electoral politics for several years. And at some point, my close friend sat me down and, and said that I was the person that I had been looking for to run. And I ran for office when I was 31 years old. I ran against the 28 year incumbent. She had been in office since I was three years old. And I won my very first race on a very small margin, 233 votes. And I was the first out LGBTQ person ever elected to my state legislature, with which came with both a lot of responsibility and a ton of opportunities, and tried to avail myself of both of those as often as I could for the 10 years that I served in office. At the end of it, I retired from my seat in the House of Representatives and actually supported a close friend who ran for my seat. I also ran for Lieutenant governor of my state, a race that I was not successful in. I, during that whole time, had spent a lot of years teaching colleges and companies how to be active in LGBTQ equality. And civil rights. And so I did that for my career, for the first year that I was out of office, which is when we met. And now for the last six months or so, I've run an organization that uses a lot of data and campaign information to focus on elected officials that are attacking civil rights the most and to try to knock them out of office.
- [09:33]
Brian Sims
We'll see the, those stories for later, especially the part about knocking them out of office. But let's go back to your roots. You mentioned growing up in a fairly disciplined environment. Both of your parents were military officers. I've always believed that who we are today, what we do, and what we strive for tomorrow are all shaped by our past. And I think your origin story plays a big role in who you are and what drives you. What was your childhood like?
- [10:13]
Vince Chen
I certainly agree. I think good behaviors and bad behaviors often have a lot of roots in how we were raised. In my case, I was lucky enough to be raised by two incredible parents. They're both still alive, they're both still in love. And my, my mom and dad are retired lieutenant colonels in the army in, in the 1960s, the United States was involved in the war in Vietnam. And my father was drafted and sent to Vietnam. And my mother left college and transfer, went and joined the army as a nurse. And my parents met soon thereafter and stayed active duty in the army for most of their adult lives, which meant for me as a, as one of their children. There's four of us, I have a twin brother, an older brother and a younger sister that we got to grow up all over the continental United States, from Kansas in the very middle of the country to Alaska, the sort of wilderness of Alaska. And I think when people hear that my parents are military, they assume that there was a lot of discipline, which there was, but there was also a ton of creativity. There was a ton of love in my household. There was music in my household. There was good food and bad food in my household. And in one of the ways that I know it shaped me. Aside from that, I'm very, I'm very proud to be an adventurer like my siblings are. I think we're very comfortable being in places that are new to us and that we don't, that we don't exactly understand. But I, my, my mom was by and large one of the only women in women officers that I ever was around as a young person, that I was ever around on army bases. Most of my friends fathers were soldiers or officers, but not ever their mothers. But of course mine was and It. It was very apparent to me from a very young age how in my household, my parents had a wonderfully co. Equal relationship, and they each had tasks and chores that aligned with their tastes and their likes, not necessarily with their genders. And outside of the house, I knew that my mom was treated differently than other mothers and that my. And I, I. I didn't exactly know what that meant as a young person, but the older and older that I got and the more that I began to focus on public policy in my life, it became easier for me to luckily to draw from my own personal experiences to understand what not just equality looks like, but being proactive about equality, what being an ally means as about the things you do, not who you say you are.
- [12:34]
Brian Sims
Can we go deeper into your mother's story? We know she was a military officer and a practicing nurse, and I'd love to hear more about her from your perspective. Beyond the titles. Growing up, how did you see her as different from other typical American mothers around you?
- [13:03]
Vince Chen
My sister likes to joke that when my mom passes away, on her tombstone will be engraved. I bet I could do that. My mom was someone who had a confidence that was based upon her. Her output. It was based upon her experiences. It was not misguided, it was not arrogance. But my mom always knew who she was, and she. It was always very clear to us as her children. I can remember very finite, very specific examples of male soldiers not recognizing that my mom was an officer. And that moment where my mom, you know, let them know that she was an officer and their recognition of what was going on in that situation as a very little kid taught me a lot about. About knowing your worth, knowing your value, knowing who you are and why you are. And those are very elusive lessons, by the way. I don't even know if I've ever fully learned them, but I did know with my mom that my mom was confident enough to not let, for example, bad actors around her behave poorly in front of us. I remember multiple times as a kid, my mom stopping somebody and saying, absolutely not with that behavior, especially in front of my children. And I learned that the difference between the sort of confidence it takes to intervene. I am. I serve on a board of an organization that fights bullying. And one of the words that they often use is an upstander. The difference between a bystander is somebody that watches something happen and does nothing. An upstander is somebody that watches something happen and decides to do something, engage. And my mom was. Is the consummate upstander in my life. And that came from having to decide for her. She had to be. She was one of the only women of her kind on any base she was ever on. My mom has a short haircut, has her whole adult professional life. I'm sure she was accused of being a lesbian at least once a week in her career in the military in the 80s and the 90s. And it didn't harden her, it strengthened her.
- [15:04]
Brian Sims
Yeah, it's really funny that you mentioned the haircut. Ever since I was a kid, I've always had had short hair. Thinking back to those times, it wasn't exactly the norm. So people check me out, stare at me when I enter the ladies washroom, for example. So anyway, that's the experience for having short hair in the era when long hair for women, for female was still the mainstream, or it still is, especially.
- [15:43]
Vince Chen
In those days for a woman. And I don't even, to be honest with you, I'm not even certain that she was allowed to have long hair as a woman in the military. But I also know without question that silly bigots who think that a haircut has a gender would have thought that my mother's haircut was inappropriate. And it's just a simple, tiny thing. And I've never asked her, and I have no idea, but I now I've been doing this work long enough, and I know where the root of a lot of people's silly bigotry can be placed. And. And I know that I am certain that she had to deal with men that did not think that she was equal to them because she was a woman. Men that didn't think that her experience as a combat nurse was as important as their experience as a combat soldier. And I'm happy to say I never confused the two.
- [16:26]
Brian Sims
Yeah, exactly. There were and still are so many stereotypes. The whole image of the ideal woman being someone with long blonde hair, blue eyes, and if not the housewife type, then polished corporate woman in a tailored suit with that cookie cutter edge on. And I was like, well, that's not me. This is.
- [16:56]
Vince Chen
Which has nothing to do with substance or success.
- [17:00]
Brian Sims
Totally agree. Now, you mentioned that you grew up moving across different parts of the US and within one country that you get exposed to a wide range of cultures and communities. I can see how that shape your lens on diversity and why the seeds of DEI were planted so early in your life. Part of DEI is also the LGBTQ experience. I was wondering, when did you decide to come out and what was that conversation like when you did?
- [17:51]
Vince Chen
I like to say that I didn't exactly get to decide. It was decided for me, but in a really wonderful way. How many discounts does USAA Auto Insurance offer? Too many to say here. Multi vehicle discount Safe driver discount New vehicle discount Storage discount.
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- [18:14]
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- [18:45]
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- [19:16]
Vince Chen
I was a much bigger person when I was a teenager and when I was in my early 20s and I played American football in grammar school and in high school and then I played in college and my college football team went to a national championship and I was the captain of that football team and we lost. And about a week and a half later I was visiting another college, a college where my twin brother attended with some of my teammates and they used that sort of private moment to ask me if I was gay. They, I think they had these were my closest friends. These were people that I had lived with or around for the better part of four years. And I think they were waiting for a moment when it wouldn't put me at risk to ask me. And I was honest with them. They were honest with me. We had a lot of questions for one another and it was one of the most uplifting. Not moments because it was extended over months, but for months of my life. In my early 20s, after 22 years in the closet, my my closest friends really wanted me to know how important I was in their lives, that how close we all were. And I in the years that followed, when I was first getting into LGBTQ civil rights, I often would say I want everybody's experience to be like mine. Yes, I was still in the closet and I heard I was an athlete and heard lots and lots of awful things in my teens. And I, yes, I had lots of insecurities, but when I did finally come out, I did so to the support and love and kindness of a bunch of people who often, I even now joke, they didn't know how to offer love and support and kindness, but they did in their own ways. And these are people that I'm still close with 25 years later because of it.
- [20:59]
Brian Sims
You were raised in a household founded in both love and independence. And if I'm hearing you right, your mother played a big part in that. She stood up for herself, lived on her own terms, and didn't let the expectation of her era dictate who she was. And that example shaped you. When your turn came in a time of change, you stood up for yourself, too. Openly, honestly. And I imagine that same foundation is what drew you to study law, to focus on civil rights, and to use your skills to support others who may not have had the same resources, protection, or voice that you did. Would you say that's part of what guided your path?
- [22:04]
Vince Chen
I sure hope so. I sure hope so. I believe that I have a plaque that my parents gave me when I was 22 years old. When I got into law school, they mailed me this plaque, and there's a quote by one of our former presidents, and it's about law and human rights and kindness. But my parents bought it when I was maybe 12 years old. They waited 10 years to give it to me. And I knew my whole. From a very young age, I told people I was going to be a feminist lawyer. As a little kid, that was the job. You know, some people wanted to be a firefighter, an astronaut. As I got older, I learned that I meant women's and reproductive rights and civil rights, and I meant access and agency and autonomy and. But at the time, I knew what feminism was, and I knew I wanted to be an attorney. I took my entrance exams to law school when I was 16 years old, the first time, long before college. And it was just. I knew I wanted to be a feminist lawyer. And when I finally got to law school, months after I came out of the closet, it had already begun my approach to what I wanted to do. It already changed a little bit. I was doing international law, largely international human rights law, mostly European Union and South American law, along with what I was doing, having to learn all the laws of the United States. And I think the language that I learned in feminism, the approach to equality that I learned through feminism, luckily for me, was Then the lens that I got to look upon myself when I finally came out of the closet, when I fully realized that I was a gay man. I had five, six, seven years of the language of feminism to help me see myself through that lens. It was a savior, and it just reinforced that I wanted to do that work professionally.
- [23:47]
Brian Sims
Back in 2012, you got elected and found yourself as the only out person in the room. That must have been a powerful moment, but also a complicated one. While the country was gradually becoming more opened towards LGBTQ issues, it was still a very different climate from today. What was the first term experience like for you? Being visibly out, navigating politics and holding space in a room where no one else shared that same lived experience?
- [24:38]
Vince Chen
I. It felt like a big responsibility, no question. All of us have had big responsibilities in our lives, and some of them we recognized in the moment, some of them we recognize in hindsight. I was very aware from the moment I won my election until I took office eight months or so later, that I was the out person there. Now, I served with over a dozen closeted elected officials, almost all of whom 90%, 80%, were supportive of anti LGBTQ bills. It wasn't just that they were not out. It's that they were actively hurting the community. And so I knew I needed to focus on them first, which I did do. But to answer your question, what I remember thinking at the time was, I've learned to be the advocate I am. That just got me elected because of my work with women's and reproductive rights and racial and ethnic justice, two things that need lots of work still in our capital. And I look just like the people who attack women's rights and racial and ethnic justice. And so I decided that my first term, especially my first year, everyone knew I was lgbtq. Everyone knew I was an LGBTQ activist. There were a couple of really bad moments. I'd been shut down on the House floor from speaking because of it. I'd been discriminated against in front of my colleagues a few times, and myself and my staff and my team, we decided to use that attention to show people what an ally looked like and that I would. I introduced a whole bunch of women's rights bills. I signed on to every women's rights bill. I introduced a bunch of ethnic intimidation act bills and a bunch of racial and ethnic justice bills to show people, yes, I am gay. Yes, that's part of the reason I was elected here, and it informs the work I do. But I can introduce these bills and show you why that matters. And hopefully you will understand why the things that impact my life matter. And it did have that effect, which I was grateful for.
- [26:31]
Brian Sims
So on the one hand, your identity helped you get elected. It was a source of strength, visibility and representation. But once inside the holes, it also made you a target for disagreement, even exclusion. Did you consciously turn that tension into a strategy, building alliances with those who didn't necessarily share your identity but shared your policy interests so you could amplify your voice and make real progress?
- [27:15]
Vince Chen
It is. I'll give you a really good example. Very early on in my first term, before I had ever spoken on the House floor, there was a good ruling from the Supreme Court came down about marriage equality for LGBTQ people. And at the end of session that day, at the end of our legislative session, a couple months into my first term, there's a moment where legislators get to stand up and talk about major events and how they will impact law and policy. And I rose to speak about that and I got a half a word out and my microphone was cut.
- [28:03]
Brian Sims
That's it for today. Brian shared how he stepped into politics not because he wanted to be a politician, but because he wanted different people in the room. But in part two, we go inside that room what it was like to get silenced and to learn how to fight smarter. Don't miss it. Thank you so much for joining us today. If you like what you heard, don't forget, subscribe to our show, Leave us top rated reviews, check out our website and follow me on social media on this. Chan, you ambitious human host. Until next time, take care.
- [29:08]
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- [29:24]
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