American politician Pete Buttigieg was BOTD in 1982. Born in South Bend, Indiana to a prominent academic family, he was educated at private schools, showing an early interest in politics and taking part in a US Senate Youth programme in his teens. He studied at Harvard University before winning a Rhodes Scholarship to attend Oxford University. After graduation, he worked on John Kerry’s 2004 presidential campaign, before joining the global consulting firm McKinsey & Co. In 2010, he stood unsuccessfully as the Democrat nominee for the Indiana state treasury, though was elected mayor of the town of South Bend later that year. Known as “Mayor Pete”, he led an “economic regeneration” of the area, demolishing thousands of homes in working-class Black and Latinx neighbourhoods to build luxury apartment blocks. He was also widely criticised after firing the town’s first African-American police chief Darryl Boykins, and failing to investigate claims of institutional racism within the police force. A long-time member of the US Navy Reserve, he undertook a seven month tour of duty in Afghanistan in 2014, earning the Joint Service Commendation Medal before his discharge. A devout Catholic, Buttigieg came out publicly as gay in 2015, aged 33, announcing his engagement to schoolteacher Chasten Glezman in 2017 and marrying the following year. He rose to nationwide attention in 2019 when he launched his candidacy for the US Presidency. Presenting himself as a progressive, capitalist-friendly and openly gay candidate, he was an early leader in Democratic caucus elections, though was criticised by many activists for his assimilationist and neo-liberal policies and tone-deafness around racism and LGBTQ representation. He was spectacularly bitch-slapped in Dale Peck‘s article for The New Republic titled “My Mayor Pete Problem”, in which Peck described him as “just another unrepentant or at least unexamined beneficiary of white male privilege” and “a definite top-by-default vibe… which is to say that I bet he thinks about getting fucked but he’s too uptight to do it“. Peck was widely criticised for his comments, and the article was later removed from The New Republic’s website, followed by an apology from the editor (though, tellingly, not from Peck). After losing the presidential nomination, Buttigieg was appointed Secretary of Transportation in Joe Biden’s 2021 government, which he held until 2025. Buttigieg lives in Traverse City, Michigan with Glezman and their two adopted children. He is widely expected to announce his campaign for the 2028 presidential election.