You might have heard that Wikileaks just released 100 or so emails belonging to Hillary Clinton.

One email in particular caught my eye because it’s about LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) stuff.

And what did we learn from this latest LGBT bombshell?

That Hillary Clinton cares about our community even when nobody is looking.

It was July of 2009, and Hillary’s chief of staff at the State Department, Cheryl Mills, emailed Hillary a BBC story about how gays in Iraq were faring even worse than they did under Saddam Hussein. Mills sent the story from her State Department email account, and to Clinton’s personal email.

Hillary then responded to Mills:

So sad and terrible. We should ask Chris Hill to raise this w govt. If we ever get Posner confirmed we should emphasize LGBT human rights.

Chris Hill was the US ambassador to Iraq, at the time. Hillary was suggesting that Hill raise the issue with the Iraqi government. And Posner is Michael Posner, Obama’s then-nominee for Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor. Posner was ultimately confirmed by the Senate.

This is really a key email, because it shows, early on, Hillary Clinton’s desire to use the State Department to push for LGBT rights internationally. Hillary did in fact “emphasize LGBT human rights” while serving as Secretary of State, in a big way. Among other things, she gave a famous and important speech to the United Nations devoted entirely to LGBT rights.

Also of note, and less known, Hillary was a trans rights pioneer while at State. It was 2011 when Secretary Clinton quietly made it possible for people who are transgender to put their accurate gender on their US passport. As the Daily Beast story I link to show, this was no small deal. Yet, most of us hadn’t even heard about this, because Hillary did it to help, not to make a show of it.

(As Secretary of State, Hillary did much more on LGBT rights than that. You can read the rest here.)

So when I read this leaked email, presumably intended to hurt Hillary, I see a woman who decided early on to make a difference on our issues. And that’s what a fierce advocate looks like.

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