Estevan Montemayor couldn’t even pronounce Pete Buttigieg’s name before he attended the Democrat’s presidential campaign fundraiser at a West Hollywood bar in March. By the time it was over, he was so “mesmerized” that he promptly cut a donation check.

But that doesn’t mean that Montemayor, leader of the organization that produces the annual LGBT Pride event in Los Angeles, is sold on the mayor of South Bend, Ind., whose name is pronounced BOOT-edge-edge. Montemayor has also given money to California Sen. Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign.

Such split loyalties are found in many corners of California’s LGBT community, where voters are torn between supporting a native Californian who has long been a champion for their issues and an openly gay candidate who kisses his husband on the campaign trail.

Winning over the LGBT community will be key to picking up votes in delegate-rich California in March’s primary — after African Americans, LGBT people make up the Democratic Party’s most reliable voting bloc, said Donnie Fowler, an adjunct professor of politics and policy at the University of San Francisco and a veteran of eight presidential campaigns.

Roughly 80 percent of LGBT voters cast ballots for Democrats in the 2018 elections, he said.

The LGBT community has long been a top fundraising source for Democrats, too. The Advocate, a publication focused on the gay community, reported that LGBT people accounted for nearly 20 percent of “bundlers” who raised half a million dollars or more for President Barack Obama’s 2012 re-election campaign.

Nationally, both Harris (7 percent) and Buttigieg (6.6 percent) are trailing former Vice President Joe Biden (41 percent) in the latest RealClearPolitics amalgamation of polls. Biden also leads in California with 26 percent support, to Harris’ 17 percent and Buttigieg’s 7 percent, according to an April survey by Quinnipiac University.

It’s Buttigieg, however, who came out of nowhere in just the past couple of months. He’s trying to capitalize with 10 fundraising events in California this week, including a public event Friday in San Francisco, where tickets quickly sold out. The audience is likely to include LGBT people who, like Montemayor, are inspired by Buttigieg’s personal story.

“I want to see Mayor Pete on that debate stage,” said Montemayor, 28. “I am a young gay man and I want to see my community up on that stage. At first, nobody knew who the hell he was or expected him to resonate like he did. But God, he’s connecting with people, and that’s what we have to do.

“But Sen. Harris has been stellar, too, on all of our issues,” he said. “That’s why it’s been difficult for some of us (in the LGBT community), when you have candidates who have been supportive of our issues.”

Rick Zbur, executive director of Equality California, said many of the LGBT advocacy group’s members are supporting and donating to both Buttigieg and Harris. While many relate to Buttigieg’s personal story, “they’re seeing the historical significance in Sen. Harris’ run as a woman of color from our home state who probably knows LGBT issues better than anyone else in the field,” Zbur said.

Harris gets high marks from Zbur and other LGBT leaders for refusing to defend the anti-same-sex marriage initiative Proposition 8 in court when she was California’s attorney general. Dating back to her days as San Francisco’s district attorney, she supported abolishing gay and transgender “panic defenses” in criminal trials. And she has long backed bans on “gay conversion therapy” programs in California.

San Francisco event designer Stanlee Gatti has given $2,800, the maximum individual contribution permitted under federal law, to both Harris — whom he counts as a friend — and to Buttigieg.

“Most of my friends have given to both,” Gatti said. “They find a great deal of hope with both of them.”

Many LGBT voters say they identify with Buttigieg because he has openly discussed his struggles in coming out as gay.

“If you could have offered me a pill that could make me straight, I would have swallowed it before you could give me a swig of water,” Buttigieg said last month at the LGBT Victory Fund’s annual brunch. “It’s a hard thing to think about now. If you had shown me exactly what it was that made me gay, I would have cut it out with a knife.

“Thank God there was no pill,” Buttigieg said. “Thank God there was no knife.”

Said West Hollywood attorney Andrew Reback: “I know what that feels like.”

Hearing Buttigieg talk openly about that part of his life “means a lot to me,” Reback said. He attended one of Buttigieg’s events this week in Los Angeles and said the candidate has “helped me to want to pursue more public service.”

Zbur said Buttigieg’s story reflects “the kinds of things that LGBT youth really grapple with ... and most LGBT candidates don’t talk about it.”

Zbur knows that from experience. When he ran for Congress in 1996 in Southern California, advisers told him that “the public wasn’t ready for a gay man to be that authentic. That I shouldn’t have my boyfriend on stage with me. Even at that time, the view was that it was better that straight male voters wouldn’t be thinking that I was having a romantic relationship with another guy.”

Two decades later, Buttigieg’s husband, Chasten Glezman, is an integral part of the campaign. The two appeared together recently on the cover of Time magazine under the headline, “First Family.”

11 years ago, when I came out, I didn’t think there was a place for me in this world.

10 months ago we said “I do.”

1 month ago we said “let’s do this.”

Today: pic.twitter.com/7642YUw40n — Chasten Buttigieg (@Chas10Buttigieg) May 2, 2019

Zbur said the fact that the marriage has been warmly received so far “shows how far we’ve come in the last 20 years. It’s really motivating.”

But while many LGBT voters appreciate that a gay candidate is gaining national attention, not all are ready to support him just because he’s gay.

“A lot of people expect all the LGBT clubs to endorse Pete because he’s the G in LGBT,” said Gina Simi, co-chair of the Alice B. Toklas LGBT Democratic Club in San Francisco, “But we need to think bigger than that. We have to think who is going to win.”

Simi will attend Buttigieg’s event Friday in San Francisco, but has not decided whom she will support. Neither has Kevin Bard, president of the Harvey Milk LGBTQ Democratic Club in San Francisco. He is less than impressed by Buttigieg. He wants to hear him talk more specifically about policy on issues such as homelessness and poverty when he is in San Francisco.

“Right now, there’s more sizzle than steak,” Bard said. “He may make a dream date, but that doesn't mean he'll make a dream president.”

Joe Garofoli is The San Francisco Chronicle’s senior political writer. Email: jgarofoli@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @joegarofoli