Another day down to the first Democratic presidential primary debate. Today marks the 26th anniversary of the first law in the world to give civil union rights to gay couples (hint: it wasn’t in America), so I thought we should take this moment to reflect on Bernie’s record on gay rights.

I’m sure most of you know the big ones in Bernie’s record by now: In the 1970s, a time when many states still banned gay sex, Sanders published a letter to a newspaper calling for an end to laws that regulate homosexuality. In the 1980s, as mayor of Burlington, Vermont, Sanders supported measures authorizing a gay pride parade and banning discrimination in housing based on sexual orientation, among other identities. As a Congressional representative, he voted against against the Defense of Marriage Act in 1996. And I’m also sure that by this point, we’ve all see this video:

But what’s really remarkable about all this is how ahead of his time he was. Gallup has been asking about LGB rights since the 1970s, and Bernie has always been about 20 years ahead of the curve.

I always get annoyed when I hear someone has “evolved” on gay marriage. To get prissy about language for a moment: Individuals don’t evolve; communities do. But even if we accept the metaphor, these late-comers to the gay marriage party didn’t evolve at all; they were persuaded, by public intellectuals (on the left and on the right); by the stories of gay people who had the temerity to leave the closet; and, indeed, by our political leaders. I remember the first time I realized there was such a thing as a gay congressman. The fact that he looks and moves exactly like Smee from Peter Pan does not diminish my fondness for him in the slightest.

The visibility of gay celebrities and politicians, and the support of their straight colleagues, mattered a great deal, and it mattered most in the days when it felt like the country was against us (a well-founded impression).

Over the last few years, the gay community has had some astonishing successes. I grew up in a country where laws punishing gay people for having sex were constitutional. My youngest niece is growing up in a country where gay marriage bans are unconstitutional. Public opinion on gay marriage has completely changed. And now Congress has before it a bill that would protect gay people from discrimination in housing, jobs and public accommodation. (Bernie’s a cosponsor on that in the Senate.)

But there’s still a lot of work to be done, particularly in the area of rights for trans people, who are four times as likely to live in extreme poverty, twice as likely to be homeless, and half as likely to own their own homes as the general population. Nearly half of the trans respondents to a survey had delayed going to a doctor because they couldn’t afford it.

So the question facing the queer community in 2016 is whom we want leading us in that work. The answer, for me, is someone who actually leads.

You can read more about Bernie’s position on LGBT rights here.