Inside The Rift Between JD Vance And One Of His Closest Law School Friends

Before JD Vance was an Ohio senator and before he wrote "Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis," which was made into a movie directed by Ron Howard, he was a student at Yale Law School. While he was there, he became close friends with public defender Sofia Nelson, who identifies as transgender; however, that relationship has since splintered. Not long after Vance was named Donald Trump's somewhat left-field pick for vice president, Nelson started going public about their years-long friendship with Vance as well as when and how it all fell apart.

As for why Nelson decided to start publicly talking about Vance (including sharing some private communications between the two of them) they explained to the Detroit Free Press in 2024, "I have a lot of fond memories of the man that I knew for over a decade. But he's now advancing a political agenda that's trying to strip me, and the people that I love and have built community with, of our civil rights, and I felt a duty to speak out as a result."

To see how it all started, we have to go back to 2010. Nelson and Vance met when they were just starting out at Yale as a part of the same freshmen cohort — that's also where Vance met his wife Usha. Even then, they didn't share all the same political views, but they grew close thanks to a shared background of growing up in and surrounded by the Midwestern working class.

JD Vance and Sofia Nelson were close enough friends that Nelson went to Vance's wedding in 2014, and Vance brought homemade treats to Nelson after surgery, per The New York Times. They stayed in touch after law school and talked about, among other things, big, political issues. And while they again differed on some things, they were still able to thoughtfully discuss a range of issues like Pride, police violence, African-American reparations, and even about Donald Trump — Vance wasn't always a fan of the former president. In 2015, Vance told Nelson via email, "I think you're my only liberal friend with whom I talk openly about politics on a deeper sense," as reported by The New York Times. Vance also reached out to Nelson with a section of his book "Hillbilly Elegy," and he had the self-awareness and care for his friend to note that he'd referred to Nelson as "an extremely progressive lesbian." He admitted, "[...] I recognize now that this may not accurately reflect how you think of yourself, and for that I am really sorry," according to The New York Times.

But then in 2021, the relationship fractured. Vance had come out in favor of a proposed ban in Arkansas for youth to get gender-affirming care and his social media started to promote more anti-trans perspectives. This was distressing for Nelson, who then got in touch with Vance. But the conversation clearly didn't go well. It went so badly, in fact, that the two former friends never rekindled their friendship.

In an interview with CNN after JD Vance was announced as Donald Trump's vice-president pick, Sofia Nelson said it was "heartbreaking to see [Vance] become so callous and divisive." They noted how in the past, Vance had been more "compassionate," even when they disagreed.

A way that Nelson showed that former compassion was to release some of the emails and texts that confirmed that Vance used to revile Trump and showed him approaching situations with more nuance and understanding than he seems to now as a vice presidential candidate. The goal for Nelson in releasing these conversations was to help people get a better understanding of Vance — who he had been and who he was now. A Vance campaign spokesperson explained Vance's seeming flip-flop on Trump and other issues as occurring after he started a family, per CNN.

As for Nelson, their current understanding of Vance is that he's a "chameleon [...] able to change their positions and their values depending on what will amass them political power and wealth," via CNN. Vance and Trump will not be getting Nelson's vote nor does it seem like their friendship will be reignited anytime soon.