Tom Ammiano (born December 15, 1941) is an American politician and LGBT rights activist from San Francisco, California. Ammiano, a member of the California Legislative LGBT Caucus, served as a member of the California State Assembly from 2008 to November 30, 2014. He had previously been a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors and had mounted an unsuccessful bid for mayor of San Francisco in 1999. He was succeeded as California's Assemblyman for District 17 by San Francisco Board of Supervisors President David Chiu on December 1, 2014. Early life and education Ammiano grew up in Montclair, New Jersey, part of a working-class family of Italian Americans. He attended Immaculate Conception High School, graduating in 1959. Ammiano competed successfully on the school's track team and earned a varsity letter that he never received, apparently because he was perceived to be gay, an experience that he described as "humiliating". After discussing the long-time slight on the radio in 2020 while being interviewed about his book Kiss My Gay Ass, a listener reached out to the school and pleaded his case "in the interest of healing old wounds". After confirming his qualifications with a former coach and a team captain, the school relented in 2021 and sent him a letter to mark his accomplishments. Ammiano attended Seton Hall University, earning a bachelor's degree in communication in 1963. Hoping to leave New Jersey as far as possible in the distance he moved to San Francisco in 1963, and earned a master's degree in special education from San Francisco State University in 1965. Ammiano was opposed to the Vietnam War and from 1966 to 1968 was an English teacher in a small town in South Vietnam, serving with a Quaker development group. Career in education and comedy After returning to San Francisco, Ammiano was a special-education teacher at Buena Vista Elementary School in the Mission. In 1975, he was one of the founders of the Gay Teachers Caucus which successfully pushed the school board to prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation. Ammiano also came out publicly as a gay man in a news conference that year, and became one of the first public-school teachers in San Francisco to do so. In 1980, Ammiano began to perform stand-up comedy. Political activism and career Briggs Initiative In 1977, Ammiano, with activists Hank Wilson and Harvey Milk, co-founded "No on 6" against the Briggs Initiative,