Presidential hopeful and Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, D-Hawaii, may have deeply unpalatable views on issues from foreign policy (she’s pals with Syrian dictator Bashar Assad) to taxation, but none have put her under fire from the Left more than her history with LGBT issues.

Gabbard, raised by a Catholic father, once held fairly strong opposition not just to gay marriage, but to homosexuality in general. Even by contemporary standards, Gabbard’s lamentations of “homosexual extremists” were more intolerant than the norm. She worked for her father’s PAC which advocated for gay conversion therapy, a practice that most scientists agree is ineffective in “curing” homosexuality. In 2004, Gabbard opposed civil unions for same-sex couples in the Hawaii House of Representatives. She’s since radically evolved on the issue, publicly apologizing to the gay community in 2012 as she ran for Congress. Her record on the national stage has been about as pro-LGBT as any other mainstream Democrat, and there’s no indication it’s anything less than genuine.