In the 1950s, a teenage Barney Frank once thought that he could never enter politics because he was gay. “To get elected to office you’ve got to be popular,” Frank told TIME in 2021. “To be gay [was, at the time] to be very unpopular.”

But the New Jersey-born “left-handed gay Jew”—as he called himself—entered politics anyway. And he not only managed to secure a 32-year career in the U.S. House of Representatives but to make history as the first incumbent member of Congress to choose to come out and the first incumbent to marry someone of the same sex. He is also known as the lead sponsor of the Dodd-Frank Act, Congress’ response to the 2008 financial crisis and which created the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

Tributes have poured in to honor the Democrat, who died at 86 on Tuesday, as a champion of the LGBT rights movement as well as a major reformer of the U.S. financial system.

“For more than three decades in Congress, he fought tirelessly for the people of Massachusetts, helped make housing more affordable, stood up for the rights of LGBTQ+ Americans, and helped pass one of the most sweeping financial reforms in history designed to protect consumers and prevent another financial crisis,” former President Barack Obama said about Frank in a social media post. “Barney’s passion and wit were second to none, and our thoughts are with his family today.”

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More condolences and tributes came from others, including former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who said in a statement that “working families in Massachusetts and beyond have lost an iconic champion” and that “all of us fortunate enough to serve alongside him were blessed by his boundless knowledge, sage wisdom and great humor.”

Up until his final days, Frank still engaged in politics. He spoke to Politico in April, when he entered hospice care in his home in Maine, where he said that one of his regrets is that he “won’t see the continued implosion of [President] Donald Trump.”

And earlier this month, Frank appeared on CNN, discussing the future of the liberal rights movement and the Democratic Party. When asked about the state of progressive lawmakers today as an icon of the movement, Frank joked: “I’ve been trying to decide whether it’s better to be an icon or an emoji.” 

Jim Segel, Frank’s former campaign manager and close friend, confirmed Frank’s death to the Associated Press. Frank is survived by his husband, Jim Ready, sisters Ann Lewis and Doris Breay, and brother David Frank.

From New Jersey to Capitol Hill

Born in Bayonne, Hudson County, N.J., on March 31, 1940, Frank had shown interest in public affairs in his teenage years and was particularly piqued by civil rights. Frank said the 1955 lynching of Emmett Till, a Black 14-year-old boy from Chicago, resonated with him.

“I remember Emmett Till, who I think was about my age, a black kid from Chicago who was killed in Mississippi—lynched,” Frank told Esquire in an interview in 1988, adding that he felt “ furious” about seeing the news. “It’s probably bigotry that bothers me most. Bigotry and undeserved poverty. There are other issues facing this country right now, but the hunger of a three-year-old who doesn’t deserve to be hungry outweighs in my judgment all the other harms that can happen.”

Frank entered politics in 1968 as a staffer for Boston Mayor Kevin White. He then ran for a seat in the Massachusetts legislature in 1972, and he recalled to TIME in 2021 how he was asked during his campaign whether he’d support gay rights. “[I decided then] that while I would not come out publicly, but I would be very supportive of gay rights,” he said. “My principle is that you have a right to privacy, but not to hypocrisy.”

He told TIME that he had planned to retire from politics at the end of the 1970s, but decided to run for Congress when a seat held by a practicing Catholic priest became available to contest following a papal order to bar priests from holding public office. Frank was elected to represent the state’s 4th congressional district and assumed office in 1981.

Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey honored Frank in a post on social media, calling him “brilliant, fearless, quick-witted, and never afraid to say exactly what was on his mind,” and “a giant in public life who helped change Massachusetts and America for the better.”

Coming out

In 1987, Frank, then 47, made history when he told the Boston Globe, “If you ask the direct question: ‘Are you gay?’ The answer is yes. So what?”

Speaking to TIME in 2021, Frank, who said he knew he was gay since he was 13 years old, said he chose to come out as he couldn’t live with the frustrations and “emotional choking” of hiding his private life. “Everybody has emotional and physical needs that have to be expressed,” he said. The response from his colleagues, Frank put, was “surprisingly wonderful.”

Frank continued to be a voice for the LGBT community through policymaking. He vocally supported ending the “Don’t Ask, Don't Tell” policy, advocating that servicemembers be able to serve while being public about their sexual orientation. He’s also lobbied for measures against the discrimination of LGBT individuals in the workplace, secured funding for the U.S. response to AIDS, and helped pass the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, which expanded hate crime legislation to include protections against violent acts based on perceived gender, sexual orientation, or disability, and which was signed into law in 2009.

But being openly gay also invited scrutiny. In 1990, the House overwhelmingly voted to reprimand him for ethics violations related to hiring a male prostitute in 1985. Conservative Republicans also picked on him: House Majority Leader Dick Armey (R, Texas) called him “Barney F--,” using a homophobic slur, in 1995, though he later apologized. 

In 2012, less than a year before retiring from the House, Frank married his husband Jim Ready, making him the first sitting lawmaker to enter a same-sex marriage.

Kelley Robinson, president of the LGBT rights advocacy group Human Rights Campaign, said in a statement that Frank was “nothing short of a trailblazer,” and lauded how “at a time when being openly gay in public service could cost you everything, he chose visibility.”

Pete Buttigieg, the openly gay former Transportation Secretary, suggested that Frank opened up opportunities for future generations of gay public servants. “Years later, I’m not sure I would have had the chance to serve if Barney Frank hadn’t demonstrated that courage, commitment, and skill can matter more than others’ imagination about what voters are ‘ready’ for,” Buttigieg said on social media.

Financial reform

Beyond being an LGBT rights icon, Frank is known for his contributions to American financial regulation. 

Frank was chairman of the House Financial Services Committee when the U.S. was hit by the housing financial crisis of 2007-2008. Frank, together with then-Sen. Christopher Dodd (D, Conn.), authored the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, which President Obama signed into law in 2010. The act became the U.S.’s core response to the crisis, putting guardrails around banks, Wall Street firms, mortgages, and more.

The law created the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which protects consumers from predatory financial practices, though it has been a repeated target of Republicans and was crippled at the start of President Donald Trump’s second term, including by Department of Government Efficiency cuts. The law also established a Financial Stability Oversight Council that monitors systemic risk and "regulatory gap" problems, and it enhanced the Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s regulatory authority to oversee the trillion-dollar swaps market.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D, Mass.), who as a law professor and adviser to Obama helped to set up the CFPB, lauded Frank in a statement as “the gravelly-voiced, smart-as-a-whip congressman who fought hard to get the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau over the finish line.”

The effects of Dodd-Frank are still being debated today. But Dodd, writing in the Boston Globe, spoke highly of Frank’s work and called him the “perfect partner” in legislation.

“Having a partner who recognized the gravity and urgency of the situation was invaluable,” Dodd wrote. “Barney acted as a role model, both in attitude and behavior, and it made him a recognized leader in Congress.”