Who Is Pete Buttigieg's Husband? All About Chasten Buttigieg

Pete Buttigieg and Chasten Buttigieg have been married since 2018

Pete Buttigieg has a dating app to thank for his husband.

The U.S. secretary of transportation met his future husband, Chasten Buttigieg, on Hinge in the summer of 2015. The couple got married in 2018 while Pete was serving his second term as the mayor of South Bend, Indiana.

Chasten was supportive of his husband’s presidential run, which he announced in early 2019 before dropping out of the race in March 2020. The following year, the couple welcomed fraternal newborn twins, Joseph August “Gus” and Penelope Rose. The Buttigiegs made many adjustments after becoming fathers — including switching up their date night routine.

"The older the kids get, the more date night has turned into takeout and Netflix," Chasten shared with PEOPLE in 2022. "Once you get them down and put up all the bath toys, you don't really want to put a suit on and go to an event."

Related: Pete Buttigieg Honored by Husband Chasten on His 41st Birthday: 'So Lucky to Be Loved by You'

Despite his husband’s political career often taking him on the road, Chasten added that “Pete is really good about putting his phone down and flipping that switch" when he’s at home with the kids.

So who is Pete Buttigieg’s husband? Here’s everything to know about Chasten Buttigieg and his relationship with the politician.

He’s a former teacher

Chasten Glezman was born on June 23, 1989, and grew up in Chums Corner, Mich. After graduating from high school, he attended the University of Wisconsin — Eau Claire. He graduated from the school in 2014 with a bachelor’s degree in theater and global studies.

Chasten moved to Milwaukee and began working as a teaching artist. He later moved to Chicago, where he pursued his graduate degree in education at DePaul University. During grad school, he worked as a substitute teacher in Chicago and South Bend, Ind., public schools.

He graduated from DePaul with his master’s degree in 2017, and that fall he began working as a middle school humanities teacher in Mishawaka, Ind. While at the Montessori Academy, he also ran a diversity club and taught theater. He took a leave of absence to support his husband’s 2020 presidential campaign.

He had a difficult experience coming out

Chasten, the youngest of three brothers in a conservative Roman Catholic family, came out at 18. After disclosing his sexuality to his family, he couch-surfed at friends’ homes and lived out of his car.

“I decided at 18 that I needed to come out,” he told The New York Times in 2018. “And I don’t recall my parents specifically saying I couldn’t live at home anymore, but I was made to believe I needed to leave.”

Though there was tension between Chasten and his family when he first came out, his parents have come to be supportive of their son and his marriage.

“I don’t want to say we were shocked,” Sherri Glezman, Chasten’s mother, told The New York Times. “But, from our perspective, I was sad for him that, having two brothers that were into every sport, as roughneck as it comes, Chasten would be afraid of being perceived as different, or not as much of a man.”

He met Pete on a dating app

The couple first connected in the summer of 2015 on the dating app Hinge.

In a 2019 appearance on the podcast LGBTQ&A, Pete said he came across Chasten while “laid up and recovering from an injury” and decided to break the ice.

He recalled that Chasten was “pretty witty” and that they discussed Game of Thrones.

“A lot of time is kind of hanging out on my phone,” Pete said. “I could just tell by the chatting that he was somebody special and that I wanted to meet him.”

After long-distance FaceTime chats — Chasten was in Chicago and Pete was in South Bend — they had their first in-person date. The couple attended a minor league baseball game, toured downtown South Bend and walked along the St. Joseph River.

Pete, who was pursuing his second term as South Bend’s mayor when he met Chasten, was open about his political aspirations from the start of their relationship. “He was a little skeptical about getting mixed up with a politician,” Pete recalled. “And he asked, you know, ‘What does your future look like?’ And I told him.”

Pete proposed in an airport

In December 2017, Pete proposed to Chasten at Gate B5 in Chicago’s O'Hare International Airport — the same place where Chasten first saw Pete’s profile on Hinge.

“In many ways, the airport was symbolic of our relationship, not just because the way we love travel, but that he was literally at that spot in the airport where we first started chatting on the phone, and ... by loving me, he was also signing up for a life of constant motion,” Pete told PEOPLE.

“It was pretty elaborate,” he added. “I figured out when that gate was likely to not have a flight there and positioned us nearby and found the spot.”

He and Pete got married in 2018

Pete and Chasten tied the knot on June 16, 2018, at the Episcopal Cathedral of Saint James in South Bend. The grooms wore three-piece Ted Baker suits in differing shades of blue and matching socks.

Two hundred guests were in attendance for the 30-minute ceremony, which was livestreamed on YouTube. The ceremony included a reading from Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy’s majority opinion in Obergefell v. Hodges, which granted marriage equality to same-sex couples in the U.S.

Related: Pete Buttigieg Celebrates 5-Year Anniversary of Wedding with Chasten: 'Feels Like We Were Just There'

Before heading to their reception, the newly married couple made a stop at a South Bend Gay Pride Week block party, where they took photos with attendees. Their reception was held at LangLab, an arts and co-working space in a former furniture factory.

“We have a lot of people coming from other places, and we wanted to give them a window and a glimpse into this really cool city,” Chasten told The New York Times.

He’s a dog lover

Both Pete and Chasten are dog lovers, and their pups Truman and Buddy Buttigieg made the move with them from South Bend to Washington, D.C., when President Joe Biden appointed Pete to his administration. The couple adopted Truman, a beagle-Labrador mix, in April 2017. Buddy, a beagle-pug mix with one eye, joined the family in December 2018.

Chasten has shared photos of the dogs on his social media accounts; the dogs even have an account on X (formerly known as Twitter) with nearly 80,000 followers.

Truman died in June 2023, after six years with Pete and Chasten. He was named after a saying frequently attributed to President Harry S. Truman: “If you want a friend in Washington, get a dog.”

“Truman filled our lives with endless amounts of chaos and love. His rescue was fraught, coming to South Bend on a truck full of dogs that were rescued from kill shelters,” Chasten wrote on Instagram. “Multiple families gave up on him, but from the moment we met I knew there was a loving companion in there behind all of the fear and abandonment.”

He added: “Truman loved knocking over the trash cans and filling his tummy with scraps of anything remotely close to food. He wasn’t much of a cuddler, but the very rare boop on the nose reminded you that he did, indeed, love you. We will miss our sweet guy, who left this world surrounded by his family, and most importantly, after one last helping of ice cream.”

He is a dad of two

In August 2021, the pair announced that they had become parents. "For some time, Chasten and I have wanted to grow our family. We're overjoyed to share that we've become parents!" Pete tweeted at the time.

"The process isn't done yet and we're thankful for the love, support and respect for our privacy that has been offered to us," he added. "We can't wait to share more soon."

The following month, Pete and Chasten shared a first glimpse of their family in a black-and-white photo with the new dads each holding one of their newborn twins. They also revealed their names: Joseph August “Gus” Buttigieg and Penelope Rose Buttigieg.

Related: Pete Buttigieg and Husband Chasten Celebrate Their Twins' First Birthday — See the Party Photos!

"It's been wonderful. It's everything people tell you to expect and more," Pete said on MSNBC's Morning Joe in October 2021. "I think the biggest thing that's surprised me is just how much joy there is, even sometimes in the hard parts."

He continued: "Don't get me wrong — it's the most demanding thing I think I've ever done, that Chasten and I have ever taken on. It's just amazing."

Since becoming parents, the couple has offered glimpses into their life with the twins, including their first trip to the White House and their first birthday celebration.

He’s an author

Chasten published his memoir, I Have Something to Tell You, in 2020. The book covers his upbringing in Michigan, his relationship with Pete and his experience as the first gentleman of South Bend, among other topics.

“The book's not a burn book. I don't want to offend anyone. I never want to offend anybody,” he told PEOPLE in 2020. “I think one of the hardest things for me to navigate was how I talked about coming into my own identity in South Bend, because I'm extremely grateful for everything that the people of South Bend have shown us — the love and the kindness and the empathy. But I also wanted to be really honest about what it felt like coming in as a political newbie.”

In May 2023, he released a young adult adaptation of his memoir. The new version came out at a time when books geared toward LGBTQ+ youth have been banned in schools across the U.S.

The author told PEOPLE this was "the book I wish I could go back in time and hand to younger Chasten."

In I Have Something to Tell You — For Young Adults, he expands on his own stories of "growing up in an environment where I did not know it was okay to be gay," particularly ones he thought would resonate with younger people.

"I thought something was wrong with me [when I was young]," he told PEOPLE. "I felt like people's opinions about me defined me. I didn't realize that one day I'd grow up and be on a presidential campaign and feel so empowered by leaning into what others said would define me."

For more People news, make sure to sign up for our newsletter!

Read the original article on People.