Barney Frank, the longtime Democratic lawmaker who was the first member of Congress to publicly and voluntarily come out as gay, died Tuesday at his home in Maine.

Frank, who represented the Boston suburbs in Congress for 32 years and crafted the most significant reforms to the American financial system in a generation, had entered hospice care at his home in Ogunquit last month as he dealt with congestive heart failure.

The news of Frank’s death came via the Associated Press, which cited Jim Segel, Frank’s former campaign manager and close friend. He was 86 and is survived by his husband, Jim Ready, and sister, the longtime Democratic strategist Ann Lewis.

Frank publicly came out as gay in 1987, the first member of Congress to do so voluntarily. (Others had previously been outed.) With his 2012 marriage to Ready, he became the first incumbent lawmaker on Capitol Hill to marry someone of the same sex.

But in an April interview with the AP as he entered hospice, Frank said he hoped he would be remembered for advocating a brand of politics that embraced progressive ideals without forcing them on voters prematurely. It is an approach he said he feared was being rejected as Democrats prepare for what could be a rollicking primary season ahead of the 2028 campaign to replace Donald Trump in the White House.

“You should not take the most unpopular parts of your agenda and make them litmus tests,” Frank said last month. “And that’s what my friends on the left have been doing.”

An advocate for civil rights and affordable housing, Frank was also known for sponsoring sweeping financial regulation reforms in the Dodd-Frank Act of 2010. The Trump administration has worked to roll back many of the legislation’s provisions, arguing they were too onerous.

He weighed in last month on Maine’s high-profile midterm race by supporting Gov. Janet Mills over Sullivan oysterman Graham Platner. He did so before Mills dropped out of the primary, which will determine who faces U.S. Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, in November.

Still, he credited Platner for focusing his criticisms on Collins while telling Politico that “I worry a little bit about the tendency on the Democratic side to fall for the flavor of the month.”

Mills said in a Wednesday statement that Frank and his husband became her friends after they moved to Maine. She also said she counted herself “deeply fortunate to have had the opportunity to say goodbye just a few weeks ago.”

“Few Americans have brought about change that impacted the lives of so many people as Barney Frank,” Mills said.

Frank faced his toughest reelection campaign in years in 2010 as the Tea Party wave swept over American politics. He opted against running again in 2012, but remained engaged in politics long after leaving Congress as a fierce Trump critic.

Asked for his prediction on who might succeed Trump, Frank said “unfortunately I won’t get to vote for it.”

The Associated Press contributed to this story.