Monday, November 16, 2020

We Did Good… NO! We Did Great!

Now that the election is a couple of weeks behind us now, it is amazing the number of trans and gender non-conforming candidates that won.
Trans And Nonbinary Candidates Set Record Wins In Red And Blue States
NPR
By David Garcia and Piper McDaniel
November 9, 2020


In the 2020 general election, voters elected six transgender candidates to state office, a historic turn that will increase the number of trans elected officials in state legislatures from four to seven nationwide.

"For the entire LGBTQ community, but especially for trans people, these victories are incredibly meaningful and indicate a growing level of acceptance that definitely was not there just a few years before," says Elliot Imse, Senior Director of Communications at LGBTQ Victory Fund.

Openly trans candidates were elected, or reelected, in Arkansas, California, Colorado, Delaware, Illinois, Kansas, New Hampshire and Vermont. The LGBTQ Victory Fund reports that the total number of transgender elected officials nationwide will jump from an existing 28 to 32 when new winners take office next year.

Illinois set a milestone electing its first openly transgender person, Jill Rose Quinn, as a judge in Cook County. Voters in Oklahoma elected Mauree Turner, the first nonbinary person to serve in a state legislature, to state House District 88. Turner is also the first Muslim lawmaker to serve in Oklahoma.
[…]
"It's inspiring for the trans community. Ten years ago, no one would have thought that transgender people could win elected office, let alone in Oklahoma or Kansas. And now, we're seeing boundaries broken all the time," says Rodrigo Heng-Lehtinen, Deputy Executive Director at the National Center for Transgender Equality.
This is really amazing!

When I was just poking my head to test the transition waters, I would never in my wildest dreams believed that a trans person would be sitting in Congress.
"Every single victory has an impact that extends well beyond the boundaries of a district [where] that trans candidate won. It inspires trans people to run in their district or home state and it also humanizes trans people for the American public, which is extremely important in moving equality forward," says Isme [sic... Imse Senior Director of Communications at LGBTQ Victory Fund].
The voters didn’t want the hate that Trump and his cronies have been spewing.

No comments:

Post a Comment