Wins for Transgender Candidates Seen Nationwide

From left, Virginia Delegate-elect Danica Roem, Erie School Board Member-elect Tyler Titus, Minneapolis
City Council Member-elect Andrea Jenkins, and Palm Springs City Council Member-elect Lisa Middleton

The Washington Blade reports:

The historic wins by transgender candidates on Tuesday [Nov. 7, 2017] are being widely interpreted to have nationwide implications, although LGBT political observers have different takes on what those conclusions are.

The most high-profile win Tuesday night was transgender journalist Danica Roem’s victory in Virginia over Del. Bob Marshall, who has a decades-long history of anti-LGBT views and this year introduced a bill that would have banned transgender people from using public restrooms consistent with their gender identity. She’ll be the first openly transgender person elected and seated to a state legislator in the history of the United States.

Other highlights include Andrea Jenkins winning a seat on the Minneapolis City Council, marking the first time an openly transgender person of color won election in the United States and the first time an out transgender candidate was elected to a city council in a major U.S. city. (The results for another transgender candidate, Phillipe Cunningham, were close but not yet final at the time of this article’s publication.)

Meanwhile, Tyler Titus won election to the Erie School Board in Pennsylvania and Lisa Middleton won election to the Palm Springs City Council.

Logan Casey, who’s transgender and a research associate at the Harvard Opinion Research Program, said the wins are important on their own for transgender visibility.

“With so few transgender people in office, everyone is important,” Casey said. “And so, there’s one level on which these wins are really important just for trans people and the LGBTQ community generally, saying that we can win elections. We can be out, and be proud and be ourselves and be successful.”

See the full story here.