The U.S. federal election, which coincided with the presidential election, resulted in the first federal lawmaker to disclose that he was transgender.
Sen. Sara McBride of Delaware, a transgender woman, was elected to the House of Representatives in Delaware, according to the Associated Press and NBC on the 6th (local time).
McBride, who was born in 1990 and is 34 years old this year, easily defeated Republican John Whelan, a former head of a construction company, who first challenged him to public office, to take over as a federal congressman.
McBride is an LGBTQ human rights activist who has already built a national reputation.
In 2016, he became the first openly transgender speaker of the Democratic National Convention to speak at a large U.S. party event.
In 2020, he became the first transgender person to win a state Senate seat and won re-election without difficulty.
“I’m not running to make history. I’m running to make a difference between this country and Delaware,” McBride said in his speech. “My election is a strong message that Delawareans are fair and our democracy is big enough to embrace everyone.”
“Tonight is proof that Delawareans judge candidates by idea, not by identity,” he said, thanking his family and friends, and his husband Andy Kray, who died of cancer just days after marriage in 2014.
Kelly Robinson, president of the Human Rights Campaign, the largest LGBTQ rights organization in the U.S., emphasized, “McBride’s victory is an epoch-making achievement on the march to equality.”
Delaware has one federal congressman, which has been a Democrat since 2010, the AP said.
The vacancy was vacated when incumbent congressman Lisa Blunt Rochester challenged for a federal Senate seat.
McBride also has ties to President Joe Biden, who served as a federal senator for decades with his district in Delaware.
President Biden wrote the preface to McBride’s 2018 book.
When President Biden’s eldest son, Beau Biden, who died in 2015, ran for attorney general of Delaware, McBride also helped campaign.
JENNIFER KIM
US ASIA JOURNAL
