Delaware lawmaker wins House seat, becoming first openly transgender member of Congress
Sarah McBride, a Delaware state legislator, won a race for the House of Representatives, The Associated Press reported, making her the first openly transgender person elected to Congress.
McBride, a Democrat, will replace Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester, also a Democrat, as Delaware’s only House member. After winning the Democratic primary in September, McBride was heavily favored to win in the deep-blue state.
“Tonight is a testament to Delawareans that we are a fair-minded state where voters judge candidates based on their ideas and not their identities,” McBride said.
Her Republican opponent, James Whalen III, was a former state police officer who has not held political office. He campaigned on cutting federal spending and restricting illegal immigration. At a debate with McBride after the primary in September, he endorsed Project 2025, a policy initiative published by a conservative think tank. He did not attend a second debate held in October at the University of Delaware, but McBride did.
In the run-up to the election, some Republican campaigns nationally focused on transgender issues. Former President Donald Trump frequently stated, falsely, that public schools compel students to undergo gender-transition surgeries. Sen. JD Vance of Ohio suggested that white, upper-middle-class families view transgender identities as a way to improve their children’s chances of admission to elite colleges. Television ads aired by several Republican candidates for Congress from other states attacked Democrats who opposed banning minors from access to gender-transition treatments, or transgender athletes from participating in sports.
Legal challenges by Republican-led states have largely succeeded in blocking efforts by the Biden administration to expand transgender rights in schools and federal health care programs.
With that backdrop, LGBTQ+ rights advocates said McBride’s win was welcome.
“Being a trans person in the United States right now is not an easy thing,” said Sean Meloy, vice president of political programs for the LGBTQ+ Victory Fund, which recruits and raises funds for LGBTQ+ candidates. “Sarah has been working for a long time to make sure that trans people are not the target of their own government.”
In her memoir, McBride, 34, recounts the anxiety she experienced when she came out as transgender during her senior year at American University. She has since been recognized in a series of firsts: in 2012, she was the first openly trans woman to intern at the White House; in 2016, the first to speak at the Democratic National Convention; and in 2020, the first to be elected to a state Senate.
“I think people are always afraid of new things,” McBride said. “But I am confident that as those who are continuing to just tune into this conversation begin to understand the full humanity that surrounds them, their fears will be alleviated.”
McBride said she saw her latest victory as a sign that she had earned the support of voters by leading efforts to improve their everyday economic lives through measures like paid family and medical leave and increased funds for Delaware’s Medicaid program. In Congress, she hopes to be known best not for her identity as a trans woman, McBride said, but for her ability to champion similar issues on a national scale.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.