In The U.S., When Will An Open Trans Person Get Elected To Congress?

TransGriot Note: My latest post for Global Comment

I was celebrating with every trans person around the world in November 1999, when I heard the news that New Zealand’s Georgina Beyer became the first open trans person elected to a national legislative body. She served as a Labour Party MP from November 27, 1999 until February 14, 2007.

In 2003, Aya Kamikawa became the first trans sperson elected to public office in Japan when she won a place on the local assembly for Setagaya, one of Tokyo’s biggest local government areas. She was reelected in 2008

That groundbreaking achievement was followed up by Italy’s Vladimir Luxuria, who, in the Italian General Elections of April 2006, became the first open transgender MP elected to a European parliament. The Communist Refoundation Party member was defeated in an April 2008 reelection bid and has stated that she has no desire to reenter politics at this time.

The success of Beyer, Luxuria and Kamikawa caught the attention of trans people in the United States and elsewhere in the world – people who, like myself, have contemplated running for political office. It gave us evidence that the psychological barriers to voters putting a qualified trans person in office may be coming down. It also gives us hope that some of us can personally run, and win.

For now, Karen Kerin attempted to make history by running for Vermont’s sole US House seat in 2000 as a Republican, but lost to independent Bernie Sanders. Transgender people in the United States have models in not only openly gay US representatives such as Barney Frank (D-MA), Tammy Baldwin, (D-WI) and Jared Polis (D-CO), but have the history of African American Congressional representation to serve as a guide.

Only five years after emancipation from slavery, on January 20, 1870, educator and minister Hiram Rhodes Revels (R-MS) became the first African American to serve in the US Senate when he was appointed by the Mississippi Legislature to fill the unexpired term of former Confederate President Jefferson Davis during the 41st Congress. Also joining Revels in the 41st Congress was the first African-American US representative, Joseph H Rainey (R-SC) who served from 1869-1878.

While trans people such as Michelle Bruce, the first open transgender elected official in Georgia, have been successful in getting elected to small town city councils, success in cities over 250,000 in population and in statewide legislative races has eluded us. That’s important, because getting elected to large city councils and statewide legislative races is generally the springboard to building the name recognition you’ll need to become a viable and successful candidate for a US congressional race.


It’s not like we haven’t tried. Monica Barros-Greene lost a runoff election for an open seat on the Dallas, TX city council. Two years later, Pamela Bennett narrowly missed getting elected to the Aurora, CO city council and is making another run at it this year.

In 2005, Arizona’s Amanda Simpson became the first trans person to be nominated by a major party for a state legislative seat and win a primary election, though that success didn’t carry over to the general election. In 2006, Dr. Dana Beyer ran for an open seat in the Maryland state legislature but was denied as well. Dr. Beyer is making another run for office in 2010.

Read the rest of the post here.