Danica Roem becomes first openly transgender person to hold state legislature seat
In the Virginia state legislative elections on Nov. 7, a transgender woman unseated a socially conservative lawmaker for her spot in history.
Danica Roem, a Democrat, has won the race for delegate in Virginia’s 13th Congressional District. Roem is the first transgender person to be elected to a state legislature in the United States. According to Independent, Roem won 54 per cent of the 22,000 votes cast in the electoral race for a seat in the Virginia General Assembly. Roem succeeded Robert Gerald Marshall, a Republican politician who had held the seat for 13 terms.
“What motivates me to run is the fact that my mother has been commuting up and down Route 28 for more than 30 years … and Del. Marshall cares more about where I go to the bathroom as a transgender woman than how his constituents get to work,” Roem said on WAMU’s The Kojo Nnamdi Show in July.
Marshall is widely known as the delegate who sought to pass a law that required people to use restrooms that correspond with their sex, as opposed to their gender. On several occasions, he has referred to himself as Virginia’s “chief homophobe,” CNN reports.
According to The Washington Post, when the result of the election became clear, Roem said: “Discrimination is a disqualifier, this is about the people of the 13th District disregarding fear tactics, disregarding phobias…where we celebrate you because of who you are, not despite it.”
With state legislature, gubernatorial, and mayoral elections happening in six different states on Nov. 7, Roem’s victory in Virginia was bolstered by the successes of many other women and ethnic minorities.
[trx_infobox style=”regular” closeable=”no” icon=”icon-user” color=”#000000″ bg_color=”#82E0F8″ top=”inherit” bottom=”inherit” left=”inherit” right=”inherit”]Major electoral firsts this month:
- Kathy Tran is one of the first Asian American women to win a seat in Virginia
- Andrea Jenkins, another openly transgender candidate, won the ward eight seat on the Minneapolis city council
- Ravinder Bhalla became the first Sikh mayor in a major U.S.city, winning the seat in Hoboken, New Jersey
- Très-Saint-Redempteur in Québec, elected Canada’s first transgender mayor, Julie Lemieux
Photo courtesy of Twitter