Six transgender and nonbinary candidates made history on Election Day by winning races in states that have never elected a trans person into their legislature before. These candidates will expand LGBTQ+ political power at a time when their rights are increasingly under attack nationwide. All races are called according to projections by Decision Desk HQ.
Bentley Hudgins will be Georgia’s first nonbinary and first Japanese-American lawmaker after winning their bid to represent State House District 90 in east Atlanta. They easily defeated their opponent, Republican Samantha Boston, in the deep-blue district. Hudgins, a 33-year-old democratic socialist, spent the last three years advocating for LGBTQ+ rights in the Georgia statehouse through their work with the Human Rights Campaign.
But LGBTQ+ issues were not core to their campaign: They ran on affordability, expanding healthcare access and broadly protecting civil rights. Those issues are personal for them. As they had told The 19th, Hudgins faced homelessness and barriers to accessing care for cluster headaches and seizures.
They were diagnosed as legally deaf at 19, and had to have their eardrums rebuilt. Many of Hudgins’ campaign goals, like raising the state minimum wage to $20 an hour or creating an earned income tax credit to give money to lower-income Georgia families, depend on whether Democrats gain enough leverage in the state House to influence policymaking. The party needs to gain 10 seats in the chamber to reach a majority — and as of Wednesday morning, that feat looks possible.
Joanna Whaley, a hospital chaplain, will be the first trans person elected to Michigan’s state legislature after winning her race for House District 2, outside Detroit. A former megachurch pastor who has spoken openly about surviving years of “conversion therapy” as a young adult, Whaley acknowledged after winning her primary in August that her victory was “a defining moment for state history,” but added that her campaign “has never been about history.” She handily defeated her opponent, Republican Ron Kokinda, with 63 percent of the vote. Whaley ran on securing fair wages for workers, supporting statewide job training programs and lowering the cost of utilities and medical debt.
Sarah McBride of Delaware, the only trans member of Congress, and Abdul El-Sayed, who became the nation’s first Muslim senator on Tuesday. She was also backed by progressive advocacy groups and Democrats in the state legislature. Whaley’s primary was contentious at times.
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