It is not easy being the first to break through some barrier, especially in the field of politics. An elected official has to serve a broad constituency but the people who rallied behind you often expect you to make the advancement of the community that you represent your main priority. When Barack Obama was elected as the first person of color to be president, he had to strike a delicate balance and not be seen as prioritizing the community of color over every other group in every area. Some could argue that he went too far in not wanting to be seen as the ‘Black president’. But such ‘firsts’ have a big burden. Their main priority is to not mess up because to do so would confirm the prejudices of people that members of their community are not up to the task. Obama succeeded in that regard, even if some of us felt that he tried a little too hard to be accepted by the establishment.
As the first open member of the transgender community to be elected to congress, Sarah McBride is acutely aware of this tension, especially as the transgender community is facing so much hostility. In an extremely thoughtful interview with David Remnick, the editor of the New Yorker, she demonstrates a level of political maturity that is astonishing for one so young and new to the national political scene.
She says that her political career had focused on issues that affected everyone, such as paid leave, health care, housing, and other kitchen-table issues. She was aware that being transgender would be an issue that she had to deal with but was not looking for a fight over it and did not expect it to become so big so soon.
I always knew that there would be some members of the Republican caucus who would seek to use my service representing the greatest state in the Union in Congress as an opportunity for them to distract from the fact that they have absolutely no real policy solutions for the issues that actually plague this country. And, in some cases, to grab headlines themselves. I was not surprised that there was an effort to politicize an issue that no one truly cares about—what bathroom I use. I did think that it might wait until January. It happened a little earlier than I anticipated. I was still getting lost in the tunnels of the Capitol when we got the news that this was coming.
…Throughout the campaign, I really focussed my campaign on my record in the Delaware General Assembly: of passing paid leave, expanding access to health care, and the kitchen-table issues that I know keep voters across Delaware up at night that I will be working on in Congress, like lowering the cost of housing, health care, and child care. But, as I got questions about the added responsibilities that sometimes come with being a first, the first thing I would always say is that I know that the only way I can do right by any community I’m a part of is to quite simply be the best member of Congress for Delaware that I can be, to be an effective member working on all of the issues that matter.
…[The GOP has become a] party that is more interested in performance art and being professional provocateurs than being serious legislators and a serious governing party. I think they have come to the conclusion that they are able to get enough votes if they occasionally throw red meat to folks, because that red meat might satiate what is an authentic crisis of hope that I think people across this country face right now.
I think we have to be crystal clear in calling them out on what they are doing, and pull the curtain back to really dull the effect that these manufactured culture wars have on the American voter. Some people do receive this red meat, and it resonates with them—it makes them feel better, but it doesn’t actually address the real pain in their lives. And I think we should be calling that out and obviously modelling an approach to governing that genuinely solves the real problems that people are facing that create a level of insecurity and fear that allows for culture wars to satiate at least something instantaneously.
But I truly believe that if we solve problems, if we are serious, people respond. I’ve seen that in Delaware as we have passed paid leave, raised the minimum wage. Voters here in Delaware are sort of bucking this national trend. We’ve expanded our majorities both in 2022 and 2024 in the Delaware General Assembly, I believe, as a byproduct of a record of results that voters are responding to, and a message focussed on kitchen-table issues and economic issues. And it’s allowed us to not only expand our majorities but to break through the culture wars that the Republican Party has pursued. Because we’re in Delaware, in the Philadelphia media market—we are getting those anti-trans Trump ads pumped into our state like we were in Pennsylvania. And yet, despite that, running on a message of paid leave, higher minimum wage, union protections, a trans candidate not only won here in Delaware but actually outperformed every major Democrat running for major office in Delaware statewide.
The interview, though long, is well worth reading in full.
She said that growing up, she had always wanted to be in politics but felt that coming out as a woman would be a hindrance. So she subordinated her identity to her political ambitions and became president of the student government at American University while still presenting herself as male. But on the last day of her term in 2013, she wrote an essay in the student newspaper where she came out as a woman.
Yesterday, I ended my term as AU’s student body president. I have learned and grown so much over the last year, both personally and professionally. As proud as I am of all of the issues we tackled together, the biggest take away, for me, has been the resolution of an internal struggle.
For my entire life, I’ve wrestled with my gender identity. It was only after the experiences of this year that I was able to come to terms with what had been my deepest secret: I’m transgender.
For me, it has been present my whole life, but, for the longest time, I couldn’t accept it.At an early age, I also developed my love of politics. I wrestled with the idea that my dream and my identity seemed mutually exclusive; I had to pick. So I picked what I thought was easier and wouldn’t disappoint people.
To avoid letting myself and others down, I rationalized my decision: if I can make life a little fairer for other people, then that work would be so fulfilling that it would make me feel complete and somehow mitigate my own, internal struggles. I told myself that if I could make “Tim” worthwhile for other people by changing the world, that being “Tim” would be worthwhile.
As SG President, I realized that as great as it is to work on issues of fairness, it only highlighted my own struggles. It didn’t bring the completeness that I sought. By mid-fall, it had gotten to the point where I was living in my own head. With everything I did, from the mundane to the exciting, the only way I was able to enjoy it was if I re-imagined doing it as a girl. My life was passing me by, and I was done wasting it as someone I wasn’t.
…The experience highlights my own privilege. I grew up in an upper-income household, in an accepting environment and with incredible educational opportunities. I never worried about my family’s reaction.
But those worries are all too common for most. For far too many trans individuals, the reality is far bleaker; coming out oftentimes means getting kicked out of your home. I say this not to diminish my own experience, but to acknowledge the privilege and opportunities which have been afforded to me.
…I now know that my dreams and my identity are only mutually exclusive if I don’t try.
After college she went on to show that she could achieve political success as a trans woman, working on political campaigns for Democratic candidates and getting elected to the Delaware state senate in 2020 before being elected to Congress in November at the young age of 34.
She has a long political future ahead of her and I can see her some day becoming a serious candidate for president. That will likely have to be in the distant future when the current bigotry subsides. I will not be alive to see it but can hope that it will happen.
It’s a nice dream, and she seems a very good politician. Perhaps it will come true.
One comment on her **political** maturity, though: she was mentored by Beau Biden, who was mentored by his dad Joe, and she knew Joe Biden while he was vice president and even visited the White House. Some of what makes her special and some of that mature, national perspective surely comes from within. But some of it is about the education and advice she received from a particular political family with a ton of experience.
This doesn’t make her less a candidate for high office in the future, but it does help explain why it’s so hard to find these qualities in people we might wish could hold them: they’re not something you’re born with, and they aren’t possible to develop entirely on your own.
Mentorship, from politics to academia to wherever, is incredibly important, and if we value the creation of a better world, we should take part in mentoring the people who are following behind us.
100 x this!
I’m going to borrow this one, if you don’t mind.
There is some resentment in the trans community to McBride saying she will comply with using male toilets:
https://www.advocate.com/politics/trans-community-outraged-sarah-mcbride
The feeling is that this affects not just her, but all trans people, and she is setting a precedent by acquiescing.
Incidentally, I have read McBride’s autobiography (or rather listened -- I like audiobooks) and enjoyed it. It’s from 2018:
https://www.amazon.com/Tomorrow-Will-Be-Different-Equality/dp/1524761478/
@ ^
I think there are less trolls here than there used to be (yay), but in case someone feels the need to point out Mano is critical of Amazon and has a personal policy of not buying from Amazon:
I know that -- the link is for convenience only, please seek out the outlet of your choice as required, no need to comment.
@ ^
“Fewer”! I forgot to put in a disclaimer for the grammar nazis. X-D
Thankfully there’s a third comment. (kidding)
Crip Dyke @ 1
In Swedish political parties (who are not focused so much on individual candidates but a working machinery of colleagues) mentorship begins with the party youth leagues and continues afterwards.
OT
Pardon for adding the link below, but as the policy would be disaster I want to bring it to your attention.
“Trump CRASHES AND BURNS in nightmare interview”
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=CL86oHEYl7c
My question is: Is Trump just fooling his low-information voters again, or does he really believe that OTHER countries will be paying the US tariffs?
Tariffs are what turned a big recession into The Great Depression.
Addendum.
As mentioned in the link above, there are only three American presidents in the last 100 years that have been elected with a smaller margin than Trump did this November.
(the completed vote count has shrunk the Republican victory)
.
So the future looks bright for Sarah McBride and other Democrats. In fact, as the Clinton-era Democrats retire USA will get candidates that are more ambitious than ‘let’s be slightly better than Republicans’. And that will win back the voters in the long term.
Sarah McBride, who is thoughtful and mature and intelligent, understood that even the rarified students who attend American University were not ready for a woman (student leadership) president in 2013, and the country as a whole wasn’t ready for a woman president in 2016 (remember the Democrats who announced “pretend Democrat or we vote for the dumpster fire!”…and did) or 2024. As we saw, too many Democrats stayed home in lieu of voting for a woman president.
Whoops, brushed my hand across the Send button while collecting my thoughts. 2024 showed us that young Democrats stayed home in droves rather than vote for a competent, non-felon, woman who can string whole sentences together with the same topic from start to finish.
Katydid @ 10
Possible explanation: Apathy, born from loss of expectations? Harris was still seen by many as an extension of Biden, just like Humphrey was seen as an extension of Johnson in 1968.
And, yes, logically Harris should still have been seen as the better option. These things depend on psychology as much as logic.
@7: ” Is Trump just fooling his low-information voters again, or does he really believe that OTHER countries will be paying the US tariffs?”
These two things are not exclusive. In fact, they go together: I honestly believe he’s had it explained to him carefully that the people who will suffer most immediately and directly if tariffs are imposed are American people, not e.g. Chinese people. However, those are OTHER people, i.e. people he doesn’t give two shits about. His only consideration is “if I do this, do I, Donald J Trump, win?”, and the answer is obviously “yes”, because he demonstrably doesn’t need to be telling (or even understanding) the truth to win. And his low-information voters agree. And here we are.
@9/10:
I wonder what lesson, if any, the Democrats will learn from this for the near future (next 25 years or so)? Will they keep on banging their head against that wall, or will they play the voters they HAVE, rather than the voters they’d like to have, but demonstrably don’t? (i.e. are they going to acknowledge that American Democrats have a deep and currently clearly irredeemable streak of misogyny? Or do they want to keep losing to obviously inferior opposition?)
I do wonder what would happen if McBride were made the candidate in 2028. She’s very young -- so young, in fact, that she’s currently legally ineligible to be President (although that won’t be true in ’28). But I’m curious if the misogyny of the Dems who failed to turn out for Harris would extend to a trans-woman… or whether it would actually be worse.
Will it though? Because the voters in ’24 were, to get a little hyperbolic, presented with a choice of Ghandi or Hitler, and quite a lot of people didn’t feel ready to vote for the little brown guy in glasses, KNOWING that not doing so would let in the toothbrush moustache. I’m not optimistic about the prospect of managing to “win back” those fucking idiots.
Best of luck to her.
sonofrojblake, after 2030 things get much harder for Democrats in presidential elections. California’s population is shrinking (due to expensive housing), so after the next census it will likely lose some Electoral College votes. Democrats will need to work hard to flip sun belt states, because just the blue states plus the ‘blue wall’ states are not going to be enough.
As for Sarah McBride: All the best to her. We do need more like her.
@Silent Bob, #3:
There are indeed people who are saying that. There are also many who are saying something else. I recommend reading this:
https://www.wonkette.com/p/sarah-mcbride-and-the-terrible-horrible
McBride is in a difficult place, and is being personally attacked. The best response to McBride’s choices in navigating this moment is not to attack the victim (or to spread others’ attacks on the victim) but to stand up in a way that supports McBride while also taking the heat off of her. One of the best actions so far that follows that formula was this dance party in a women’s restroom on Capitol Hill:
https://www.gayemagazine.com/post/activist-hope-giselle-stages-protest-inside-the-u-s-capitol-restroom-for-trans-rights-video
Ironically another website, LGBTQ Nation, gives credit for spreading word of the protest to one of the activists who attacked McBride rather than to organizer Hope Giselle-Godsey and the activists themselves.
Personally I find it disgusting that people would attack a trans person being personally targeted in her workplace for dealing with being targeted differently than how the attackers (think they) would deal with the same situation. It cuts only deeper that the people badmouthing McBride include some who are trans themselves.
I have no idea what made The Advocate think that article was a good idea.