CHICAGO — Running for a House seat in Texas, a state that has never elected an openly LGBTQ person to Congress, Democrat Julie Johnson is highlighting her identity as a gay woman.
“My message was, ‘I’m gay. … I’m gay all day,’” Johnson told a room full of LGBTQ delegates at a Democratic National Committee caucus meeting on Wednesday, a few hours before the party convention gaveled into session.
“If you’re a candidate, be yourself,” she said. “Don’t hide from your truth, own it. Campaign on it. People value it. They understand who we are. They will vote for you.’’
Johnson, who serves in the Texas Legislature, is heavily favored to win the seat, which is being vacated by a fellow Democrat, Rep. Colin Allred, who is running for Senate. She would become the first openly LGBTQ member from the entire South, which in recent years has become a testing ground for anti-LGBTQ legislation.
Johnson wasn’t the only barrier-breaking candidate at the caucus event. Sarah McBride, a Delaware state senator running for the state’s at-large congressional seat, is the favorite to become the first transgender member as a successor to Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester, who is running for Senate.
With the crowd in the downtown McCormick Center meeting room chanting her name, McBride stood at the podium and took in the moment. “I am so moved by today,’’ she said. “If you could have told my 10-year-old self that there would be a room full of amazing Democrats chanting my chosen name, I never would have believed it.”
The Democratic Party’s embrace of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and gender non-conforming candidates comes as the GOP has increasingly embraced anti-LGBTQ rhetoric. Republicans in state legislatures have backed hundreds of measures that target LGBTQ individuals, from Florida’s “don’t say gay” bill to legislation that bars trans girls from competing in scholastic sports and measures that seek to restrict gay-themed books from school libraries.
That rhetoric was on full display at last month’s Republican National Convention, where Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia declared there are “only two genders.” Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson accused Democrats of adopting a “fringe agenda” that sexualizes children. And Montana Senate candidate Tim Sheehy told delegates his name and then mockingly said, “Those are also my pronouns.”
In Chicago, Democrats sought to provide a counternarrative, highlighting inclusion and acceptance.
“To some people, being in politics, being in positions of power or privilege, only belong to a certain few,’’ Chasten Buttigieg, husband of Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, told DNC delegates at the LGBTQ caucus meeting. “That maybe teachers don’t belong in that space, or queer people don’t belong to take up space in those rooms, or even those big white buildings in Washington. … In this season of politics, I hope that we can remind one another that, yes, some dreams have come true because … of the people linking arms in this room saying, ‘We demand more, we demand better.’”
Jaime Harrison, chair of the Democratic National Committee, said Vice President Kamala Harris would lead the most pro-LGBTQ administration in history. “When they come for one of us, they come for all of us,’’ he said, “I want every young LGBTQ+ person growing up in this country to understand that you matter, you are valued and … we are going to fight for you.”
LGBTQ voters form a core component of the Democratic base, and the Harris campaign is hoping to tap into the group’s political power, said Sam Alleman, the campaign’s LGBTQ+ engagement director. The campaign is targeting voters in several key presidential battleground states, including Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Arizona, as well as states with large LGBTQ populations such as California and New York.
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