Delaware State Sen. Sarah McBride, already the nation’s highest-ranking openly transgender elected official, made history once again on Tuesday, becoming the first openly transgender person elected to the United States Congress.
She clinched Delaware’s lone House seat in a resounding victory, according to the Associated Press. While her win is a landmark moment for the transgender community, McBride, 34, was careful not to make her identity the centerpiece of her candidacy. “I’m not running to be the trans member of Congress,” McBride says in a sit-down interview with TIME in Dover, Del. two weeks before the election. “I’m running to be the best damn legislator that I can be.”
[time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]Still, her historic win comes at a time when transgender rights are under siege and the political discourse surrounding LGBTQ+ issues has reached new levels of polarization. This year alone, state legislatures have passed or proposed nearly 700 bills that seek to restrict transgender rights, from banning gender-affirming healthcare for minors to limiting trans participation in sports.
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McBride ran on a platform focused on expanding access to healthcare, supporting paid family and medical leave, and addressing economic insecurity. Delaware is traditionally a blue state, and her campaign resonated with progressives and moderate Republicans who were drawn to her track record of bipartisanship and her commitment to pragmatic solutions. As a state senator, she worked with Republicans to pass a paid family and medical leave law in Delaware.
Once in Congress, she hopes to pass a similar paid family and medical leave law, as well as invest in universal child care and elder care. “We have a 1950s care infrastructure for a 2024 workforce,” she says. “I think we lose out as a nation from both a competitive standpoint and a compassion standpoint by lacking those policies. It would be my hope that a Democratic trifecta would not only prioritize but pass paid family medical leave and universal child care and historic investment in housing.”
McBride will enter Congress at a time of heightened political tension, particularly around transgender rights. Just days before her election, former President Donald Trump ramped up his attacks on transgender issues, including pledging to outlaw gender-affirming care for minors if re-elected. Far-right Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia has called McBride’s campaign a “complete evil” and previously posted anti-trans signs across the hall from a lawmaker with a transgender child.
Asked how she would respond if another member of Congress mistreated her because of her identity, McBride says, “Their immaturity is not worthy of being dignified with a response. My focus is going to be doing the work. Are there going to be some members of Congress who are going to be weird and immature about me being there? Sure, but those are members of Congress that won’t work with any Democrat and they can barely work with their own Republican colleagues.”
McBride knows all too well the personal risks that come with being a visible LGBTQ+ public figure. She says her safety and security were major considerations during her campaign and weighed on her when she thought about running for Congress. But “if I refrain from giving back to my state and this country because of risk,” McBride says, “then those who would seek to use the risk of violence to silence people, to push people into the shadows, will have won.”
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McBride recognizes that the culture wars over transgender rights, particularly under a potential second Trump Administration, could make her job as a legislator even more difficult—but she plans to fight back by turning the focus away from herself and onto legislative issues. “The only people that really care about discriminating against trans people are the extreme elements of Donald Trump’s base, a handful of immature politicians, and the dredges of the internet,” McBride says. “And I think what we have seen throughout the last several years is that this country does not hate trans people. It’s a small number of politicians and activists who are taking their own insecurities and their own desperation and turning it into a political tactic, and I don’t think it actually carries the day.”
While McBride’s personal story has garnered much of the national attention, she wants her work in Congress to be remembered for its focus on issues that directly impact her constituents. She plans to join both the New Democrat Coalition, which advocates for centrist policies, and the Congressional Progressive Caucus, whose members push for bold progressive reforms.
She has also long been an advocate for trans rights. In 2013, she played a key role in advocating for the Delaware bill that protected transgender people from discrimination, and in 2016, she became the first transgender person to speak at a major political convention when she delivered a powerful speech at the Democratic National Convention. In her 2018 memoir, Tomorrow Will Be Different, McBride recounts her personal struggles and triumphs as a transgender woman, chronicling her journey toward self-acceptance and the fight for trans rights.
“If there’s one thing beyond the tangible policies I can contribute in the House,” McBride says, “and I know people might not expect this—it’s that I want to help bring down the temperature. I want to model for this country what it means to be an active citizen, and that is to have conversations across disagreement and difference. Our democracy only works if we are willing to engage with one another and maintain our bonds with one another, and I know it’s hard right now to do that… I hope to be part of healing and bridging the divides in our politics.”
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