First openly transgender state lawmaker elected in Virginia

… but Massachusetts had the first Transgender to serve.. just not openly.

Virginia voters elected the state’s first openly transgender candidate to the Virginia House of Delegates earlier this month.

Danica Roem unseated incumbent delegate Bob Marshall, who had been elected thirteen times over 26 years.  Marshall a very outspoken against LGBTQ rights.  When Roem takes office, she will be the first openly transgender candidate to be elected and serve in a state legislative body.
Rep Jim McGovern will be joining the show on the 27th and we’ll chat with the Congressman about serving with Roem.  What is the attitude and climate in the Congressional Chamber?  There have been open Gay Reps.. from Massachusetts..  does he note any bias or issues LBGTQ members face that other do not?
Aisha C. Moodie-Mills, president and CEO of Victory Fund — a political action committee that works to increase the number of openly LGBTQ officials at all levels of government, said this sends a powerful message to anti-trans legislators all across the nation.
Roem is the first openly transgender person elected to a state legislature in the US, according to Monica Roberts of the TransGriot blog, which covers issues in the transgender community. Althea Garrison, elected in Massachusetts, was the first openly transgender person to serve in a state legislature, but did not campaign as an openly transgender person during her race in 1992
 In a September interview with Cosmopolitan Roem said: “The message that I can succeed because of my gender, not despite it, because of who I am without being afraid of who I am is a human message,”
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Althea Garrison (born October 7, 1940) is an American politician from Boston, Massachusetts, who was elected as a Republican to the Massachusetts House of Representatives in 1992 and served one term from 1993 to 1995. Both before and after Garrison’s successful bid for office, she has run unsuccessfully in multiple elections for the state legislature and Boston City Council, as a Republican, Democrat, or independent, which has resulted in her being described in the media as a “perennial candidate“. Garrison is also known as the first transgender or transsexual person to be elected to a state legislature in the United States.

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