On Friday, three LGBTQ women were sworn into the 119th Congress, making history.
The first openly transgender person elected to Congress was Rep. Sarah McBride, D-Del.; the first out queer Latina elected to Congress was Rep. Emily Randall, D-Wash.; and the first out LGBTQ person from the South elected to Congress was Rep. Julie Johnson, D-Texas.
The three are part of the hundreds of LGBTQ candidates that made history in November by running for and winning political office. There are currently 13 openly LGBTQ elected officials in Congress: Wisconsin’s Tammy Baldwin is in the Senate, and the historic trio is one of 12 members of the House.
Sarah McBride, Rep.Before securing Delaware’s sole House seat in November, McBride was a state senator for two terms.Making history is nothing new to McBride. She was elected as the nation’s first openly transgender state senator in 2020. Her address at the 2016 Democratic National Convention made her the first transgender person to speak at a major political convention four years prior. Additionally, during her Obama administration internship in 2012, she became the first transgender woman to work in the White House.
On Thursday, before she was sworn in, McBride traveled to Washington, D.C., with her family via Amtrak.
“Let’s go get sworn in to Congress,” McBride posted on her Instagram story, expressing her excitement and readiness.
Rep. Emily Randall
In 2018, Randall defeated a Republican to win a seat in the Washington state Senate by a margin of 102 votes. She claimed that following President Donald Trump’s election in late 2016, she made the decision to run for politics.
Randall’s website states that she was a community organizer and advocate prior to entering politics, working to increase access to affordable health care. This cause is significant to Randall because she grew up with a younger sister named Olivia who had severe physical and developmental problems. According to Randall’s website, Washington state’s Medicaid expansion helped provide Olivia, who passed away at the age of 20, with access to the care she required.
Randall posted a video of herself on social media on Friday as she made her way to the US Capitol, expressing her excitement and gratitude for the opportunity to represent our area.
Rep. Julie Johnson
When Johnson won the 2018 election for the 115th District of Texas, she became the first member of the Texas House to have a husband of the same gender.
Her platform when she ran for Congress included defending the Affordable Care Act, bolstering gun control, and ensuring access to abortion on a federal level.
Johnson’s biography on the Texas House of Representatives website states that she has been a lawyer since 1991 with a focus on family law, mediation, and personal injury cases.
Johnson declared after her victory in November that she would fight relentlessly in Congress to ensure that all Texans may prosper in the future.
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