Takeaways from AP’s reporting on Sarah McBride, the first openly trans person elected to Congress

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This article was published 31/12/2024 (645 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

DOVER, Del. (AP) — Sarah McBride made history in Delaware as the first openly transgender state senator in the United States. Now she’s making history again, recently elected as the first openly trans member of Congress.

Her political promotion has come during a reckoning for transgender rights when legislation in Republican-governed states around the country aims to curb their advance. During an election where a deluge of campaign ads and politicians demeaned trans people, McBride still easily won her blue state’s only seat in the U.S. House of Representatives.

But even before she is sworn in, her reception from congressional Republicans has been tumultuous. Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina targeted her by proposing to ban transgender people from U.S. Capitol restrooms that correspond to their gender identity — a ban that House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., enacted.

McBride tried to defuse the situation, saying she would follow the rules. “I’m not here to fight about bathrooms,” the 34-year-old wrote in a statement.

Here are other takeaways from AP’s reporting about McBride:

Early promise and a meteoric rise

Growing up in Wilmington, Delaware, McBride was the type of child who practiced Democratic political speeches in her bedroom at a makeshift podium. By high school, she had worked on multiple campaigns, including that of Beau Biden, the president’s late son and former Delaware attorney general.

Though she seemed destined to work in politics, McBride once felt revealing her gender identity would derail those ambitions. She was 21 and the president of American University’s student government when she came out as transgender, first to her friends and family and later in a public post that went viral.

Says McBride, “Coming out was without question the hardest thing that I had ever done up until that point. And yet it was still relatively easy compared to the experiences of so many people.”

A supportive family and pastor

Her parents have been her biggest supporters, but they worried for her. One of their first calls after McBride came out was to their pastor, the Rev. Gregory Knox Jones of Westminster Presbyterian, a progressive church where Sarah was a youth elder and Jill Biden is a member.

“We talked about the fact that this was your child. You love your child,” Jones recalled. “You can’t think of losing a son. You’ve gained a daughter.”

David McBride, Sarah’s father, said that kind of support has made all the difference for their family. “Our life and Sarah’s life have been made by the response that we and she got first from our friends, our church, our community.”

A rapid series of firsts

McBride would go on to forge a trail through a rapid series of firsts. During college, she became the first openly transgender woman to intern at the White House. At a reception there, she met and later fell in love with a young lawyer, Andrew Cray, a trans man and LGBTQ+ health policy advocate.

As an activist at 22, McBride was instrumental in helping pass a transgender nondiscrimination law in Delaware. She worked as the spokesperson for the Human Rights Campaign, a leading LGBTQ-rights group. In 2016, she became the first openly trans person to speak at the Democratic National Convention.

In the legislature, a hard worker — fueled by coffee

As a state legislator, McBride was known for her hard work. She rarely stops to eat on busy days, instead subsisting on a steady diet of coffee, heavy on the cream and sweetener.

Nowhere is her boundless energy more evident than when she talks about the minutiae of policymaking. She likes kitchen table issues: health care, paid family leave, childcare and affordable housing. In the state Senate, she chaired the health committee and helped expand access to Medicaid and dental care for underserved communities. Most of her bills got bipartisan support.

Her signature accomplishment was helping pass paid family and medical leave in Delaware. It was personal for McBride.

Her partner, Cray, was 27 when he was diagnosed with oral cancer. Within a year, the prognosis was terminal. They moved up their wedding plans, asking the Rev. Gene Robinson, a friend and the first openly gay Episcopal bishop, to officiate.

They married on the rooftop of their apartment building in August 2014. Cray died four days later at the hospital.

Aspiring to a politics of grace

In her 2018 memoir, McBride wrote a chapter titled “Amazing grace,” about “beautiful acts of kindness” she witnessed during the last weeks of Cray’s life.

“A lot of times when people go through loss, it can be either faith-crushing or faith-affirming. And for me, it was faith-affirming,” she said.

In the decade since, she often asks herself, “What would Andy do?” And she seeks to follow his example of compassion and “principled grace” toward anti-LGBTQ politicians. “His kindness, his decency has provided for me a North Star.”

Some activists criticized McBride for not fighting back more forcefully against the Capitol bathroom ban. She agrees it’s important for trans people to access public facilities, but says she will respond with grace.

“At the end of the day, our ability to have a pluralistic, diverse democracy requires some foundation of kindness and grace,” McBride said. “And I believe in that so strongly that even when it’s difficult, I will seek to summon it.”

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Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

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The Associated Press’ women in the workforce and state government coverage receives financial support from Pivotal Ventures. AP is solely responsible for this content.