First Transgender Member Elected to US Congress: Sarah McBride Wins Election in Delaware

Delaware Sen. Sarah McBride won the state's lone seat in the U.S. House of Representatives on Nov. 5, making her the first openly transgender person elected to a federal legislature in the United States, according to NBC News.

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McBride, a Democrat, won 57,8 percent of the vote with 95 percent of the ballots counted to defeat Republican John Whalen III.

"Tonight is proof that Delawareans judge candidates on their ideas, not their identities," McBride said at a Democratic victory celebration.

She expressed gratitude to friends and family, as well as her late husband Andy Kray, who died of cancer in 2014 just days after their wedding.

“My days with Andy reinforced in me a simple truth: hope as an emotion only makes sense in the face of adversity,” she said. “While hope is hard to find given what America is going through right now, we must remember that we represent change that seemed impossible.”

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McBride’s priorities include expanding access to health care, protecting reproductive rights and raising the minimum wage. In September, she said her goal in Congress would be to work with colleagues to overcome partisan differences to pass progressive legislation. She has done that in the Delaware Senate, where she helped pass a law that provides for universal paid family leave.

McBride first made headlines in April 2012 when she came out as transgender in an article in the American University student newspaper at the end of her term as student body president. Until then, she had been known as Tim McBride. In the article, she admitted that she had been searching for her identity for a long time and finally realized at age 21 that she was a woman in a man’s body.

That same year, she became the first openly transgender woman to work in the White House when she interned in the Obama administration, according to her 2018 memoir, Tomorrow Will Be Different: Love, Loss, and the Fight for Transgender Equality.

Then, in 2016, she became the first transgender person to speak at the Democratic National Convention.

In 2020, she was elected to represent Delaware's 1st Senate District, which includes Claymont, Bellefonte, and parts of Edgemoor and Wilmington, and became the nation's first openly transgender state senator.

McBride became interested in politics at a young age. By the time she was 18, she had volunteered or worked for at least three political campaigns, including Beau Biden's 2006 bid for attorney general and his 2010 reelection campaign. Nearly a decade later, Joe Biden wrote the foreword to her memoir.

McBride said that while voting on Nov. 5, she reflected on how important it was to her to vote for Kamala Harris for president, for Lisa Blunt Rochester, who won her Senate race and will be the first woman and first black person to represent Delaware in the Senate, and for herself.

"This isn't the end, but these events show how far we've come. No matter who you are, what you look like, where you come from, or what gender you identify as, you can live your truth and dream big," McBride said.

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McBride’s historic victory comes as Republicans have been embracing anti-trans rhetoric and political advertising. The GOP has spent more than $200 million this year on network television ads targeting transgender people, according to data released Nov. 5 by AdImpact, a research firm that tracks political ad spending. President Donald Trump and his running mate, J.D. Vance, have used anti-trans rhetoric on the campaign trail. At the Republican National Convention in July, at least a dozen speakers used negative language about gender or sexuality in their speeches.

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