Transgender congresswoman Sarah McBride adapts to anti-woke rules in US Capitol

After becoming the first transgender person to be elected to Congress, Delaware state Senator Sarah McBride has disappointed her supporters.

Following a resolution introduced by Republican Nancy Mace to ban transgender people from using bathrooms in the Capitol that correspond to their gender, McBride made it clear she would follow the rules "even if I disagree with them."

As an iconic activist for LGBTQ+ rights, McBride's compliance has triggered a storm of anguish within the US trans community concerned her decision will put them all at risk.

Delphine Luneau, a spokesperson for the Human Rights Campaign said in the Washington Post that McBride had been put in "an impossible situation."

“It’s very reflective of the way transgender people are still dehumanized," added Luneau who is herself transgender.

McBride's candidacy ran on issues such as affordable health care, housing, protecting reproductive rights and increasing the minimum wage.

“I think that folks know that I am personally invested in equality as an LGBTQ person,” McBride told CBS news. “But my priorities are going to be affordable childcare, paid family and medical leave, housing, health care, reproductive freedom.”

McBride’s win against Republican candidate John Whalen III landed her Delaware’s only seat in the House of Representatives, and was undoubtedly driven by a track record of legislative achievement in the Delaware state Senate.

She was, for example, instrumental in getting universal paid family and medical leave introduced across the state.

Kelley Robinson, the president of the Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest LGBTQ advocacy organization, described McBride’s win as “a landmark achievement on the march toward equality.”

“This historic victory reflects not only increasing acceptance of transgender people in our society, but also her dogged work in demonstrating that she is an effective lawmaker who will deliver real results,” Robinson said in a statement.

McBride expressed her pride in the fact that this year women from different minorities have been a force to be reckoned with on the national political stage.

She noted that the Democrat’s presidential candidate Kamala Harris was mixed race and Delaware’s Lisa Blunt Rochester is the first female Black person to win a seat in the Senate.

“That ticket is not an ultimate destination, but it is a reflection of how far we’ve come,” McBride is reported saying on NBC news.

She added that “no matter who you are, what you look like, where you come from or the gender with which you identify, that you can live your truth and dream big dreams all at the same time. It’s not the end, but it’s the beginning.”

McBride came out in 2012 at the age of 21, after acting as her student body president at American University. Two years later, she married her husband Andy Cray, a transgender man and fellow activist, who died of cancer just days after the wedding.

Politics has been a passion for McBride from a young age, leading her to become the first transgender person in the White House, where she worked as an intern with the Obama administration.

In 2020, she spoke at the Democratic National Convention and has also worked as the press secretary of the Human Rights Campaign.

She also helped to shape the Biden administration’s angle on LGBTQ+ rights and has a foreword by Joe Biden in her memoir, “Tomorrow Will Be Different: Love, Loss, and the Fight for Trans Equality.”

McBride has beaten strong headwinds to get to Congress, including a GOP budget of more than $200 million on TV ads running down transgender persons this year, according to data from AdImpact.

In the run-up to the election, McBride told CBS: “I wouldn’t be the first person in Congress to be part of a community that Donald Trump has said outrageous things about.”

Never miss a story! Click here to follow The Daily Digest.