14 transgender elected officials you should know

14 transgender elected officials you should know

It’s no secret that transgender Americans are under attack — and worried that the attacks will only increase under a new Donald Trump administration. But trans folks are nothing if not resilient, and they’re fighting back in many arenas, including elected office. The LGBTQ+ Victory Institute counts 51 in office, and that number will undoubtedly rise — and needs to, as many of these are the first or only trans elected officials in their state. Here’s a look at 14 trans politicians you should know, all Democrats.

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Sarah McBride

Sarah McBride is soon to be the highest-ranking trans elected official in the nation. This year she was elected to Delaware’s sole seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, and in January she’ll be sworn in, making her the first out trans member of Congress.

McBride is no stranger to making history. McBride became the first out trans state senator in the nation when she was elected to Delaware’s Senate in 2020. She also made history as the first out trans person to serve in the White House, during the Obama administration, and the first to speak at a major party’s national convention, at the Democratic National Convention in 2016, when she was national press secretary for the Human Rights Campaign.

She is close to Delaware’s most famous political family. Her 2018 memoir, Tomorrow Will Be Different: Love, Loss, and the Fight for Trans Equality, features a foreword by President Joe Biden. She was a staffer for his late son, Beau Biden, when Beau was Delaware attorney general. She also worked for former Delaware Gov. Jack Markell.

While in the Delaware Senate, McBride spearheaded the state’s legislation to ban the “gay and trans panic” defense, prohibiting defendants from trying to justify violent actions based on the discovery of a victim’s LGBTQ+ identity. Her efforts have also helped to pass paid family and medical leave, gun safety measures, and protections for reproductive rights.

She is already being attacked by congressional Republicans. House Speaker Mike Johnson has barred trans people from using restrooms aligned with their gender identity in House-controlled facilities, and U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace had introduced a resolution to that effect. McBride said she will comply with all House rules even if she disagrees with them. “I’m not here to fight about bathrooms,” she said. “I’m here to fight for Delawareans and to bring down costs facing families.” To trans activists who urged her to fight the bathroom ban, she said, “I can deal with this; other people shouldn’t have to.”

Danica Roem

Danica Roem of Virginia is a history-maker too. In 2017, she was elected to the Virginia House of Delegates, and when she was sworn in, she became as the first out trans person to serve in any state’s legislature (a trans candidate had been elected in New Hampshire in 2012 but withdrew before taking office). In her first election, she beat the most anti-LGBTQ+ member of the House, Del. Bob Marshall, and she was reelected to the chamber twice, both times taking down homophobic, transphobic challengers. In 2023, she was elected to the Virginia Senate, again overcoming transphobic attacks, and becoming the nation’s second out trans state senator.

In the legislature, she has backed successful bills to ban the "gay and trans panic" defense, improve roads and other transportation infrastructure, provide free meals to students, end anti-trans discrimination in health insurance, allow for the removal of guns from people known to pose a danger to themselves or others, and require insurers to cover state-of-the-art prosthetic devices for people who’ve lost limbs. “I’m a good legislator,” she said when running for Senate. “We passed nine of my bills into law this year” and 41 over the course of her tenure. She’s working for further gun safety measures and is dedicated to supporting reproductive freedom.

Roem was recently named to the LGBTQ+ Political Hall of Fame and will be inducted in December.

Zooey Zephyr and SJ Howell

Montana, a largely conservative state, nonetheless has two transgender legislators — Zooey Zephyr, a bisexual trans woman, and SJ Howell, who is trans and nonbinary (in a state that has passed a law defining gender as binary). Both are members of the Montana House of Representatives and are from districts in Missoula, home to the University of Montana. They were both elected in 2022 and reelected this year.

Zephyr made national headlines in 2023 when Republicans barred her from the House floor and gallery after she said they would have blood on their hands by supporting a ban on gender-affirming care for trans youth. GOP lawmakers demanded an apology, which Zephyr refused to give because none was warranted, she told The Advocate at the time. She sued — unsuccessfully — to regain access, and she finished the House session by working remotely, usually from a statehouse hallway or snack bar. Now that she has been reelected, she will be back in the chamber.

In the face of the anti-trans efforts of Trump and others, “it is resoundingly important that we plant the flag of joy, of our own personal joy, and that we do not let these efforts to erase and exclude stop us from making decisions that give our lives meaning,” Zephyr recently told The Advocate.

Zephyr is engaged to trans journalist Erin Reed and is the subject of a new documentary, Seat 31: Zooey Zephyr.

When Zephyr was barred from the House chamber, Howell became the lone trans voice there. Howell denounced Republican colleagues for being intolerant of dissent. “If the courage of your conviction is not strong enough to listen to dissent, then don’t bring these bills,” they told the Daily Montanan in 2023. “Otherwise, we’re going to stand up, and we’re going to push back, and that’s how our country operates.”

Republicans in Montana have tended to stick together to support legislation that goes against residents’ best interests, Howell added. “I don’t think it’s good for Montana,” Howell told the paper. “I don’t think it’s good for the breadth of diversity that we have and constituents across the state who want to be represented not as a party bloc, but by their representative who’s listening to them; who they elected.”

Howell denounced the gender-binary legislation when it was being debated in 2023. “The reality is that there are people who are out living their lives, Montanans, our friends and community members, who do not fit into these definitions just because of their medical and biological reality,” Howell said at the time.They added, “Imagine my dismay at discovering that a state like Montana, my state, my home, says the government knows better. There’s two boxes, you got to choose, end of story.”

Leigh Finke

Leigh Finke was the first trans person elected to Minnesota’s legislature. She was elected to the Minnesota House of Representatives in 2022 from a district that includes St. Paul and several suburbs, and she was reelected this year. Her accomplishments include sponsoring a bill to make the state a refuge for young trans people seeking gender-affirming care, protecting them and their parents from out-of-state actions that would keep them from accessing the care or punish them for receiving it. It was passed by the legislature and signed into law by Gov. Tim Walz.

Brianna Titone

Brianna Titone was Colorado’s first trans state lawmaker and remains the only one. She was elected to the Colorado House in 2018 from a district near Denver and was reelected this year to a fourth term, which will be her last because of term limits. She is cochair of the Majority Caucus — the first trans legislator in the nation to hold such a position — and chair of the LGBTQ+ Caucus. She’s a strong advocate for the environment, health care, gun safety, education, and organized labor as well as LGBTQ+ rights. She sponsored a bill to protect access to abortion and gender-affirming care in Colorado from out-of-state interference, which Gov. Jared Polis signed into law in 2023. Titone received intense harassment and even death threats over the bill. She has used her power as Majority Caucus cochair in a state with a Democratic supermajority in the legislature to meet with Republicans and try to persuade them to abandon their anti-LGBTQ+ ways. She’s still working on some.

Kim Coco Iwamoto

Kim Coco Iwamoto made history in 2024 as the first trans person elected to Hawaii’s legislature. She was elected to a House seat from Honolulu after ousting House Speaker Scott Saiki in the Democratic primary. She felt Saiki was out of touch with his constituents, and she had challenged him in the primary twice before, coming close each time. Her experience includes two terms on the Hawaii Board of Education, to which she was first elected in 2006, becoming the first trans state official in Hawaii. She has also served on the Hawaii Civil Rights Commission; Gov. Neil Abercrombie appointed her to the commission in 2012.

Aime Wichtendahl

Aime Wichtendahl was another history-maker this year, becoming Iowa’s first out trans state lawmaker. She won in a race for an open seat in the Iowa House representing the Cedar Rapids area. She had been a member of the Hiawatha City Council since 2015, a position in which she was the first trans elected official anywhere in Iowa. “I will do whatever I can to work across the aisle” in the Republican-dominated state legislature, she told Iowa Public Radio shortly after the 2024 election. “But I will also push back when the ideas do threaten the livelihoods and freedoms of our citizens.”

Andrea Jenkins

Andrea Jenkins is an established leader in Minneapolis. She was elected to her third term on the City Council in 2023. When first elected in 2017, she became the first out trans person elected to a major city’s governing body and one of the first trans people of color elected to any office in the U.S. She was council president from 2022 to 2024, the first out trans person in such a post anywhere in the nation. During her time on the council, the city has declared both racism and climate change to be emergencies, established paid family leave for municipal employees, and taken steps to protect renters.

Olivia Hill

Olivia Hill was elected to the Metropolitan Council of Nashville and Davidson County in 2023, making her the first trans elected official in Tennessee. “Representation is everything,” Hill said at her swearing-in. “I’ve been approached by so many moms and dads and teachers and leaders that have thanked me for running because now a lot of the trans community has someone to see.” But beyond representation, she wanted to showcase her experience. Hill, a Nashville native and longtime LGBTQ+ advocate, was in the U.S. Navy from 1986 to 1995 and served in combat during Operation Desert Storm. After leaving the military, she worked at Vanderbilt University in Nashville. She spent 26 years at the university’s power plant, retiring in December 2021 as its senior supervisor.

Tyler James Titus

Tyler Titus, who is trans and nonbinary, was elected to the Erie, Pa., City Council in 2023. Titus, a licensed clinical therapist, was previously a member of the Erie School Board, elected in 2017 and becoming the first out trans person in any public office in Pennsylvania. Titus ran for City Council “to build an Erie where our children want to stay and new people want to move,” they told the Erie Times-News in 2023.

James Roesener

James Roesener, a bisexual trans man, was elected to the New Hampshire House of Representatives in 2022, making him the first out trans man in any state legislature. He was reelected this year. He’s an advocate for reproductive rights, climate change action, LGBTQ+ equality, and more. “I believe that it is imperative that all individuals have the ability to thrive in New Hampshire,” he wrote in an online biography when he first ran for office. “We need a leadership that is invested in defending the freedom all people by taking away barriers to shelter, education, healthcare, voting, and other basic necessities for a quality life.”

Wick Thomas

Wick Thomas, who is trans and genderqueer, won a seat in the Missouri House of Representatives from a Kansas City district this year, becoming the first trans person in the state legislature. Thomas is a community college librarian who’ll work for public education, gun control, reproductive freedom, LGBTQ+ equality, immigrant rights, and more as a state lawmaker.

Evelyn Rios Stafford

Evelyn Rios Stafford is the sole trans elected official in Arkansas. She is a member of the Quorum Court, the governing body for Washington County, which includes Fayetteville, home to the University of Arkansas. The members of the body are called justices of the peace, which sounds like someone who performs marriages, which Stafford and her colleagues do, but the Quorum Court is also a county board, with power to levy taxes and spend public funds. She was first elected in 2020 and won reelection unopposed in 2024. “Our county government should benefit ordinary working people,” she says on her official website. “I believe in strengthening our county services, ensuring good wages, and supporting and protecting housing. … I’ll continue standing up to extremists and fighting to make our Washington County government more inclusive, equitable, and democratic.