Sarah McBride has made history as the first transgender person to be elected to the US Congress.
McBride, a state senator from Delaware, beat Republican candidate John Whalen III to win the state’s only seat in the House of Representatives.
“Thank you, Delaware! Because of your votes and your values, I am proud to be your next member of Congress,” she wrote on X.
“I think that folks know that I am personally invested in equality as an LGBTQ person,” McBride told the BBC’s US partner CBS. “But my priorities are going to be affordable child care, paid family and medical leave, housing, health care, reproductive freedom.”
McBride, 34, entered politics in 2006 when she worked on Joe Biden’s late son Beau’s campaign for Delaware attorney general.
When she advocated in 2013 against gender identity-based discrimination in Delaware, she did so with the younger Biden’s strong backing.
She is also credited with helping shape President Biden’s support for LGBTQ rights. He later wrote the foreword to her memoir, Tomorrow Will Be Different.
Born and raised in Wilmington, McBride came out as a transgender woman at the age of 21 in her university’s student newspaper and in a Facebook post that went viral.
Her husband Andrew Cray, a transgender man and fellow activist, died of cancer in 2014 days after their marriage.
McBride was the first transgender person to intern at the White House, the first to speak at a national party convention and – in 2020 – the first elected to a state senate.
Previously she has also worked as the press secretary of the Human Rights Campaign, the largest LGBTQ advocacy group in the US.
McBride has worked on expanding access to affordable healthcare, advocating gun reforms and supporting anti-discrimination legislation in Delaware to protect trans people.
Ahead of her election, she told Reuters news agency she wanted the focus to be on the issues she would strive to change, rather than the historic nature of her candidacy.
“Whenever you are first, you often have to try to be the best version that you can,” she said, acknowledging the “added responsibilities” she feels she has.
“But none of them matter if I don’t fulfil the responsibility of just being the best member of Congress that I can be for Delaware.”
Her election comes as Republicans, including many of her future colleagues on Capitol Hill, have focused sharply on transgender issues, including seeking to ban minors from accessing gender-confirmation surgery and to banish transgender athletes from binary sports categories.
Donald Trump has vowed to get “transgender insanity the hell out of our schools”, falsely claiming that public schools compel children to undergo gender transition.
His running mate and future vice-president, JD Vance, recently suggested without evidence that white, upper-middle class Americans viewed transgender identity as a means to advance their children’s chances of getting into top universities.
In the closing days of the 2024 election, the Trump campaign reportedly spent more on ads focused on transgender issues than on any other subject.
Nearly half of US states have now either banned gender-affirming care for minors or barred transgender women from female sports leagues. Six Republican governors have, however, blocked the passage of these restrictions over concerns about government overreach.
