Misty Plowright is the first transgender nominee of a major party for the US House of Representatives – win or lose, she’s changing perceptions
The Guardian
by Maria L La Ganga
isty Plowright believes she will live long enough to see people like herself run for public office and only be asked about real election issues: immigration and gun control, taxing the rich and nuclear energy, universal healthcare, abortion.
Someday the other questions won’t come up, because voters just won’t care anymore.
“When did you realize you were born in the wrong body? How long did it take you to become a woman? What’s it like to be the first transgender candidate for congress/senate/governor/president? Do you really think voters are ready for someone like you?”
Plowright has reason to be hopeful. Even as the battle over access to public bathrooms rages on across the country, transgender rights took a few big steps forward in recent days.
On Tuesday last week, Plowright, a 33-year-old Colorado resident, became the first transgender candidate to win a major party primary for the US House of Representatives. At the same time, Misty K Snow, a 30-year-old Utah native, became the first transgender candidate to do the same for the US Senate.
And on Thursday, the secretary of defense, Ash Carter, announced that transgender men and women will be able to serve openly in the US military within a year. Members of the armed forces, he said, also will be able to transition gender while serving in the military.
Plowright, an army veteran who transitioned after leaving active duty, said in an interview with the Guardian that “it’s about damn time” the military – and politics, for that matter – became more inclusive. “Anyone who wants to serve”, she said, “who is capable of doing the job, should be able to.”
To some, this marks a seminal moment in the push for civil rights in America, an upswing for the estimated 1.4 million adults who identify themselves as transgender, according to a study released Thursday that pegs the transgender population in the US as double what was previously thought.
“The attitudes toward sexual identity have changed much faster and more radically than anyone could have anticipated a dozen years ago”, said John J Pitney Jr, a political scientist at Claremont McKenna College. “As late as 2004, Republicans were using same-sex marriage to rally their ranks.
“This is one of the fastest and deepest changes in public opinion in the history of polling,” Pitney said. “It’s much faster than change in race relations.” …