I know I have been quiet for awhile, we are still preparing to leave in two weeks for his final lower surgery. However, there was a bright spot this week in the elections that I just had to say good things about.
LGBTQNation’s success stories from its article has been copied below just in case the link is a problem:
- 1st black woman elected Mayor of Charlotte, NC (Vi Lyles).
- 1st woman elected Mayor of Manchester, NH (Joyce Craig)
- 1st trans woman elected to public office in NH (Gerri Cannon for Somersworth School Board)
- 1st trans woman of color elected to public office in Minnesota (Andrea Jenkins for Minneapolis city council)
- 1st Sikh man elected Mayor of Hoboken, NJ (Ravi Bhalla)
- 1st out lesbian elected to state legislature in VA (Dawn Adams)
- 1st transgender person elected to non-judicial office in California (Lisa Middleton)
- 1st out lesbian elected Mayor of Seattle, WA (Jenny Durkan)
- 1st Asian-American woman elected to VA House (Kathy Tram)
- Record number of women elected to VA legislature
- 1st trans woman elected to public office in VA and 1st trans person elected to statewide office (Danica Roem for the House of Delegates, defeating co-author of anti-trans bathroom bill)
- 2 Latinx women elected to VA House for first time (Elizabeth Guzman and Hala Ayala)
- 2nd black man ever elected to statewide office in VA (Justin Fairfax for Lt Governor)
- Democrats poised to gain control of VA House from Republicans who had a 66-34 majority. The Dems have to flip 17 seats to get to a 51 seat majority and they have already flipped 15 with 4 other races so close they’re going to a recount.
- Democrats have taken control of the WA State Senate, and now have complete control of the West Coast from Mexico to Canada.
My optimism has returned a bit. We still have some very dark days ahead of us, and I think it will in fact get a bit darker, but this gives me hope in this world.
I am especially happy with the Washington State Senate. We are a fairly liberal state (don’t judge us only on our grossly high regressive sales tax) but our senate/house has been a thorn in the side of any sort of progressive movement. Even paying for primary education gets trashed by the GOP. However, it seems things are changing and maybe at least until the next election next year we can pass some more positive changes. I am more than willing to pay more in taxes to help with that.
The one aspect I do want to address is the “shock” some of my conservative coworkers had about a transgender person being elected. I tried to explain there have been other transgender politicians but they just couldn’t understand. This comic though really made my day.
I have started reading their comic here: https://lifeofbria.com
I realize this is a small update, but I felt I needed to take the time to post about this during surgery preparations. At least this time it should only be in the 70s down in Phoenix.
Accidently Gay 