Election Results Resounding Success For Trans People

Trans candidates ran the slate in their election and anti-trans local politicians lost in so many races.

Photo by Arnaud Jaegers on Unsplash

Tuesday was a resounding success for transgender and queer candidates across the country. 321 out of 380 LGBTQ+ candidates at the LGBTQ+ Victory Fund won their races, and nearly every transgender candidate did as well! Furthermore, school boards across the country featured contentious races centering on anti-transgender school policies. Groups like Moms For Liberty lobbied in local school board races against LGBTQ+ materials in schools, bathroom access, pronoun usage, and more. Thankfully, they saw defeats of their candidates across the country in key school board races!

Lets look at some of the biggest victories on election day for LGBTQ+ people and LGBTQ+ rights here:

Zooey Zephyr and SJ Howell in Montana

Zooey Zephyr became the first transgender woman legislator in the state of Montana, beating her opponent by over 50 points! Zooey’s win is incredibly historic, in part because she will enter the legislature joined by the state’s first non-binary transgender candidate, SJ Howell! The two representatives will give voice to transgender people in the place where laws are made. This is especially important in a state like Montana, where there have been many laws proposed to curtail transgender rights. Just recently, the governor of Montana refused to comply with a court order mandating that transgender people be able to change their birth certificates. Eventually, the governor relented.

Zooey also became famous for a story she shared after she landed in Montana right as the election results came in. She shared an emotional moment with a flight attendant after telling her that she had been elected the first transgender representative in Montana’s history. The attendant cried and shared that she had a transgender child herself. "

James Roesener First Trans Man Elected In US History

James Roesener won his race in House District 22 in New Hampshire. In doing so, he became the first transgender man to win an election to the state legislature in US history. James Roesener beat Dennis Soucy, an extreme far-right trump candidate. This election will be one for the history books and is yet another example of LGBQT+ candidates nearly running the slate in 2022.

James Rives Loses In Arlington

Say it with me - school board races matter! This particular race was between a supportive candidate who opposed Glen Youngkin’s anti trans initiatives which sought to force teachers to deadname, misgender, and ban trans students from bathrooms. Rives, on the other hand, was part of the anti-trans wave of candidates who featured restrictive policies on transgender students. Rives famously stood in front of the Arlington School Board and testified that transgender students desist from being trans (they don’t):

His loss was part of a string of losses in the suburbs of the DC area. Moms For Liberty has been extremely active in this region and put forward many candidates. Anti-trans candidates also failed to win their elections in Montgomery County as well as in Loudoun County!

Wake County Democrats Elect 7 of 9 To School Board

Wake County elected 7 of 9 candidates to the school board, warding off an attack by anti-trans candidates that campaigned against “gender ideology.” Not only did Democrats win there, they won big. Candidates and groups involved in this race ran in opposition to GSA clubs. See this quote from Sloan Rachmuth:

“We’ve seen schools enact secret transgender care programs that assign a ‘support adult’ to students interested in changing their gender behind the backs of parents,” Rachmuth wrote in a June post on the Education First Alliance website. “There has also been an explosion of schools bringing Gay-straight alliance clubs onto campuses. The clubs have also been grooming children behind the backs of parents.”

Wrapping It Up

LGBTQ+ candidates did exceptionally well on election day. Beyond local candidates succeeding and victories in school board races, we also saw huge wins in state legislatures. Michigan Republicans offered up a bill that would make allowing your child to transition punishable by life in prison, and now Michigan has a Democratic trifecta for the first time in 40 years. Similar is also happening in Pennsylvania, where anti-trans laws were proposed and vetoed. Wisconsin, a site of many anti-trans proposals, is now safe from those laws with the governorship belonging to a Democrat.

There is much to be hopeful about with Tuesday’s election results. It is clear that transphobia is NOT a winning message.