US Elections 2020: Transgenders, gays, women break barriers to win

WHILE the presidency and control of the Senate has gotten the most attention during the elections, other candidates at other levels have broken barriers, a report on The New York Times website details. 

‘One of them is Sarah McBride, national press secretary for the Human Rights Campaign, a Democrat who won a seat in the Delaware Senate and will be the first transgender state senator in the country.’ 

“Sarah’s overwhelming victory is a powerful testament to the growing influence of transgender leaders in our politics and gives hope to countless trans people looking toward a brighter future,” Annise Parker, the president and chief executive of the L.G.B.T.Q.

Victory Fund, said in a statement. ‘It was a big night for L.G.B.T.Q. candidates over all. 

‘In New York, Ritchie Torres, a Democrat, became the first gay Black man elected to Congress and will take the seat held by Representative José Serrano in New York’s 15th Congressional District. (Mondaire Jones could become the second, but his race in New York’s 17th Congressional District has not been called yet.) Kansas elected Stephanie Byers, who will be the first transgender person of colour to serve in a state legislature. Tennessee elected its first two openly gay state legislators, the Democrat Torrey Harris and the Republican Eddie Mannis, and could elect a third, Brandon Thomas. 

‘Before Tuesday, Tennessee had been one of only five states never to have elected an L.G.B.T.Q. state legislator. 

‘At the federal level, Cynthia Lummis, a Republican former congresswoman, will become the first woman in Wyoming history to serve in the Senate after cruising to victory in the race to succeed Senator Michael B. Enzi, who is retiring.  

‘New Mexico, meanwhile, will become the first state ever to elect a House delegation consisting entirely of women of colour. 

‘Representative Deb Haaland, a Democrat who is a member of the Laguna Pueblo tribe and one of the first Native American women elected to Congress, won re-election in the First Congressional District, and Teresa Leger Fernandez, also a Democrat, won an open seat in the Third Congressional District. The Second Congressional District has not been called yet, but both candidates are women of colour: Representative Xochitl Torres Small, a Democrat, is Latina, and her Republican challenger, Yvette Herrell, is a member of the Cherokee Nation.’ 

The US is often considered as a land of the free and a country that welcomes diversity.