Sarah McBride Is Trans, She's Badass, And Five Bucks Says She's Going To F*cking Congress

Congressional LGBTs inject some much needed T.

Sarah McBride, moving forward.

If you are in any way like your friendly, neighbourhood Crip Dyke, you spend much of your time volunteer copy-editing the headlines over at TheAdvocate.com. Which means, of course, that you already saw this:

LGBTQ+ Reps. condemn 'outrageous' forced outing bill advancing in Congress

and asked yourselves, “How can there be a group of LGBTQ+ legislators if there literally are no T legislators?” This would seem particularly salient given that the Congressional Equality Caucus at the heart of the action reported here wasn’t condemning a federal bill to force outing of LGB or even Q folks. They were gathered to speak out against a bill put forward by the Education and the Workforce Committee, HR 736, that would require schools accepting federal funds to forcibly out students to their parents if they choose to use a preferred name or pronoun other than that assigned at birth, or who wish to update paperwork regarding gender, name, or pronoun.

Allies are, of course, lovely and get full credit and cookies for the work they’re doing here. (NOT SNARK!) But whether there are T people in Congress is a wee bit important when Republicans are bringing forward this hateful garbage is what Yr Wonkette is saying.

This is why we were so excited this week that Sarah McBride, transgender person and decent human being who does not advance bills to hurt children, has won the Democratic primary for Delaware’s First Congressional District and also Delaware’s Only Congressional District. Given that in the last 10 years Delaware has been sloughing off its previously purple hue for rich blue (Dems now have double the GOP’s registered voters in Delaware), winning the Democratic primary is almost certain to win McBride a promotion from her current office in the Delaware state Senate building to one just down the Amtrak in the US House of Representatives.

Despite much reporting anticipating her historic victory against a political noob and a three percenter — in this case that’s someone who runs and gets three percent of the vote — McBride herself is downplaying the most newsworthy part of her victory:

McBride said Tuesday’s results reflected the “goodness” of Delawareans who judge a candidate “based on ability, not identity”.

“I’m not running to make history,” McBride said. “I’m running to make historic progress for Delawareans.

Yr Wonkette is not so dismissive of what this means. At a time when Republicans are attacking trans people all over the country with the most vicious slander imaginable, now they’re going to have to do that to McBride’s face. We don’t envy what McBride will go through, but we’re sure glad she’s willing to stand toe to toe with these people.

And make no mistake, this is not a Caitlyn Jenner candidacy where a wealthy, out of touch conservative uses trans camouflage to try to make themselves appeal to the Left and thus win both sides. McBride has picked her side, and it is us. Her campaign website lists universal health coverage and reproductive rights as her top two issues, proudly asserting:

Health care is a human right. In the wealthiest nation on earth, any person left without health coverage is a moral failing. In Congress, I will support any positive policy that advances our country toward the ultimate goal of universal coverage.

And

It is so important that we shed light on the importance of reproductive health and maternal health, especially for women of color. We must take decisive action to bridge the gap in health disparities here at home and around the world.

Around the world. When McBride says “universal” she means universal, and we are here for it.

She also wants to co-sponsor and pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, end mass incarceration, get the PRO Act done to strengthen union elections and collective bargaining, and generally do a bunch of progressive shit. Maybe even not cook the planet, though that’s a tall ask for any one member of Congress. Seriously, read her entire to-do list. It’s great stuff.

“But Crip Dyke!” you might say, “How are we to be sure that the decent human being will actually win this race?” Well, nothing is certain, but McBride snatched up about 64 thousand votes in winning the Dem nod, while her opponent in the general, John Whalen, only received 18,000 in the Republican primary. For McBride the second and third place finishers in her primary totaled about 16,000 together. Whalen’s GOP challenger scored 15,000 in her losing effort. So not only did McBride attract many more votes, but Team Blue simply had many more people interested in the election. Given the proportional difference even exceeds that registration gap mentioned above, this may indicate an additional enthusiasm gap favoring McBride. Also, too, there’s this:

Through August 21, McBride had raised $2.9 million and held $1.7 million unspent. Through the same period, Whalen had reported $2,300 in contributions, an $8,300 loan to his campaign. His campaign has about $2,300 cash on hand.

Registration, enthusiasm and money? We’d say McBride has a solid edge and very much like her chances.

And while this excites us no end, she’s not the only candidate in a great position to make history. The previous congressional representative from Delaware resigned to run for the US Senate. All the predictions have Lisa Blunt Rochester winning, which would make her Delaware’s first Black, first woman, and first Black woman US senator. Seems like almost a trend!

Then, too, there are state legislative races around the country, including Florida and Hawaii, where trans candidates have already won primary races in solid blue districts and look to become the first trans legislators in their states. Kim Coco Iwamoto of Hawaii looks particularly interesting as her primary opponent was the incumbent speaker of the state House, and his defeat at her hands helps raise the profile of native Hawaiian homelessness as tourism drains the state coffers to support building hotels but no homes. At Wonkette we are crossing our fingers that all these great candidates win and get busy doing great things.

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Your friendly neighborhood Crip Dyke also writes other perverted stuff!