(Photo Credits: Sarah McBride, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons)

Meet Delaware’s Sarah McBride, guys. 

She defeated Republican Steve Washington for Delaware’s 1st District state Senate seat and made history for becoming the first out transgender state senator to ever be elected in the US. Her win makes her officially the highest-ranking transgender person in elected office.


“I hope tonight shows an LGBTQ kid that our democracy is big enough for them, too,” McBride said on Twitter to announce her win. “As Delaware continues to face the Covid crisis, it’s time to get to work to invest in the policies that will make a difference for working families.”

According to McBride, her policies and plans will focus on making health care affordable, on universal paid family and medical leave, universal pre-K and supporting public schools, and on criminal justice reform.


McBride, 30, is an LGBTQ rights advocate and author largely credited with the passage of the Gender Identity Nondiscrimination Act in Delaware in 2013. Prior to the passage of the bill in Delaware, it was legal to discriminate in health care and insurance, to fire someone, or deny them housing and public accommodations because of their gender identity.

At the time, McBride was on the Board of Directors at Equality Delaware and was awarded Order of the First State by then-Governor Jack Markell for advancing equality in the state.

McBride, who currently serves as the national press secretary for the Human Rights Campaign, also became the first out transgender woman to work in the White House when she interned with the Obama administration as a college student.


In 2018, McBride released her memoir titled Tomorrow Will Be Different: Love, Loss, and the Fight for Trans Equality. The book tells the story about her fight for equality in Delaware and nationally, and about her late husband Andrew Cray, who lost his life to cancer. The book’s foreword is written by President-elect Joe Biden.

In October, McBride told the American University student newspaper, The Eagle: 

The best way that I can do justice by the LGBTQ community is to do right by my district, and to work my heart out and to be the best state senator I can be for every single resident of the 1st Senate District. That’s how I honor and uphold the responsibility I have to the broader LGBTQ+ community.”

Meanwhile, Annise Parker, CEO of the LGBTQ Victory Fund, said in a statement: 

“Throughout this election cycle, Donald Trump and other cynical politicians attempted to use trans people as a political weapon, believing they could gain popularity by stoking fear and hate.” 

Parker added, “For Sarah to shatter a lavender ceiling in such a polarizing year is a powerful reminder that voters are increasingly rejecting the politics of bigotry in favor of candidates who stand for fairness and equality.”

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