OUT ON THE HILL is the official blog of the Victory Congressional Interns. Views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of LGBTQ+ Victory Institute. Learn more about the internship at victoryinstitute.org/vci.
__________________________
“I can count the number of trans Hill staffers on my fingers and toes,” the president of the LGBTQ+ Congressional Staff Association said to me on my first day at the Capitol.
Fearing just how isolated my experience would be as an intern during a Republican-majority Congress under a MAGA-administration in an era of staunch cultural regression, I had asked a simple question: “How many of us are there?”
Two months later, I encountered but only three other trans women. It is a tragically low number, but one that allows you to stand out. It is how I met one of those three: my personal hero, Representative Sarah McBride.
On an uneventful Wednesday, I was notified by my supervisor that the Representative would be stopping by for a member meeting. Quickly, I swallowed my bubbling excitement and donned the front desk in true secretarial fashion.
The very woman whose coming-out story in the American University newspaper had inspired mine in an article at the Daily Mississippian, whose graceful demeanor and spirited candor drove me to apply for the Victory internship in the first place, soon stood in front of me.
She looked at me and we reciprocated the sort of fleeting gaze that necessitates no explanation – we were sisters, not in the biological sense, but in the manner which all trans women are; bound by a struggle against institutions that reduce us to a biological variance, that cast us as sinister invaders of the “natural” order.
Noticing the gleaming Victory pin affixed to my dress, she struck up a conversation. To my shock, she asked me – a lowly intern – to grab coffee with her sometime. “Networking might be easier than I thought,” I joked to myself.
Just a few weeks later, I was nervously sitting on a couch in her office. As soon as she hugged me, however, all tenseness evaporated. We commiserated about our future, past, prospects for our community, and the parallels between Mississippi and Delaware.
I asked a question that had tugged on my heartstrings throughout the summer – “How do you manage to comport yourself as foremostly a champion of constituents, rather than a warrior in the cultural war?”
Too often, queer advocates are reduced to their identity. That is why I refer to myself as a “woman of trans experience” – because while my transness is core to my identity, it is not the all-defining characteristic.
Representative McBride has exuded remarkable skill in resisting this reduction, responding to a bathroom ban, for instance, with composed deference rather than outrage. Her decisions, born not out of reactivity but of foresight, have enabled her to reach across the aisle, effectively fight against anti-LGBTQ+ riders, and most remarkably, result in the ‘bathroom ban’ not even being enforced.
As one of the first in any space, retaliation gets you labeled the inciter. When we respond with grace, the aggressors lose momentum. As an aspiring public servant who may have to run in impossibly challenging elections in the Bible Belt, I refuse for my policy platform to be boiled down to the typical musings of a trans woman. I am multifaceted and want to be perceived as such – to achieve that, I believe it is necessary to adopt the grace of Representative McBride.
I cannot simply walk in with a vendetta against oppression. That is not to say we should surrender to hatred – but that fighting fire with fire only adds fuel to an unproductive flame.
Given the staggeringly low number of trans people on the Hill, and trans women specifically (who bear the brunt of anti-trans hostility), I’ve come to understand just how important adopting an attitude of grace is in the unforgiving game of politics.
I dream for a day trans people are not flatted by diminutive archetype, where our presence in politics is bountiful. To get there, I think we could all use some more grace.
