Greg Owen

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Evelyn Rios Stafford made trans history in Arkansas. She’s not finished yet.

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In just a few short years in politics, Evelyn Rios Stafford has managed to make an impression at the highest levels of government, and at the most local, too.

The first transgender person to hold elected office in Arkansas, Rios Stafford serves as Justice of the Peace for her small district in Fayetteville. In her role, she’s officiated dozens of weddings for constituents. “That’s one of the highlights of this gig as Justice of the Peace. It always gives me such a warm fuzzy feeling to do that for people,” she told LGBTQ Nation.

Now, Rios Stafford is running for reelection to the post without serious opposition, a vote of confidence even before the election that constituents view her time in office as effective.

LGBTQ Nation

Rios Stafford’s first political involvement was getting a local civil rights ordinance passed in the late 2010’s. In 2020, she ran for an open seat on the local Quorum Court, the equivalent of a board of supervisors, and won. She represents about 16,000 people in her district.

At 49, with a broad smile and the easy, thoughtful cadence of a Texas native, Rios Stafford says being trans wasn’t a focus of her first campaign. “You know, I made one post…about it on National Coming Out Day during the campaign. But that was about it.” It wasn’t until after she was elected that “some folks got wind of the fact that I was a first of something.”

But her victory would become pivotal in the fight over trans rights in the state.

In 2021, the Arkansas legislature passed HB1570, also known as the Save Adolescents from Experimentation or SAFE Act. Like similar legislation introduced in other red states, the bill would ban all gender-affirming care for minors, prohibit insurance from covering gender transition procedures, and criminalize those assisting minors in the process.

The bill was awaiting Republican Governor Asa Hutchinson’s signature when Rios Stafford was enlisted by an Arkansas legislator to help halt the bill’s march into law. From the “phone call to me to meeting the governor was probably, I’d say 24 hours.”

While Rios Stafford was trans, she hadn’t transitioned as a youth. “I knew that I needed to also make space for folks who had this experience and were directly impacted, because their voices are really the ones that have been left out of this whole thing,” she said. Rios Stafford brought 18 year-old Willow Breshears, who began transitioning at 16 with her family’s active support, to the ornate conference room table for her meeting with the governor.

“This was probably the first time that he had ever had a sit down, face-to-face discussion with a trans person before, or in this case two trans people. And, you know, he was kind of starting at zero in terms of knowledge.” A 15-minute appointment turned into half an hour and then 45 minutes. “He was just wanting to know more, basically.”

“I was on pins and needles walking out of that room, like, you know, almost on the verge of having a panic attack. I was replaying all of my answers in my head, like, did I say the right thing, did I screw this up completely?”

Not only did Hutchinson veto the bill, he wrote a Washington Post op-ed explaining why and also went on Tucker Carlson’s show to defend his decision. No matter, the Arkansas legislature overrode his veto, though the law remains tied up in court challenges.

Still, Rios Stafford was satisfied to hear “echoes of some of the things we talked about” in Hutchinson’s defense of the veto.

“‘Traditionally, Republicans have held themselves up as champions of limited government,’” Rios Stafford told the governor. “‘In what way, shape or form is this limited government? Because this is big government. This is government getting in between the families and their doctors.’”

Evelyn Rios Stafford
Evelyn Rios Stafford © Dave Golden

Rios Stafford’s own gender awakening was pivotal to her work in her adopted home state. She majored in English at Rice University in Houston and was pursuing a career in journalism when she got a call from the ABC-TV affiliate in San Francisco asking her to come in for an interview. She got the job. She was young and bright and on the loose in Baghdad by the Bay.

“It was a great time to come there,” she recalled. “During the dot-com boom, the city was kind of going crazy, and it was a really fun time to be there in my 20s. And obviously San Francisco is a place where you can really explore your identity, as well.”

Born and raised in the Oak Cliff neighborhood of Dallas, she grew up attending Catholic school, where she encountered the first signs of her conflicted gender identity.

“In Catholic school, I had a boyfriend when I was 15. A couple of our friends knew about it, but it definitely wasn’t something that we were out about. I knew that I wasn’t straight, exactly,” she remembers thinking, “but I didn’t really have the language or knowledge to have an understanding of exactly in what way.”

In college, she figured it out. It was “literally, when I was, like, doing research in the college library, that I came across the idea of transgender. And it was this lightbulb moment of like, ‘Oh my gosh, that’s what’s been going on with me.’”

In San Francisco, she embraced her new reality. “Gradually, I became more and more out,” Rios Stafford recalled. “It was not a surprise for some people. It was a surprise for others.” While she was “bracing for the worst,” she was “really pleasantly surprised and so grateful for having such a positive experience.”

Evelyn Rios Stafford on her wedding day
Evelyn Rios Stafford on her wedding day Provided

“Back then, this was sort of like, this was new territory,” she said. “I think I was the first employee at an ABC owned-and-operated station to transition on the job.” The following year, Rios Stafford picked up two Emmys for her producing. “I feel like it was all tied together.”

The total package arrived shortly after she transitioned, when Rios Stafford met her future husband, Bob Stafford, an artist and graphic designer, online. She was “smitten from the beginning.” The two shared mutual friends in the arts scene South of Market in San Francisco, and Southern roots, as well. Soon after, the couple moved east to Stafford’s hometown of Fayetteville. They were married in 2016.

According to Rios Stafford, performing weddings in her job as Justice of the Peace is optional. “Not all the JPs do it. I have a feeling that one or two of them might not be on there because if they were on the list, they might have to do a same-sex wedding, and it’s against their personal beliefs or something? But I was like, ‘Sign me up! I’ll do anybody.’”

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Founder of anti-LGBTQ Christian college sexually abused hundreds of young men

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This week, the daughters of a founder at Christian Grace College in Indiana came forward with a shocking revelation: their father had sexually abused an estimated one to two hundred male students over his 40-year career at the school.

Don Ogden, who died in 2015, was the founder of the school’s music program. His daughters, Diane and Kathleen, disclosed the abuse in a six-page statement shared with The Christian Post.

“Our father used his position, his power, his wit, and persuasion to gain the trust of young men, and later perpetrate crimes against them that would change their lives forever. We realize, looking back, that this was sadly still going on when he was 80 years old.”

LGBTQ Nation

Grace College in Winona Lake, Indiana officially bans LGBTQ students from attending. The school’s catalog bans “homosexual behavior” and compares it to other sins like adultery, greed, and drunkenness.

The sisters allege Ogden’s predation was an open secret at Grace. In 1993, he was arrested in Kansas for sexually assaulting a 16-year-old boy, whom he met at a mall and lured to an open field nearby, where he sexually assaulted him.

After reporting the incident to the police, the victim recanted his story and police dropped the matter, describing the encounter as consensual. The age of consent in Kansas is 16.

According to Ogden’s daughters, Grace College was aware of the charge but kept it under wraps both to protect the school’s reputation and continue to benefit from Ogden’s strength as a fundraiser.

“It is with broken hearts that my sister and I are bringing our story forward. After speaking with many Christian experts that handle abuse in Christian institutions, we were told that if there is no public confession and help for the victims given, we must go to the media. After writing eight letters over the last 16 months, we both feel, sadly, that we have absolutely no choice,” the sisters’ statement read.

A whistleblower approached the sisters in February, 2021, leading to their own investigation of their father’s crimes. The pair say they were “mortified” to learn their father’s predation on young boys had spanned more than 40 years.

Ogden “had been molesting boys for over four decades. Incidents occurred touring across the country, in people’s homes, our home, malls, youth conferences, and other places,” the daughters wrote.

Referring to her father’s arrest in Kansas, Ogden’s daughter Diane said the night he was in jail, she spoke with him on the phone, unaware this was just one incident in a decades-long pattern of abuse.

“God will use this, Daddy,” Diane told her father. “You can help someone else that gets wrongly accused someday.”

Ogden replied: “You have too much faith in me.”

“He was admitting to it but my mind would not let me believe it,” Diane said.

Her father added: “No one will want to shake my hand again.”

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German soccer fans rally for slain transgender hate crime victim

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A week after the death of a trans man at the hands of a 20 year-old assailant, soccer fans in Germany rallied in support and mourning for the victim at a match in Bremen.

The Bremen team superfans, or ultras, unfurled massive banners at the 60-minute match reading “Queerphobia kills!” (“Queerfeindlichkeit tötet!), “Against all transphobia!” (“Gegen jede Transfeindlichkeit!”) and “Rest in peace Malte.”

Twenty-five-year-old Malte C., identified by police only with his first name and initial in keeping with privacy rules, died a week earlier from injuries sustained at the Christopher Street Day parade in Münster, the city’s annual Pride march held the previous weekend.

According to witnesses, Malte intervened when his attacker started hurling homophobic slurs at a group of women parade-goers. He was struck twice in the face and fell to the ground, hitting his head. He never regained consciousness.

Police apprehended the suspect at Münster’s central train station based on photos and video provided by witnesses, on the same day Malte succumbed to his injuries. The suspect is being held in investigative detention on suspicion of bodily harm resulting in death.

Community leaders in the German city reacted with shock to the violent attack. Roman Catholic bishop Felix Genn called it “barbaric” and an “insane act.”

“Intolerance, exclusion, and hatred must have no place in our society,” he said in a statement.

The German government’s Commissioner for the Acceptance of Sexual and Gender Diversity, or so-called queer commissioner, Sven Lehmann, shared the bishop’s shock.

“Malte has died following a hate attack at the CSD Münster,” he wrote on Twitter. “I’m stunned and sad. My condolences and deep sympathy go to his family and friends. Violence against queer people is a threat that we must all stand up to.”

The soccer demonstration in Bremen came just days after another violent attack on a trans person, when a 57-year-old trans woman was assaulted on a tram in the same city.

Soccer ultras have been outspoken in support of LGBTQ and trans rights. In the U.S., ultra fan group The Uproar, supporters of the North Carolina Courage, rallied against re-signing Jaelene Daniels, who refused to wear the team’s rainbow jersey, while Prideraiser, a coalition of independent soccer ultras, raises money for local LGBTQ charities annually for Pride Month.

Los Verdes, ultras for Austin FC, collaborates with the team’s goalkeeper, Brad Stuver, to fundraise for organizations including Playing for Pride and the Transgender Education Network of Texas.

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Lakota two-spirit person killed in South Dakota

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A Lakota two-spirit person was found dead of gunshot wounds outside Rapid City, South Dakota in August. Acey Morrison, 30, was among at least 30 trans or gender-nonconforming people to die in violent circumstances in the U.S. in 2022.

Morrison’s murder was reported early Sunday morning, August 21, by the owner of the mobile home she occupied in the Country Village Estates RV park.

Morrison came from a large family in South Dakota and Nebraska and worked at the local Walmart and Sam’s Club.

In a tribute published in Native Sun News Today, her family wrote: “Acey was what we call our two-spirit relative. To those she held in her heart and to those who held her in their hearts, seeing her in her wholeness.

“She always had her natural ways in being there for those she loved. She used laughter as medicine and chose self-love to heal wounds. She was the one to open her home up to you, give you her lasts, then inspire you to keep going, ‘this too shall pass.’”

“We will remember her as who she was to each of us: authentic, and unapologetic.”

The Human Rights Campaign reported 50 violent fatalities among trans and gender non-conforming people in 2021, including those who identified as two-spirit. The 2015 U.S. Transgender Survey indicates American Indian and Alaskan Native experienced a physical attack at more than twice the rate of all U.S. respondents, 19% to 9%.

A 2021 report by the Sovereign Bodies Institute and the California Rural Indian Health Board revealed among a small population of Native LGBTQ2S+ people, 90% reported experiencing two or more forms of violence.

Morrison’s family tribute ended: “She navigated this life through her big dreamer eyes and was always headed for the brighter days. So with that, we will remember her as who she was on her brightest days. We wish her healing and that our love be with her on her journey to the other side.”

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Man dies in brutal stabbing outside gay bar

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On Friday night, police were called to the scene of a stabbing outside popular Long Beach, California gay bar, the Mineshaft. Two men were attacked, and one has died.

The perpetrator is still at large.

The bar’s co-owner, Jeff Darling, said that around 11:30pm two patrons were standing outside the bar when an unidentified individual rode up on a bicycle. According to witnesses, an argument ensued. The incident escalated with the rider pulling a knife and stabbing both patrons in the chest. The attacker fled the scene.

LGBTQ Nation

Police arrived soon after and administered aid. The two victims were taken by ambulance to a local hospital, where one of the men, 28-year-old Christopher Finley of Long Beach, died of his injuries Saturday morning.

Finley was a “semi-frequent” regular at the bar, Darling told the Long Beach Post.

According to Darling, the man on the bicycle never entered the Mineshaft, but the “small argument” out front escalated into a stabbing when the two victims tried to get him to move along.

“After they were stabbed, they ended up in our doorway,” Darling said. “It appears to be a horrible random act.”

Just five minutes before the attack, Darling said, a customer was ejected for brandishing a taser. Police detained the man but did not arrest him.

“The investigation to determine his involvement, if any, is ongoing,” Long Beach Police spokesperson Allison Gallagher said.

According to LBPD, the motive for the stabbings remains under investigation and as such is not currently being investigated as a hate crime.

Darling called the incident a “very traumatic thing” and said he was planning a vigil for Finley and the other stabbing victim. He expressed his condolences and solidarity with the community in a post to Facebook.

“This is such a tragedy and I am deeply saddened by this senseless violence. My heart goes out to the loved ones of the person that lost his life and the family and friends of the person still hospitalized. Love will bring our neighborhood together and not let violence win. We have always wanted the Mineshaft to be a safe place in the community but this serves as a message that tragedy can strike at any time.  Make sure to let those around you know that you Love them.”

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New White House monkeypox strategy targets Pride events

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The White House will announce today it is zeroing in on the population most at risk currently of contracting and spreading the monkeypox virus: men who have sex with men. A pilot program rolls out this weekend at Charlotte Pride.

The Biden administration’s deputy director for monkeypox response, Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, described the new effort to LGBTQ Nation ahead of the White House announcement.

That starts with bumping up the supply of the vaccine for local health jurisdictions where large LGBTQ events are happening. The program sets aside 50,000 doses of vaccine from the Strategic National Stockpile that jurisdictions can request on top of their existing vaccine allocations and supply.

The Administration is working with North Carolina, Georgia, and Louisiana health departments to determine dose numbers in preparation for upcoming events including Charlotte Pride this weekend, and Atlanta Black Pride and Southern Decadence in New Orleans over Labor Day weekend.

At Charlotte Pride, Daskalakis says, “we’re going to be providing them 2000 additional doses on top of what they’re already allocated specifically for this event.”

State and local health departments are responsible for getting vaccines to where they’ll be administered.

To get doses in arms, “Charlotte is looking at specific events associated with Pride that are going to include, in effect, what will look like vaccine pop-ups, where people entering the event or going to the event will be able to acquire a vaccine.”

The second part of the pilot focuses on education and outreach, along with in-person technical assistance.

“With public health being really local, we’re going to make sure that we provide them what they need in terms of education, outreach materials and any technical assistance to be able to work on the ground to make sure that we’re providing folks with culturally appropriate information about how to prevent monkeypox, and also awareness of the disease.”

“Part of that package is definitely really clear advice around safer sex and safer gatherings. To make sure that it’s extraordinarily clear, given what we know about the data, that this is affecting gay, bisexual and other men who have sex with men, and that a lot of the transmission has been in the context of sex and sexual activity.”

The pilot also provides guidance to local jurisdictions to develop testing strategies and tools for information-gathering from event participants.

Two weeks ago, New York and California were among several states to declare monkeypox a public health emergency.

CDC data as of August 16 indicates 12,689 total confirmed monkeypox cases in the U.S., with New York, California, Texas, Florida, Georgia, and Illinois topping the list of highest infection rates.

Seven-day averages show the number of daily reported infections skyrocketed from 45 in the week ending July 11, to 528 the week ending August 10, when 1391 cases were reported on a single day.

Federal officials have allocated 1.1 million doses of the Jynneos vaccine to states and say they’ve shipped about 600,000 of those.

Clark Simon, president of Charlotte Pride, welcomed the administration’s new initiative: “The more vaccines the better.”

But with a caveat.

“I know health departments need to state where this specific virus is predominantly being seen, the pronouncement of it. But just to clarify, in terms of language and messaging, this is not an STI [sexually transmitted infection]. It is not a gay disease. It is a community-spread disease. And in this instance, showcases itself predominantly in men who have sex with men. But we’re also seeing instances in which there are children getting it at daycares and things like that. Much like COVID, it’s about community spread.”

Daskalakis was sensitive to the messaging.

“Monkeypox is a virus, it’s not a sentient being,” Daskalakis said. “It doesn’t differentiate between people based on sexual orientation or gender identity. And so making sure that we’re serving the folks who are in populations that are overrepresented in the outbreak, like gay and bisexual men, and men who have sex with men, is really important, while also making sure that there’s an awareness outside. Infections don’t heed orders, they don’t heed sexual networks or social networks. So being vigilant, making sure surveillance is really good, and that providers are tuned in is the most important thing right now.”

Atlanta Black Pride president Terence Stewart, next in line for the pilot program, added to Simon’s pandemic analogy.

“It is like COVID. We didn’t think it would either hit the shores of the United States or would be coming in as fast as it was. Because you want to vaccinate as many people as possible, but you also don’t want to scare people, right? So it’s a lot going on.”

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Kevin Spacey ordered to pay $31 million because of groping allegations

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Actor Kevin Spacey has been ordered to pay nearly $31 million in damages to production company MRC for alleged sexual misconduct behind the scenes of the Netflix series House of Cards.

The order from Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Mel Red Recana confirmed an award previously handed down by an arbitrator in October, 2020.

Spacey, who was an executive producer on the series and played president Frank Underwood, was dropped from both roles just days after the allegations came to light in 2017.

Spacey was first accused of misconduct by actor Anthony Rapp in a Buzzfeed story alleging that Spacey had made a sexual advance on him in Spacey’s apartment in 1986, when Rapp was 14. Production on the show was suspended two days later.

Two days after that, CNN reported that Spacey created a “toxic” work environment on set, making overtly crude comments and touching young male staffers without consent.

The allegations of groping prompted an MRC internal investigation.

MRC argued that the two-time Oscar-winning actor owed them millions in lost profits because his misconduct forced them to remove Spacey from House of Card’s sixth season and cut the show’s episode order from thirteen to eight episodes. The arbitrator ruled in MRC’s favor, finding Spacey’s behavior violated the production company’s sexual harassment policy with respect to five House of Cards crew members, and constituted a material breach of his agreements as an actor and executive producer.

Earlier this year, Spacey’s attorneys, Stephen G. Larson and Jonathan E. Phillips, sued to throw out the multi-million dollar judgement, arguing, “The truth is that while Spacey participated in a pervasive on-set culture that was filled with sexual innuendoes, jokes, and innocent horseplay, he never sexually harassed anyone. In fact, as the evidence established and the Arbitrator recognized in the Award, the few times Spacey was told that his conduct made someone feel uncomfortable or was in any way unwanted, he stopped.”

In May, Spacey was charged by the U.K.’s Crown Prosecution Service with four counts of sexual assault and one count of “causing a person to engage in penetrative sexual activity without consent.” The alleged incidents took place in London and Gloucestershire between 2005 and 2013.

Spacey, 62, stars in the upcoming feature Peter Five Eight — his first major role in five years — playing “a charismatic man in black.”

The tagline for the film is, “The guilty always pay the price.”

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Newsom slam DeSantis over Don’t Say Gay, compares it to infamous, failed Briggs Initiative

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California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) took the opportunity at an awards ceremony Wednesday to slam his anti-LGBTQ Florida counterpart Ron DeSantis (R) in their continuing stealth bids for president in 2024.

Newsom was in Washington, D.C. accepting the 2022 Frank Newman Award for State Innovation from the Education Commission of the States.

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The governor compared Florida’s Parental Rights in Education law – also known as the Don’t Say Gay law – to California’s failed Briggs Initiative in 1978, which would have banned LGBTQ teachers from public school classrooms.

“Teachers were under assault, because, God forbid, teachers were homosexual,” Newsom recounted.

The so-called Briggs Initiative, a statewide ballot referendum sponsored by conservative Orange County state Sen. John Briggs (R), provided that public school teachers and staff be fired if an employee was found to have engaged in either “public homosexual activity” or “public homosexual conduct,” defined as “the advocating, soliciting, imposing, encouraging or promoting of private or public homosexual activity directed at, or likely to come to the attention of, schoolchildren and/or other employees.”

“Somehow, people were presupposing they were ‘grooming’ our kids. That was in the 1970s,” Newsom said.

Gov. Ron DeSantis signing the Don't Say Gay bill
Gov. Ron DeSantis signing the Don’t Say Gay bill Screenshot/Facebook

Calling out DeSantis spokesperson Christina Pushaw, Newsom said, “Press secretary for the governor of one of our largest states” referred to those who oppose the Don’t Say Gay law “in Florida as ‘groomers.’ I think she was promoted, not fired.”

“Ronald Reagan himself in 1978 wrote an op-ed saying something that needs to be said today,” Newsom continued. “‘You can’t get gay,’ he said. He used the word homosexual. ‘You can’t catch gay like you can the measles.’”

“I don’t want to sugarcoat it,” Newsom warned. “Education is under assault in the United States of America. And we have an obligation, a moral and ethical obligation, to call out what is going on as it relates to the suppression of free speech.”

“We’re going to share the future whether we like it or not. But we can’t ‘other’ our differences. We can’t create false separateness that doesn’t exist. And we have to call out those who have a zest for demonization.”

“Forgive me in advance,” Newsom said as he accepted the award on stage. “You brought up a politician.”

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Mob of conservative mothers demand library burn Pride display books

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In the Connecticut hometown of Revolutionary War hero Nathan Hale, a group of mothers including a “Christian taxpayer” is up in arms over the town library’s Pride book display and are demanding the offending materials be burned.

Booth & Dimock Memorial Library Director Margaret Khan said the incident happened June 22, when one of the mothers removed the books from the display and the group carried them to the front desk to complain.

Related: Connecticut official bans RuPaul biography from library after one dad complains

Khan said the women responded with “hateful language” and told her the books in the display should be burned.

According to Khan, the library’s collection is evaluated based on specific criteria, including relevance and representation, and materials are evaluated by respected sources, including Library Journal and The New York Times Book Review, according to the Journal Inquirer.

Khan told the group they needed to follow library procedure and file a formal “request for reconsideration,” explaining their concerns in writing.

While library privacy guidelines proscribe naming the complainants, Khan did reveal the woman who filled out the request identified herself on the form only as a “Christian taxpayer.” It was unclear if the patron is a resident of Coventry.

In a statement, Town Council Chairwoman Lisa Thomas said, “I stand by our library and their mission to serve each individual in our community.”

“The hostile incident at our public library is part of a disturbing trend across the country. If an adult does not want their child to have access to certain reading materials or other resources, it is up to that adult to guide their child’s choices. Our library is a critical resource to our community to provide information, programming, and other supports. Public libraries embrace the needs of all people in the community.”

While police were not called during the incident, Town Manager John Elsesser said if  something similar happens again, library staff should do so.

The uproar in Coventry occurred a week before a similar incident in nearby Colchester, Connecticut when a resident demanded the book Who is RuPaul? be removed from the library’s collection because it contained a “sexually provocative” image. A town selectman agreed the book should be deemed inappropriate for the children’s section.

Coventry’s hometown hero Hale, who spied for the Americans and was executed by the British, was the grandson of Puritan pastor John Hale, a prominent figure in the Salem witch trials.

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These 9 queer candidates for Congress have a good chance of winning

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As voters head to the polls today for primaries in 5 states and the District of Columbia, a record number of LGBTQ candidates for federal office are bringing the prospect of equal representation in Washington ever closer to reality.

A record 104 LGBTQ candidates have mounted campaigns for House or Senate seats this year, with 57 candidates still in the running.

Currently, 11 out LGBTQ lawmakers serve in Congress, including Sens. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ), plus nine members of the House, all running for reelection.

Nine more LGBTQ candidates for House seats are in competitive races. Wins in their states would bring total LGBTQ representation in the House to 4%, or about half of the estimated population of LGBTQ people in the US.

Those nine include 4 women, 2 Latinx candidates, and an LGBTQ immigrant.

Here’s a breakdown:

In Vermont, state senator  Becca Balint is facing off against three other Democrats in the August 9 primary for a shot at an open seat representing Vermont’s At-Large Congressional District. Balint is the first woman and first out gay person to serve as the Vermont Senate President Pro Tempore, and would be the first out LGBTQ person and the first woman elected to Congress from Vermont.

In North Carolina, County Commissioner Jasmine Beach-Ferrara, won the Democratic primary handily and faces off against Republican Chuck Edwards for a seat currently occupied by primary loser Madison Cawthorn.

Beach-Ferrara is an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ and the founding Executive Director of the Campaign for Southern Equality (CSE) and would be the first out LGBTQ person elected to any federal position from North Carolina.

In Arizona, state representative Daniel Hernandez faces off against two other candidates in the Democratic primary in August for an open seat in Arizona’s 6th congressional district.

Hernandez attended the University of Arizona and interned for then-Congresswoman Gabby Giffords, whom he was with the day she was shot; he was the first to administer first aid to the Congresswoman before the EMTs arrived. He was named a national hero by President Obama.

Hernandez would be the second Latinx out LGBTQ member of Congress.

In New York, former Congressional aide and businessman Robert Zimmerman will face off against five other Democrats for an open seat in the August 23 primary in Long Island’s 3rd congressional district.

Zimmerman has been honored by the LGBTQ Network of Long Island and Queens and the Long Island Progressive Coalition, in addition to serving as President of Great Neck B’nai B’rith and the American Jewish Congress Long Island Division.

The Empire State’s congressional delegation currently includes three LGBTQ members: Ritchie Torres, the first out LGBTQ Afro-Latinx person elected to the U.S. Congress; Mondaire Jones, one of the first two Black gay men, along with Torres, elected to Congress; and Sean Patrick Maloney.

Zimmerman would be the first out LGBTQ member of Congress from Long Island.

In California, two-term Long Beach mayor Robert Garcia is running for an open seat to represent the city in Congress from California’s 42nd district. Garcia was re-elected to a second term as mayor by almost 80% of the vote in 2018.

Garcia immigrated to the United States at age 5 and holds an M.A. from the University of Southern California and an Ed.D. in Higher Education from Cal State Long Beach, where he also earned his B.A. in Communications. He won an open primary in June with 46% of the vote, 20 points higher than his general election opponent for the seat, Republican John Briscoe.

Garcia would be the first out LGBTQ immigrant elected to Congress.

Also in California, former federal prosecutor Will Rollins is running to represent Riverside County in the state’s 41st district against Republican Congressman Ken Calvert in the 42nd district. Rollins won the Democratic primary June 7.

Rollins earned a bachelor’s degree from Dartmouth in 2007 and a law degree from Columbia Law School in 2012. As an Assistant U.S. Attorney, he helped prosecute some of the insurrectionists who attacked the U.S. Capitol on January 6th.

Rollins’ election would make him the second out gay man from California to serve in congress, after incumbent Mark Takano, from the same district; Takano is running in 2022 for a seat in the state’s 39th following re-districting.

In Oregon, Jamie McLeod-Skinner is running as the Democratic nominee for an open seat representing the state’s 5th district, after winning a primary in May 15 points ahead of her opponent. She faces Republican Lori Chavez-DeRemer in the general.

McLeod-Skinner currently serves as an elected board member of the Jefferson County Education Service District. This is her second run at Congress,  after a change-making grassroots campaign for Oregon’s second district in 2018, resulting in the largest voter swing (+26) of all congressional races that year.

McLeod-Skinner would be Oregon’s first out LGBTQ member of Congress.

In Maryland, former Assembly member Heather Mizeur is running to represent the state’s 1st Congressional District. Mizeur faces one other opponent in Maryland’s July primary to face off against Republican incumbent Andrew Harris in the general.

In the Maryland Assembly, Mizeur took a leading role in passing marriage equality, banning fracking, enacting criminal justice reforms, and expanding health insurance for children, women, and families.

Mizeur would be the first out LGBTQ member of Congress from the state.

In Illinois, popular TV meteorologist Eric Sorensen is running against five opponents in the Democratic primary for an open seat to represent the state’s 17th congressional district.

Sorenson says he was pushed out of his first television gig in Texas, with a copy of his contract sitting on his boss’s desk and the “morals clause” highlighted.

Sorenson would be the first out LGBTQ person elected to Congress from Illinois.

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