'I shouldn’t have to justify how I exist': Democrat Mauree Turner on being boxed in by identity
When 27-year-old Mauree Turner sat down at Holy Rollers, the queer-owned vegan Donut Shop in Oklahoma City in July 2020, it was under strange circumstances. First, Turner, who uses nonbinary pronouns, had just won Oklahoma’s 88th district by a mere 228 votes. Second, sitting opposite, was the man they had just beaten.
Before being elected to office, Turner spent their days doing the behind-the-scenes gruntwork of community organizing as a regional field director with the ACLU: planning workshops, leading trainings on college campuses, coordinating with dozens of volunteers.
Jason Dunnington, on the other hand, was a three-term Democratic incumbent in a Republican-led state legislature whose progressivepolicy proposals struggled in Oklahoma’s Republican-led House. His readiness to compromise with Republicans made many view him as a moderate.
“I wanted to sit down and just kind of talk about everything that had happened,” Turner tells me. “But I also wanted to know what I was getting into.”
The two are a microcosm of a growing national trend. Left-leaning Democrats with strong community connections are increasingly defeatingmoderateincumbentswith targeted, progressive policy ideas and transparent grassroots campaigns. But in an election year rife with ideological and strategic clashes between Democrats, two political opponents chatting over coffee feels like an outlier.
Turner is diplomatic when speaking ofDunnington, who was kind enough to give detailed handover notes to help their transition. He also offered to endorse Turner after his own defeat – despite efforts from the Republican candidate, Kelly Barlean, to bag his endorsement. But ultimately, Turner believes his loss was the result of marginalized voters wanting more than rhetorical allyship.
“When you’re an ally and you do not have that shared lived experience, you are willing to continuously [compromise] the most vulnerable people for whatever piece of legislation gets passed at the end of the day. And I think a lot of people saw that. A lot of people feel it,” Turner says.
It is a bit of a surprise that Turner, the first Muslim and non-binary person to to be elected to the state legislature in Oklahoma, even sat down for this interview.
Following their win in November, Turner went from doing interviews every other day, to stopping almost completely, because of a media relationship that was too often intrusive and reductive.
“People ask you to put yourself in this box continuously. ‘Are you genderqueer or are you non-binary or are you fluid?’ And I’m just like, why? I just got to exist before all of this,” explains Turner, with a half-smirk, when we talk in December.
Our interview is by Zoom, but Turner is sitting in their newly christened office surrounded by – well, not much. The bookshelf is completely empty, the walls are blank – the most decorative things visible arethe official government seal stitched into Turner’s black leather wingback chair, and Turner’s own deep rose-colored hijab, which they adjust from time to time, absent-mindedly.
“People have asked me to justify what it means to be Muslim and queer. I shouldn’t have to justify how I exist. That was really jarring for me – having to sit through a series of interviews where people ask you those probing and prodding questions continuously,” Turner adds.
The experience left a lasting impression. At one point, Turner was so physically exhausted from interviews, they thought they had Covid-19.
“I would have absolutely loved it if I could have been elected and brought in to do this work the same as any white man.” jokes Turner. “I just want to come in [and say] these are my skills, I want to do this work, and then want to move on.”
Turner – who hired laid off and furloughed people in Oklahoma for their campaign, and sent out handwritten postcards to residents – notes that most headlines about their win described them as “first Muslim” or “first non binary”. Turner acceptsand celebratesthat the win is historicbut finds it frustrating that a fraction of the coverage explored the range of issues they ran and won on.
Still, Turner recognizes its power. Reminiscent of the Obama “hair like mine” moment, two eight-year-old Black girls who received Turner’s campaign flyer by mail got in contact asking for new fliers because Turner “looked like them”.
Turner obliged, delivering the flyers personally. “It is important for people to be able to see themselves in policy,” Turner explains. Luckily, they had more than enough flyers.
“Black families – you do one thing and it’s in the newspaper and they’re like, ‘give me 20 copies!’ So of course, I have all the runoffs at my house” says Turner smiling widely, chuckling at the idea of mailing campaign flyers as gifts for relatives over the holiday season.
Growing up in Oklahoma, Turner was a self-described “latchkey kid”. The town they grew up in was small, almost entirely walkable, the kind of place where “everybody knows everybody – [and] everybody’s business”. Their mother worked two or three jobs at time, but there was always a sibling or a neighbor to keep an eye on things.
“We knew all of our neighbors. My mom, when she was home, was outside talking to the neighbors. And that’s something you don’t see too much any more,” Turner recalls.
They eventually left home to study veterinary medicine at Oklahoma State University, a passion that grew out of spending time around pets and farm animals when they were younger – Turner’s grandfather was “an old school cowboy”.
Their time at Oklahoma state inadvertently served as Turner’s most formative years as a young organizer and activist, altering their career path. After graduating, Turner continued and expanded their activism working for the ACLU allowing Turner to immerse themself in some of the state’s most significant social justice issues. Now, Turner will have the chance to prioritize those same issues for Oklahoma’s most vulnerable families.
If Oklahoma were its own country, its incarceration rate would be higher than every other nation in the world,including El Salvador, Iran and Saudi Arabia. Oklahoma City’s police department ranks second for police killings in the United States per capita according to most recent data from the Mapping Police Violence database.
Turner, whose own father was incarcerated throughout their childhood, has major plans for the criminal justice reform in the legislature.
Despite consistently looking for employment since being released from prison more than a decade ago, Turner’s father wasn’t able to secure stable employment until about two years ago.
“Oklahoma does this really bang-up job of keeping people incarcerated long after they leave prison,” says Turner. “We make it so hard for people to actually reintegrate, whether that’s being able to understand when you can register to vote again or whether that’s banning the box so people can find a job to be able to pay for their families and to be able to pay for themselves.”
That’s why Turner’s vision for criminal justice legislation involves improving the lives of people post-incarceration, addressing things like employment support and training, alleviating the economic burden of parole and probation, and improving reentry programs.
“There are some barriers to re-entry programs around Oklahoma – and it’s like, if I was at the place that I needed to be to get into a re-entry program, I wouldn’t need a re-entry program,” they say, exasperated, adding. “We know drugs are in our prisons and jails and you’re telling me that I need to be completely sober to enter into this re-entry program?”
Turner’s mother’s experience is also a touchstone for their policy. As a child, Turner’s mother worked an administrative job during the day, a warehouse job overnight, and a part-time job at a beauty supply store on the weekends. She made breakfast for Turner and their siblings before school on the morning she had time. After school, Turner saw her for a brief period before she left for her overnight job. And still she struggled to make ends meet.
“Working yourself into an early grave just to scrape by? That’s not the Oklahoma I want to create, that’s not what I want my nieces or my nephews to grow up in,” Turner explains.
But it is still the reality for Turner’s mother, who currently works two jobs. Turner supports a living wage of at least $15 an hour. They concede that the state’s Republican-led legislature might limit the wage increase to 10 or 12 dollars, but Turner is unperturbed:
“That was one of my motivations for running; we need more community organizers in office,” Turner recalls. “We need the folks who are continuously filling the gaps that our government leaves [to run for office] for us to be able to be in the position to change it with policy.”
I would have absolutely loved it if I could have been elected and brought in to do this work the same as any white man