SARAH MCBRIDE

How a 30-year-old activist and history buff became a Delaware state senator — and the highestranking trans official in the country

it’s early January, and Sarah McBride is sitting at a desk in her parents’ house in Delaware. A sarah mcbride for state senate yard sign is wedged between a bookshelf and the wall — already a relic from the election she won two months earlier. “It’s been a whirlwind,” she says, leaning forward and taking off her glasses to rub her eyes. And not just because it’s her first time holding public office: When she won her election for state senator of Delaware’s 1st District with an overwhelming 73 percent of the vote, she became the highest-ranking openly trans elected official in U.S. history.

Even on a video call, it’s easy to imagine how she captured three-quarters of her constituents in November. At 30 years old, she’s already well into her second decade in politics. She was 13 when she tagged along on a campaign for the first time, for a friend of her dad’s who was running for Delaware insurance commissioner. At 17, she worked on Democrat Jack Markell’s bid to be governor, recruiting about 50 high school volunteers that Markell credits, in part, for his upset win. McBride became a fixture at his public appearances, introducing him at events and, after he was elected, helping write his speeches when he was stuck. “She’s got this really remarkable ability to deliver hard truths in a way that doesn’t turn people off,” Markell says, “even if they’re things that people would rather not hear.”

An early test of that skill came on Christmas in 2011, the day she came out to her progressive, well-meaning parents. At the time, trans identities were still hovering outside of the American mainstream; figures like Laverne Cox and Caitlyn Jenner had yet to break through into pop culture. Her parents begged her not to transition — a reaction that was based in fear for her future, but that was deeply painful for McBride. She grasped for the metaphor that would help them understand, and finally found a way to describe her gender dysphoria that broke through: “a constant feeling of homesickness.” Her parents have been supportive ever since.

A few months later, as the student-body president of American University, she came out as trans in her school newspaper. It was a huge and affirming step — celebrated by the student body and the media. But her dream was always to be in politics, and with so few examples of openly trans politicians, she wrote in her 2018 book, Tomorrow Will Be Different, “I worried that my dreams and my identity were mutually exclusive.”

She’s built her career out of proving that wrong. In 2012, she became the first openly trans woman to work in the White House, when she interned for Obama, and dedicated the next seven years to becoming one of the nation’s leading LGBTQ advocates, including as the spokeswoman for the Human Rights Campaign, the largest LGBTQ organization in the country. In 2016, she became the first out trans person to speak at a Democratic National Convention.

One of the rhetorical challenges in her campaign for state senator was communicating to her future constituents that she could be their advocate, not just an advocate for trans rights. “The sad reality is that the moment I say the word ‘transgender,’ even if 99 percent of what I’m saying has nothing to do with it, some people will presume that I’m running to work solely on transgender rights,” she says.

But once again, she found a way to break through. “I talked about how the fight for equality isn’t about some abstract moral principle,” says McBride, who’s a passionate American-history buff. In her speeches, she connects the fight for LGBTQ rights to progressive values and the larger American experiment — “the need of every person to have a job that pays the bills, housing that keeps them safe, health care that meets their needs, education that prepares them for the future, and communities where they’re treated with dignity.”

“She understands how to find universal truths in her own stories,” says Markell. “It was always one of her great strengths — something we look for in great political leaders.”

“I’m in the business of social change,” McBride says. “And to drive social change, you’ve got to start by meeting people where they are, with language that resonates with them.”

“I’m in the business of social change. To drive social change, you’ve got to meet people where they are, with language that resonates with them.”