Life

Sarah McBride has been sworn in as America’s highest ranking trans official

By Zoya Raza-Sheikh

14th January 2021

PBS News Hour

From former White House intern to state senator, Sarah McBride has made history becoming the highest ranking trans elected official in the US.

Sarah McBride isn’t unfamiliar with making history and in 2016 she did exactly that. After becoming the first transgender spokesperson to speak during the Democratic National Convention, McBride has built a reputation centered on equality, opportunity and fairness.

Before her Senate days, the McBride actively vouched for greater universal rights for American citizens. The politician was also closely associated with the Human Rights Campaign serving as national press secretary and, later, became a figure of anti-discrimination in her home state Delaware.

This Tuesday (January 12), McBride was officially sworn into the Delaware State Senate and became one of the few high-profile leading transgender figures in the US political system.

There are a small number of transgender politicians across US government e.g. Colorado’s first transgender lawmaker Brianna Titone, however many of them do not hold high-ranking positions.

The newly inaugurated state senator shared a post of being sworn in that went viral.

The tweet was based off an internet meme which uses the phrases “How it started” and “How it’s going”. The images presented a contrast in McBride’s political career when she announced her run for senate to being sworn in.

The first image showed McBride holding a newspaper which featured a headline announcing her run for state senate in 2020, while the second image showed the politician being sworn in.

Similar to the likes of AOC (Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez), McBride often uses social media to address political issues or raise awareness of events.

Last year, the senator addressed a question around their identity with a screenshot titled: “Hope that clears things up”. The post showed McBride being asked “Are you a boy or a girl?”, the activist replied: “I’m a senator”.

Speaking to NBC10 last year, McBride announced she did not run for senate to make headlines but make a difference. “I didn’t run to make history or to make headlines, I ran to make a difference in my community,” McBride said after her election win.

Instead, the politician is driven to achieve “health care for every Delawarean and good paying jobs with paid family and medical leave.”