By Moira Warburton

WILMINGTON, Delaware (Reuters) – Democrat Sarah McBride is expected to make history next week as the first openly transgender person elected to the U.S. Congress.

She is no stranger to making history: In 2016 she became the first openly transgender person to address a major U.S. political convention and in 2020 became the first to serve in a U.S. state Senate.

McBride, 34, is favored to win Delaware’s sole seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, after securing the Democratic nomination in a competitive September primary and is expected to easily win a seat that the three major U.S. nonpartisan political rating services rate solidly Democratic.

“The fact that the candidacy of someone like me is even possible… is a testament to Delawareans,” McBride said in a Saturday interview.

However, she sought to play down the history-making nature of her nomination and expected election.

“People have seen that I have a track record of rolling up my sleeves, digging into the details, bringing Democrats and Republicans together,” she said. “That’s what I’ve been campaigning on. I’m not running on my identity.”

Transgender rights have become a political flashpoint in the U.S. Lawmakers in 37 U.S. states introduced at least 142 bills to restrict gender-affirming healthcare for trans and gender-expansive people in 2023, Reuters reported, nearly three times as many as the previous year. In Congress, Republicans have pushed anti-trans bills at the national level for years.

McBride is not worried about working with people who oppose transgender rights in Congress, saying she will focus on members open to bipartisanship, even if they do not fully agree with her values.

“If democracy is going to work, we have to be able to have conversations across disagreement,” she said. “There is a responsibility that comes with being first, but (that) doesn’t matter if I don’t fulfill the responsibility of just being the best member of Congress that I can be for Delaware.”

She said her priorities in Congress will include passing the PRO Act, which would expand federal protections for workers to unionize, as well as affordable healthcare and childcare.

Her opponent, Republican candidate John Whalen III, has not focused his campaign on gender politics, talking about immigration and the economy instead.

McBride has faced her share of attacks. Republican lawmaker Marjorie Taylor Greene highlighted McBride in an appearance on former Trump adviser Steve Bannon’s podcast, referring to McBride with the gender she was assigned at birth and mockingly using her chosen first name.

Kelley Robinson, president of the LGBTQ advocacy group Human Rights Campaign, said that McBride’s expected election would mark progress for transgender Americans.

“The country is faced with two very different visions for the future,” Robinson said. “Her historic role as the first transgender member of Congress would be a testament to both the work she’s done, and to the power of voters to embrace progress over fear.”

(Reporting by Moira Warburton and Ashraf Fahim; Editing by Scott Malone and Deepa Babington)

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