Dear friend,

People like me aren’t supposed to run for office.

I don’t just mean trans people.

I mean working class people. People who can’t call up a relative and get a couple thousand dollars for their campaign.

I was born in Pittsburgh, to a working class family that had spent generations in the Appalachian Mountains. I moved to Chicago in 5th grade; my parents divorced, and without their financial support I was forced to drop out of college.

I had to get a job, move into my own apartment, and learn from a very young age how our social “safety net” isn’t really much of a net at all. I really struggled to get by—for much of my life I didn’t have health insurance. I have never known life without living paycheck to paycheck.

Some might look at a career spent working in hotels and restaurants and think I’m “unqualified” to run for office. But my community has already elected me three times—entrusting me to three terms allocating funds and serving our neighborhood.

And here’s another hot take: Working in customer service, working in hospitality provides more qualifications to be a governmental leader than almost any other position that I can think of.

I know how to work with people. I know how to talk to people. I know how to engage with people who are unlike myself.

You have your point of view, and you have your backstory, your goals and your visions, but they will be completely different from your next-door neighbor. They will be different from the person down the street, the person in the next town over, the person in the next state.

We need leaders who will bring people together.

Ultimately, the reason I’m running is that I want to see a world where people don’t just survive, but thrive.

I have always felt, in my years of experience living and interacting with people in the working class—a huge qualification of its own!—that if people were guaranteed healthcare, housing, and education that this would be a much better place for everybody.

People like me aren’t supposed to run for office. But people like me can win.

Let’s do this together.

In solidarity,

Maebe