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SARAH MCBRIDE WASN’T LOOKING FOR A FIGHT ON TRANS RIGHTS  
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David Remnick
December 1, 2024
The New Yorker
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_ The first trans person elected to Congress discusses how to respond
to a bathroom bill and transphobic attacks from her new colleagues in
the House. _

"Sarah McBride portrait photograph (cropped 2)", by Sarah McBride (CC
BY 4.0)

 

Not long after the November election, new members of Congress gather
for a couple of weeks of orientation. Consistent with that tradition,
Sarah McBride, a Delaware Democrat, made the short trip from
Wilmington to D.C. to meet with her fellow first-termers. At a hotel
in the capital, she learned about the lottery for office space, how to
assemble a staff, and the intricacies of the legislative process. As
the first transgender member of Congress in history, she also
experienced an orientation in naked aggression. Within days of her
arrival, Nancy Mace, a Republican from South Carolina, introduced a
resolution that would restrict access to all “single-sex
facilities” on Capitol Hill to those of the “corresponding
biological sex.” In other words, Mace sought a bathroom bill—and
made clear that she “absolutely” intended it as a reaction to
McBride.

“I’m not going to stand for a man, you know, someone with a penis,
in the women’s locker room,” Mace, who had claimed to be
“pro-transgender rights” as recently as last year, said of her new
proposal. She also added an odd, pseudo-feminist twist: “It’s
offensive that a man in a skirt thinks that he’s my equal.” Mace
found support among Republicans, including Speaker Mike Johnson
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Taylor Greene
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who, according to Politico
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told colleagues that she would fight McBride were the two of them ever
to meet in a women’s bathroom on the Hill.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was among those who leapt to McBride’s
defense, calling
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bill “disgusting.” McBride, for her part, refused to take the
bait, saying that she would “follow the rules as outlined by Speaker
Johnson, even if I disagree with them.”

McBride was born in Wilmington; her father was a lawyer and her mother
a high-school guidance counselor. At American University, she was
active in Democratic politics and worked on Beau Biden’s campaign
for Delaware attorney general. In her senior year, she served as
student-body president, and ended her term by publishing a moving
coming-out article
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the _Eagle_, the A.U. paper, called “The Real Me.”

McBride had been hesitant to acknowledge her trans identity, she
explained, because that might prevent her from pursuing a career in
politics. “I wrestled with the idea that my dream and my identity
seemed mutually exclusive; I had to pick,” she wrote. In the end,
she realized that she would have to embrace both: “My life was
passing me by, and I was done wasting it as someone I wasn’t.”

In 2020, McBride was elected to the Delaware State Senate. And this
November she was elected to the United States House. At the start of
our conversation, which has been edited for length and clarity, she
seemed determined to keep her cool, despite the insult she had just
suffered. “I think in many ways I got a fuller orientation this
week, where I actually got to see not just the nuts and bolts of
Congress,” she said drily, “but also some of the performance of
Congress, too.”

WELL, LET’S TALK ABOUT THAT. NANCY MACE, ONE OF YOUR COLLEAGUES NOW,
IMMEDIATELY CAME FORWARD AND DECIDED THAT THIS WOULD BE A GOOD TIME, A
PERFECT TIME, TO INTRODUCE A BATHROOM BILL, ALL DIRECTED AT YOU. HOW
DID YOU TAKE THIS PIECE OF WHAT CAN ONLY BE CALLED AGGRESSION?

I always knew that there would be some members of the Republican
caucus who would seek to use my service representing the greatest
state in the Union in Congress as an opportunity for them to distract
from the fact that they have absolutely no real policy solutions for
the issues that actually plague this country. And, in some cases, to
grab headlines themselves. I was not surprised that there was an
effort to politicize an issue that no one truly cares about—what
bathroom I use. I did think that it might wait until January. It
happened a little earlier than I anticipated. I was still getting lost
in the tunnels of the Capitol when we got the news that this was
coming.

WHAT WAS YOUR FIRST REACTION TO IT?

“Here we go.” Throughout the campaign, I really focussed my
campaign on my record in the Delaware General Assembly: of passing
paid leave, expanding access to health care, and the kitchen-table
issues that I know keep voters across Delaware up at night that I will
be working on in Congress, like lowering the cost of housing, health
care, and child care. But, as I got questions about the added
responsibilities that sometimes come with being a first, the first
thing I would always say is that I know that the only way I can do
right by any community I’m a part of is to quite simply be the best
member of Congress for Delaware that I can be, to be an effective
member working on all of the issues that matter.

WHEN I WAS WATCHING THIS PLAY OUT ON TELEVISION, READING ABOUT IT, IN
THE PAST WEEK OR TWO, I LOOKED UP HOW THE FIRST BLACK MEMBER OF
CONGRESS WAS RECEIVED, HIRAM REVELS. THIS IS IN THE NINETEENTH
CENTURY. HE WAS TREATED WITH A GREAT DEAL MORE RESPECT THAN YOU WERE.
I UNDERSTAND YOUR DESIRE TO BE POISED ABOUT THIS, AND STRAIGHTFORWARD,
AND TO MOVE THE ISSUES TO THE ISSUES YOU RAN ON. BUT I WONDER WHAT
YOUR EMOTIONAL REACTION WAS TO WHAT YOU COULD ONLY HAVE TAKEN AS AN
ENORMOUS GESTURE OF DEEP DISRESPECT.

Look, I’m human, and it never feels good to be used as an
opportunity to get headlines. It never feels good to have people talk
about deeply personal things. I think I knew what I was signing up
for, though; I know what the Republican Party in this country, in
Congress, has become.

WHICH IS WHAT?

A party that is more interested in performance art and being
professional provocateurs than being serious legislators and a serious
governing party. I think they have come to the conclusion that they
are able to get enough votes if they occasionally throw red meat to
folks, because that red meat might satiate what is an authentic crisis
of hope that I think people across this country face right now.

I think we have to be crystal clear in calling them out on what they
are doing, and pull the curtain back to really dull the effect that
these manufactured culture wars have on the American voter. Some
people do receive this red meat, and it resonates with them—it makes
them feel better, but it doesn’t actually address the real pain in
their lives. And I think we should be calling that out and obviously
modelling an approach to governing that genuinely solves the real
problems that people are facing that create a level of insecurity and
fear that allows for culture wars to satiate at least something
instantaneously.

But I truly believe that if we solve problems, if we are serious,
people respond. I’ve seen that in Delaware as we have passed paid
leave, raised the minimum wage. Voters here in Delaware are sort of
bucking this national trend. We’ve expanded our majorities both in
2022 and 2024 in the Delaware General Assembly, I believe, as a
byproduct of a record of results that voters are responding to, and a
message focussed on kitchen-table issues and economic issues. And
it’s allowed us to not only expand our majorities but to break
through the culture wars that the Republican Party has pursued.
Because we’re in Delaware, in the Philadelphia media market—we are
getting those anti-trans Trump ads pumped into our state like
we _were_ in Pennsylvania. And yet, despite that, running on a
message of paid leave, higher minimum wage, union protections, a trans
candidate not only won here in Delaware but actually outperformed
every major Democrat running for major office in Delaware statewide.

AND YET THE NOTORIOUS ADS THAT ENDED WITH “KAMALA HARRIS IS FOR
THEY/THEM, PRESIDENT TRUMP IS FOR YOU”—ADS THAT WERE ORIENTED
AROUND ANTI-TRANS SENTIMENT—NOT ONLY DID THEY OCCUR, THEY WORKED.
CERTAINLY, THEY WORKED IN THE INTERPRETATION OF NOT ONLY THE
REPUBLICANS BUT THE PRESS AT LARGE. THEY RAN THEM OVER AND OVER AGAIN
AND POURED MILLIONS OF DOLLARS INTO THEM.

So, first off, I think there are two things. One, this country is
still entering into a conversation about trans people. This country
still is at a Trans 101 spot. And one of the things I think Democrats
have to be more mindful of is that leaders should always be out in
front of public opinion, but, in order to foster change in public
opinion, we’ve got to be within arm’s distance of the public so
that we can pull them along with us. If we get too out ahead of it, we
lose our grip and we’re unable to pull the public with us.

IS THAT WHAT’S RESPONSIBLE FOR YOUR CALM IN TALKING ABOUT THIS? I
REMEMBER VERY WELL THAT BARACK OBAMA, WHEN HE WAS RUNNING FOR STATE
SENATE IN ILLINOIS, GOT A QUESTIONNAIRE, AND ONE OF THE QUESTIONS WAS
“ARE YOU FOR GAY MARRIAGE?” HE DIDN’T SAY YES. NOW, EVERYTHING I
KNOW ABOUT BARACK OBAMA TELLS ME THAT, AT THAT TIME, A CLEAR “NO”
WAS NOT HIS REAL SENTIMENT, BUT THAT HE DIDN’T WANT TO GET TOO FAR
OUT AHEAD, FOR POLITICAL REASONS. HE CLEARLY CHANGED LATER ON. IS THAT
PART OF YOUR CALCULUS IN THE WAY YOU TALK ABOUT THIS? BECAUSE
ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ ANSWERED NANCY MACE IN MUCH MORE VITRIOLIC
TERMS.

I think there is a space for diversity of messengers and a diversity
of message. I would never presume what was in Barack Obama’s heart
and mind on the issue of marriage equality. Many people authentically
evolved. What we do know is that, as the movement for marriage
equality moved forward, the most effective messengers for marriage
were not same-sex couples, were not parents of same-sex couples or
kids of same-sex couples. The most effective messengers for marriage
equality were those who evolved. And they were effective because they
gave a permission structure to people who had not yet gotten there
that it was O.K. to be uncomfortable, it was O.K. to be on the other
side of the issue. You weren’t a bad person; you weren’t wrong.

My motto has always been: I’ll extend grace so long as people
demonstrate growth. But that is a two-way street. And I think that we
are shooting ourselves in the foot, as people who believe in progress,
when we create no incentive for people to grow, because they perceive
that they will be permanently guilty for having been wrong. We create
no space for them to grow by extending no grace for them to actually
walk there. I think one of the reasons why we see people pushed into
their respective corners is because you say something that’s deemed
problematic, and you are immediately hounded by one side and
immediately embraced by the other side. Human nature is to—when
faced with that degree of extreme binary reactions—go to the people
who are validating you instantaneously. We unintentionally actually
push people further and further into their own corners and into their
negative opinion by responding with a degree of condemnation and
vitriol that creates no incentive and space for them to grow.

But I actually want to say something on those ads, because you did say
the key sentence in that ad. It wasn’t the surgery point, it
wasn’t the undocumented-immigrant point, it wasn’t the trans
point, it was the concept in that line that Kamala Harris, according
to the ad, was for a small group of people, and Donald Trump was there
for “you.” The lesson of this moment, of this last week, is that
we should be flipping that script. Because that’s the authentic
thing—Kamala Harris was for everyone. And Democrats are for
everyone. And every single time Republicans focus in on a small
vulnerable group of people, not only are they trying to distract from
the fact that they have no real solutions—not only are they trying
to employ the politics of misdirection, to move your attention away
from the fact that in that same moment they’re trying to pick the
pocket of American workers, undermine union protections, and fleece
seniors by privatizing Medicare through the back door—but every bit
of time and energy that is diverted to attack trans people, that
diverts the attention of the federal government away toward attacking
trans people, is time and energy that is not being spent on you.
It’s time and attention that’s not being spent on raising your
wages or improving your benefits or lowering the cost of living. These
attacks have costs. Republicans are focussed on attacking a small
group of people, and we are here to actually address the issues that
you care about.

YOU’VE NOW HAD A WEEK WITH YOUR NEW COLLEAGUES, AND I WONDER WHAT
KIND OF SUPPORT, OR THE OPPOSITE, YOU FELT IN YOUR ORIENTATION
SESSIONS AFTER NANCY MACE MADE THE STATEMENT SHE DID.

I have been overwhelmed and heartened by the love and the support of
my Democratic colleagues. It was stunning. I got to Washington, and
I’m at orientation. I’m grateful that I had a week before all of
this started, because I had a week to just marvel at the fact that I
was there. I had a week to marvel at the fact that I am serving in a
body that Abraham Lincoln
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in. One of the first nights we were there, we gathered in Statuary
Hall, which is the Old Hall of the House, which is where Abraham
Lincoln served. And then, after we gathered there, we walked onto the
floor of the United States House of Representatives, where they moved
in 1857, just before the Civil War broke out. And we sat in the chairs
and I thought, This is the space where the Thirteenth Amendment and
the Fourteenth Amendment were passed. This is the space where women
got the right to vote. This is the space, these are the chairs. This
is the job of the people who voted to pass the Civil Rights Act and
the Voting Rights Act
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you feel this awesome responsibility, not just to deliver on the
tangible policies for the constituents you serve in that moment, but
you also feel that deep responsibility as you realize that you are one
of a little more than five hundred people who have the responsibility
to be stewards of a democracy—of the longest ongoing democracy in
the world. That is an awe-inspiring responsibility.

I’m really grateful that I had that opportunity. But what was made
that much more meaningful was that in that second week, as all of this
noise happened—as I continued to be focussed on the actual work that
I was there to do—the love and the support that came in from my
Democratic colleagues really reinforced what I had already been
hearing, which is that that caucus is a family.

AND WHAT ABOUT THE REPUBLICAN SIDE? DID YOU GET ANY SUPPORT FROM
THERE?

Yes. Look, there was a lot unsaid, but there was kindness and clear
intentionality to say, “Welcome to Congress. It’s wonderful to
serve with you.” That was quite a contrast to some of the other
behavior we saw that week.

PEOPLE ACTUALLY COMING UP TO YOU FROM THE REPUBLICAN SIDE AND
EMBRACING YOU IN ONE WAY OR ANOTHER?

Yes. Staff and members.

THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE, MIKE JOHNSON, RELEASED A STATEMENT THAT SAID
ALL SINGLE-SEX FACILITIES ARE FOR PEOPLE OF THAT “BIOLOGICAL” SEX.
YOU RESPONDED TO THIS ON X, FORMERLY TWITTER (IT’S INTERESTING THAT
YOU’RE STILL ON TWITTER!), BY CALLING THIS A DISTRACTION AND SAYING
THAT YOU’LL FOLLOW THE RULES AS OUTLINED BY JOHNSON. BUT WHAT DO YOU
SAY TO PEOPLE IN THE TRANS COMMUNITY WHO THINK YOU DIDN’T GO FAR
ENOUGH?

I understand that, at a moment where you are scared, you want to see
someone fight. I understand that when you are a first, there are a lot
of people who never dreamed that something like this would be
possible, who are living on that journey with you. And so they feel
very deeply the experience of discrimination. They feel very
viscerally the experience of disrespect. I think what I would say is,
This was not done to bar me from restrooms. This was done to invite me
to take the bait and to fight. I am maintaining my power by turning
the other cheek and doing what I promised Delawareans I would do,
which is to focus on the job in front of me. Yes, when that calls for
me to defend my L.G.B.T.Q. constituents, I will do that; when it calls
on me to defend workers in my state, I will do that; when it calls on
me to defend retirees in my state, I will do that. But _I_ should
not be the issue.

YOU MUST HAVE ANTICIPATED, IF NOT THIS, THEN SOMETHING LIKE IT. AND OF
COURSE YOU ARE A FIRST, A HISTORICAL FIRST. DO YOU FACE A LOT OF
THREATS?

I think one of the problems in our politics right now is the level of
toxicity has resulted in far too many people seeking to solve
political disputes not at the ballot box but through violence. I am
certainly not alone in Congress in having to think through that. I
think it’s very early. There have been moments throughout my life
where I have had to be cognizant. I’ve never had a job where I have
not received death threats. Literally, I have never had a job—even
when I was in my first, junior-level position.

HOW DO YOU HANDLE THEM?

Well, fortunately, we’ve got great law enforcement here in Delaware
that I have worked with over the course of this campaign and
throughout my time in the State Senate. Look, one of the things that I
grappled with when I decided to run for this position is the risk that
comes with being a first at this level. Even though I didn’t run to
be a first, there’s obviously risk that comes with it. And there was
a moment where I almost didn’t do it. Because of the fear.

TELL ME ABOUT THAT. WAS IT A SPECIFIC INCIDENT OR JUST A GENERALIZED
FEAR?

There were some rumors about what some far-right-wing groups might try
to do, should I run.

WHEN DID THIS COME UP?

This was before I announced. There was a lot of speculation about me
running.

SO WHAT WITHIN YOU ALLOWED YOU TO MAKE THE LEAP AND DECLARE YOURSELF A
CANDIDATE FOR CONGRESS?

A couple of things. First off, I think that we delude ourselves into
thinking that people don’t take these types of steps without fear.
People aren’t fearless. Bravery only comes into play when you face
those fears, when you pursue something despite the fears. I really do
believe that we are at an inflection point where we need a politics of
grace in this country if we are going to have any chance at not only
restoring our capacity to have a national dialogue, which is
fundamentally necessary in a democracy, but actually making government
work better. I genuinely felt like I had something to contribute in
that respect. I think I know how to get things done. I know how to
legislate.

BUT YOU’RE GOING TO HAVE TO _EMBODY_ GRACE—AND THERE’S EVERY
SIGN THAT YOU ALREADY DO—BUT WITH A PRESIDENT WHO SAYS, PUBLICLY,
SOMETHING LIKE THIS: “YOUR KID GOES TO SCHOOL AND A FEW DAYS LATER
COMES HOME WITH AN OPERATION.” THAT’S THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED
STATES, COME JANUARY 20TH. HOW DO YOU COMBAT THAT, AND ALL THAT’S
BEHIND IT, AND EMBODY GRACE?

I think a couple of things, and I think this extends beyond Donald
Trump. So I’m going to step back a little bit. I think Democrats
struggle with extending one of our basic principles—which is that no
one is their worst act, no one is their worst belief—to people on
the other side of the political divide. I’m not talking about Donald
Trump right now. I’m talking about Republicans. The question here is
not how do I demonstrate grace in the face of Donald Trump; it’s how
do I demonstrate grace in a world where people that I work
with—where even people that I represent—hold positions and beliefs
about who I am that are personally hurtful, potentially.

I think all of us need to do a better job of seeing the humanity of
people on the other side of the aisle. Because I think what happens in
this country right now is: The left says to the right, “What do you
know about pain, white straight man? My pain is real, as an L.G.B.T.Q.
person.” And the right says to the left, “What do you know about
pain, college-educated, cosmopolitan élite? My pain is real, in a
post-industrial community ravaged by the opioid crisis.” And I know
that, when I am upset, the worst thing that someone can say to me,
even if it is said with the best of intentions, is “It’s not as
bad as you think.” Any therapist will tell you that the first step
to healing is to have your pain seen and validated. And I think all of
us have to do a better job of recognizing that people don’t have to
be right in our mind for what they’re facing to be wrong. And people
don’t have to be right in our minds for us to try to right that
wrong. That comes down to sort of a core recognition that every single
person is more than just one thing about them. And every single person
is more than even beliefs that might personally hurt many other
people. And the other thing I’ll say on that is to a similar point:
early on in my career, I went viral for something.

DO YOU REMEMBER WHAT IT WAS?

Ironically enough, I was an advocate. It was a selfie in a bathroom in
North Carolina that I was technically barred from being in.

I SEE.

The vitriol that came back to me as a twentysomething-year-old was so
dehumanizing and so cruel and so mean. It was the closest in my life
that I have ever been to suicide becoming a rational thought. I
wasn’t suicidal, but it was the first moment where I just went, I
want to end this miserable experience.

WHAT WAS COMING AT YOU?

I mean just the level of online bullying and harassment. It was
amazing to me that people—person after person—telling me to kill
myself could actually hurt me. But it was an onslaught. And, again, I
was twenty-five. I was new to all this, and I thought, Maybe I don’t
have skin thick enough for this. I sort of went on a journey to
understand the psychology of trolling and bullying. I think it was a
“This American Life” podcast
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a writer who talks a lot about her own weight and grapples with her
own body image in a really public and vulnerable way, talking about
the experience that she had writing about that hurt and getting
outreach from one of her worst bullies and trolls online—someone who
had created a Twitter account as her deceased father to troll her
from—who opened up to her about what was motivating him. And,
listening to that conversation, it really helped me internalize a
truth that has allowed me to find balance and grace in the face of
hatred or cruelty. And that was: Everyone deals with an insecurity.
Everyone deals with something that society has told them that they
should be ashamed of or that they should hide. And the thing about me
is that I have taken that insecurity, that thing that society has said
you should be ashamed of and you should keep quiet—and I’ve not
only accepted it but I walk forward from a place of pride in it.
Bullies see that. They see that individual agency and conquering my
own fears and insecurities, and they’re jealous of that. That has
allowed me to find compassion for folks who respond to me in sometimes
the way that they do, to recognize that I hope, too, they can find the
power to overcome whatever pain is plaguing them.

AND SO MUCH SO THAT WHEN NANCY MACE MADE THE COMMENTS THAT SHE DID,
AND PUT FORWARD THE BILL THAT SHE DID—ARE YOU ABLE TO SEE IT IN
THOSE TERMS AND NOT RECEIVE THE ATTACKS WITH THE SAME DESPAIR THAT YOU
DID WHEN YOU WERE IN YOUR TWENTIES?

Yes. Yes.

THAT’S AN ENORMOUS TRANSFORMATION.

I won’t say that it doesn’t hurt, but, yes, I am not distracted in
the same way that I was.

“DISTRACTED” IS A SMALL WORD FOR IT. I MEAN, WHAT YOU FELT IN YOUR
TWENTIES MUST’VE BEEN A LOT WORSE THAN “DISTRACTED,” NO?

Yeah. I am able to contextualize it and not feel the pain as much.
Again, it doesn’t mean that it doesn’t hurt, but I am able to work
through it.

HOW? THAT’S A VERY HARD THING. IS IT THERAPY? IS IT MATURATION? IS
IT LIVING IN YOUR SKIN TEN YEARS LONGER? WHAT IS IT?

I think the last two: I think it’s maturation, and I think it’s
just finding a confidence in myself that allows me not to internalize.
I really do seek to find compassion for the people who are acting out,
who say the things that they do, because that does help me. That does
help me to try to see and understand where a person is coming from,
even if the action itself explicitly or implicitly is not
well-intentioned, even if it’s being done for cynical purposes—to
try to understand that there’s still a person behind that and maybe
there’s something in their life that has pushed them to engage in
the way that they’re engaging.

IN A CERTAIN NUMBER OF WEEKS, YOU’RE NOT ONLY GOING TO HAVE TO HEAR
ABOUT NANCY MACE, YOU’RE GOING TO HAVE TO WORK WITH HER. AND YOU
TALK A LOT ABOUT “WORKING ACROSS THE AISLE,” WHICH IS A PHRASE
THAT WE HEAR FROM POLITICIANS ALL THE TIME. THIS TAKES ON NEW LEVELS
OF MEANING—“WORKING ACROSS THE AISLE WITH NANCY MACE.” CAN YOU
DO IT?

Well, I look forward to working with colleagues on the Republican side
of the aisle who are serious about the work that they’re doing. Who
have disagreements with me, perhaps profound disagreements with me,
but who are serious about getting things done.

FOR THE FIRST TIME IN OUR CONVERSATION, I SENSE YOU’RE RELUCTANT TO
ANSWER THE QUESTION DIRECTLY. WITH ALL RESPECT.

I will work with anyone who’s willing to work with me. And I don’t
know this individual member of Congress—I had barely heard of her
before this. I will never say that anyone is beyond redemption.

I WANT TO ZOOM OUT A BIT NOW AND TALK ABOUT YOUR OWN UNIQUE PATH TO
POLITICS AND CONGRESS. YOUR LATE HUSBAND, ANDREW CRAY, WAS AN
L.G.B.T.Q.+ HEALTH ADVOCATE AND ATTORNEY. WHAT KIND OF WORK DID HE
FOCUS ON, AND WHAT OF HIS LEGACY CAN BE SEEN IN YOUR OWN POLITICAL
CAREER AND DIRECTION?

Andy was the kindest, smartest, and—this is very important for me in
a partner—the goofiest person that I had ever met. Just a really
good and decent person.

HOW DID YOU MEET?

We bumped into each other at a White House Pride reception during the
fourth year of the Obama Administration, 2012. After that, he reached
back out to me on social media, on Facebook, and he said that he
thought we’d get along “swimmingly.” I thought, Who the hell in
their twenties says the word “swimmingly”? But clearly someone I
want to spend some time with. So we went out on a date, and I fell in
love pretty quickly.

WAS HE ALREADY SICK?

No. He was an attorney, as you mentioned, working on health policy,
and he was actually working on the implementation of the Affordable
Care Act. He was a brilliant mind, but also—and I think this goes
back to our conversation about grace—he was so principled. I
remember we had a debate once where he won me over—where we had a
debate about whether it was appropriate to out anti-L.G.B.T.Q.
politicians who were in the closet themselves. I was of the mind that
their hypocrisy called on us to out them. And he was of the mind that
the principle that we are fighting for—that everyone should be able
to live their life fully and freely, be able to live their sexual
orientation and gender identity, the way they see fit and the way they
need to—if that is not an unbreakable first principle, then what is?
And principles only matter when you have seemingly altruistic reasons
to violate them. He was someone of just immense grace, principled
grace.

He got sick about a year into our relationship. He developed a sore on
his tongue and went in thinking it was just a benign growth. He had a
little minor surgery to remove the benign growth, which was aborted in
the middle of the procedure as they realized perhaps that it was
something more. About a week later, he was diagnosed with oral cancer.
It was a shock to both of us. I mean, we were both young invincibles,
something that he had written about as he worked on the A.C.A., right?
We never would’ve imagined that cancer would enter our lives in our
mid-twenties, but we knew from the very start how lucky we were. He
knew in particular, given his work, how lucky he was to have health
insurance. And we were both very lucky to have flexibility with our
jobs that allowed Andy to get care: a twelve-hour surgery that left
him having to relearn how to talk, how to eat, how to breathe. I was
lucky to be there by his side to care for him, to suction his
tracheostomy tube, to tend to his wounds, to hold his hand through the
absolute fear.

And then eventually, when his cancer turned out to be terminal, to be
there by his side, to marry him, and to walk him to his passing, which
happened a couple of days after we were fortunate enough to get
married in our building. My brother, who’s a radiation oncologist,
said to me, “I’ve seen a lot of people pass away from cancer. And
one thing you should try to take stock of over the weeks ahead, as
Andy’s health deteriorates, is that you are going to bear witness to
acts of amazing grace that will fill your life.” And truly that
grace and those miracles were everywhere. I think it has fundamentally
shifted my perspective on the world and my ability to see that grace,
to see beauty and tragedy, and to recognize that hope, as an emotion,
only makes sense in the face of hardship.

IN OTHER WORDS, YOU’RE THINKING ABOUT HIM ALL THE TIME THROUGH THIS?

Yes. Yes.

AND WHAT DOES THAT DO FOR YOU?

It makes me feel less alone in navigating this. It makes me feel more
confident in what I’m doing and how I’m trying to go about this.
There’s certainly things that I wish I could talk to him about and
get his perspective on, but I try to take the lessons from our couple
of years together and try to draw those lessons into action in this
moment.

WE BEGAN OUR CONVERSATION WITH YOU TALKING ABOUT HOW MOVED YOU WERE TO
BE IN THE HALLS OF CONGRESS FOR THE FIRST TIME AS A SOON-TO-BE MEMBER,
AND SEEING AND SENSING ALL THAT HAD HAPPENED IN PROGRESSIVE TERMS, IN
LIBERATORY TERMS, OVER TIME AND IN PREVIOUS CENTURIES. MY GUESS IS
THAT THIS IS NOT GOING TO CHARACTERIZE THE NEXT TWO YEARS FOR YOU IN
CONGRESS. THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY, IN LARGE MEASURE, WILL BE FIGHTING A
REAR-GUARD ACTION AGAINST ALL KINDS OF INITIATIVES BY A TRUMP
PRESIDENCY IN A REPUBLICAN CONGRESS. HOW DO YOU ANTICIPATE THE COMING
NEXT TWO YEARS? WHAT KIND OF ROLE WILL THE DEMOCRATS AND YOU PLAY?
WHAT WILL BE YOUR DAY-TO-DAY LIFE, DO YOU THINK?

Well, there’s no question that we’ve got our work cut out for us.
There’s no question that we’re going to have to push back on a lot
of damaging and dangerous policies.

But, look, I think the biggest challenge for us is not that we
understand that there’s a fight. And we will do the work. The
challenge is going to be to summon the hope necessary to see that
fight through. I think that one of the challenges that we have in this
country right now, particularly for Democrats, is that, really since
the nineteen-sixties, it has felt like if we simply work for it, if we
vote for it, if we volunteer, if we share our stories, if we lift our
voices, that we can then inevitably bend the arc of the moral universe
toward justice. And we felt that, I think particularly, in 2008 and
when we elected Barack Obama, and then A.C.A. passed, and marriage
equality became a law of the land. It just felt like there was this
sort of unfolding sense of great progress.

It feels different right now. It doesn’t feel like, if we simply
work for it and fight for it, that change will come, that things will
work out. We can’t see the light at the end of the tunnel. But the
other thing that I thought about, as I sat in that chair on the floor
of the House, was about not only the elected officials that served
there but all of the advocates and activists and citizens who lived
through those different chapters in our country’s history. We have
to recognize that that sense of inevitability with hard work that we
felt twenty years ago, thirty years ago—that’s
the _exception_ in our country’s history. Every single previous
generation of Americans has been called to conquer odds much greater
than the ones that we’re facing right now. And they had every reason
to believe that change would not come. They could not see the light at
the end of the tunnel. Enslaved people in the eighteen-fifties had no
reason to believe that an Emancipation Proclamation was on the
horizon. Unemployed workers during the early days of the Great
Depression had never heard of a New Deal
[[link removed]].
Patrons at the Stonewall Inn never knew of a country where they could
live openly and authentically as themselves. And yet they persevered.
They summoned their hope, they found that light, and ultimately they
changed the world.

THE NARRATIVE YOU DESCRIBE IS VERY, HOW DO I PUT IT—OBAMIAN? IT
REMINDS ME OF OBAMA’S SPEECH IN SELMA, THE LAST ONE HE GAVE THERE AS
PRESIDENT, ABOUT A KIND OF PARADE OF AMERICAN HEROIC ADVANCE. AND WHEN
I TALK TO A LOT OF YOUNGER PEOPLE IN MY OFFICE, IN MY LIFE, IN MY
FAMILY, THEY DON’T ALL SHARE THE SENSE OF DETERMINED HOPE THAT YOU
DO. THERE’S A GOOD DEAL OF DEPRESSION—IF NOT GIVING UP, THEN A
KIND OF SENSE THAT THESE ARE GOING TO BE VERY DARK TIMES TO COME. AND
WITH ALL THE EMERGENCIES SURROUNDING US, AT HOME AND ABROAD, AND
ENVIRONMENTALLY, IT’S VERY HARD TO MUSTER HOPE. AS A POLITICIAN, AS
A MEMBER OF CONGRESS, WHAT DO YOU TELL THEM?

You cannot tell me that the reasons for hopelessness now are greater
than the reasons for hopelessness of an enslaved person. You cannot
tell me that the reasons for hopelessness now are greater than the
insecurity and the fear of workers in the midst of the Great
Depression, and a country that very easily could have fallen into
totalitarianism and fascism, as many liberal democracies around the
world were falling into that, in the early thirties.

Hope is not always an organic emotion. Sometimes we have to
consciously find it and consciously summon it. And, yes, there are big
challenges right now. Maybe those challenges are insurmountable. Maybe
we will be, because of social media, incapable of restoring our
capacity to have a national dialogue. Maybe because of the culture
that we live in right now, we will no longer be able to have
conversations across disagreement. Maybe because of unchecked wealth
and corporate power, we won’t be able to conquer climate change. The
list goes on. Maybe. But we would be the first generation of Americans
to give up on this country, and we would be the first generation of
Americans who were unable to find the path forward. And I just don’t
believe that we are. And I certainly believe that we don’t have to
be. 

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