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Another transgender woman made history in today’s election! 

Andrea Jenkins was elected to the Minneapolis City Council. She’s the first trans person elected to a major city’s governing body and the first trans woman of color elected to office in the United States. 

Jenkins won in the city’s Eighth Ward, where she had been a policy aide to departing Council Vice President Elizabeth Glidden. The Minneapolis Star Tribune had endorsed her, saying she was highly qualified and well prepared for the office. She bested three other candidates. Jenkins is a Democrat; the race is officially nonpartisan, but candidates can identify with a party label. She had the endorsement of the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, as the Democratic Party is known in Minnesota, and of Victory Fund.

As an aide to Glidden and previous Eighth Ward council member Robert Lilligren, Jenkins worked to revitalize the neighborhood with small businesses and arts venues, and helped organize a Trans* Equity Summit. She emphasized, however, that revitalization must not come at the expense of poor people.

During the campaign, she said her priorities include developing affordable housing, raising the minimum wage, addressing youth violence as a matter of public health, and supporting minority artists. She is a historian with the Transgender Oral History Project at the University of Minnesota as well as a poet, prose author, and performance artist who has received numerous grants for her work.

“Men who are into trans women who want to keep us a secret and are afraid if someone thinks they are gay, they’re insecure as fuck. If someone thinks you’re gay, gay is fabulous. Gay is amazing. There’s nothing wrong with that. Toxic masculinity is bullshit.”