Rep. Sarah McBride on GOP Attacks

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“They’re employing the strategies of reality TV," Rep. Sarah McBride said about the barrage of attacks she faced in her first few months in office.

Last November, she became the first openly transgender person elected to Congress, outperforming Vice President Kamala Harris among voters in the nation’s second-smallest (and first) state. Before that, she was the nation’s first openly trans state senator when she served in the Delaware General Assembly.

Her congressional election brought not only a national spotlight, but also anti-trans attacks from GOP lawmakers once she took office. There were also critiques from some trans people who wanted McBride to fight harder on their behalf as Republicans mount a full-scale assault on trans rights.

Reporter Julianne McShane watched the new documentary State of Firsts which portrays McBride grappling with both the highs and the lows of what it meant to step into her role. It resists an easy narrative about life as a “first” being an upward trajectory of progress and celebration.

For McBride, it has also been heavy with impossible expectations, conflicting allegiances, and flattening portrayals. As McBride sums up early on in the film: “It is an unbelievable challenge to figure out how I am seen as a full human being rather than just as a walking trans flag.”

#transgender #politics #documentary

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