Representation in politics still lags for LGBTQ+ community
By Taylor Anthony
In 2019, South Bend Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg became the first openly gay person to launch a significant presidential campaign in the United States. Buttigieg began his career during a time when he had to choose between being openly gay and serving in a major political office.
When he decided to come out in 2015, Buttigieg and his campaign staff couldn’t help but question the consequences. However, the decision was well in his favor.
“When it came time for my reelection later that year, our fears were unfounded. Instead of judging me based on who I might love, the people of South Bend judged me on my track record of turning around the city. I had trusted them, and they decided to trust me in return — reelecting me with 80 percent of the vote,” said Buttigieg in The Oprah Magazine.
The problem for fellow LGBTQ Americans is that Buttigieg is pretty much everyone’s image of a gay candidate.
“The most representation we’ve seen on a large platform has been Pete Buttigieg,” said Alex Lafayette, president of John Carroll University’s LGBTQIA+ Allies student organization, who met with journalism students Sept. 24 to discuss election issues that matter to the LGBTQ community. Lafayette stressed the importance of seeing more LGBTQ+ representation in politics. And she was not alone in that view.
“It’s really important to see people who look more like America,’’ said John Carroll University Political Science Professor Elizabeth Stiles during a Zoom interview on Oct. 16. In a country that is metaphorically a melting pot, it seems to be lacking full representation of its diversity in the media, public life and politics.
Stiles attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and in her vibrant Carolina blue and white college town she was, and always will be, she says, a proud Blue Tarheel, not a Blue Devil — the mascot of the rival school Duke University, also located in North Carolina.
During her undergraduate she years, Stiles became a member of the Carolina Gay and Lesbian Association, a student organization that allowed Stiles and her peers to “advocate and educate people at the University of North Carolina about issues for LGBT folks and add support for people who were maybe not treated as well because of their sexual orientation,” said Stiles.
The LGBTQ community is one of many marginalized groups that face underrepresentation. According to Jennifer O’Brien’s article Why Visibility Matters in Psychology Today magazine, the community is often viewed as invisible. Representation of the LGBTQ community “means that they are actually seen by society as opposed to being rendered unseen or invisible. When people are able to see something represented, they are better able to understand and grasp who those people are, and this creates an important shift in the social consciousness to include people from a range of different backgrounds,” O’Brien wrote.
“LGBTQ representation in our legislature is critical to championing, sponsoring and passing equality legislation,” said The Hoya journalist Trevor O’Connor in a 2020 article. “As more Americans than ever identify as LGBTQ, our legislatures need to better reflect this segment of the population.”
While progress for the LGBTQIA community has made this irrefutable, when it comes to the political realm, there is dire underrepresentation. According to a March 5 report distributed by Reuters, approximately 4.5 percent, or 11.3 million, U.S. adults identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender. Of that 4.5 percent, only 0.1 percent of openly LGBTQ people are elected officials.
There are currently 801 LGBTQ people serving in elected offices in the United States, as reported by The Victory Institute. The current highest office held is governor, an achievement that includes Oregon Gov. Kate Brown and Colorado Gov. Jared Polis.
Looking back at history, the first openly LGBTQ person elected to political office, Kathy Kozachenko, was a prominent person who is nevertheless rarely referred to. Kozachenko was elected to the Ann Arbor City Council in Michigan at 21 years old while a student at the University of Michigan.
According to NBC journalist Julie Compton, “Kozachenko speculated that there are a few reasons she’s been overlooked by history. Aside from being a woman, she never made her sexuality central to her campaign — a decision that sets her apart from many of her more well-known successors.”
“Gay liberation was not a major issue in the campaign — both candidates in this ward said they supported gay rights, but 10 years ago, or even three years ago, lesbianism would have meant automatic defeat,” Compton said. After her short political career, Kozachenko joined numerous activist groups to make a difference in the lives of the LGBTQ community.
Considerable strides continue to be made in the LGBTQ community, but there is still some distance to go, as many issues still need to be on the forefront.
“A huge change has been that [today] most people know somebody who identifies as LGBTQ or non-binary, or something of that nature. And that has made a huge difference. It’s not this scary ‘other’ that you don’t know,” says Stiles.
On Aug. 24 of this year, it was announced that LGBTQ Civil Rights activist Marsha P. Johnson will be honored with a monument in her hometown of Elizabeth, New Jersey. Not only was Johnson an advocate for gay rights and a founding member of the Gay Liberation Front and the Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries, a group known as S.T.A.R, but she was a leading figure of the Stonewall uprising of 1969 in New York, a series of riots by the LGBTQ community in response to a police raid at a Gay bar in Greenwich Village.
“Honestly, just in general, that’s really important because Marsha P. Johnson was a huge proponent of trans rights, LGBT rights, back in a time where it was even more difficult than it is now,” said Lafayette. “Especially her being a driving force in the Stonewall riots, just in general, in a country that has a lot of statues of white men, that’s a big move to have a statue of Marsha P. Johnson.”
The year 2020 alone allowed for significant strides, as LGBTQ political representation increased by 21%, as reported by The Victory Institute, a national organization dedicated to promoting LGBTQ leaders in government. But the institute also reports that in order for LGBTQ people to achieve “equitable representation,” there would need to be 22,544 more lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer people in elected offices in the United States.
Looking ahead towards the future, there are hopes for more protection of LGBTQ rights as well as increased representation in elected offices in this country.
“The Supreme Court recently had a 6–3 decision that the anti-sex discrimination law protected LGBTQ people” says Stiles, but at the end of the day, she says, “Strengthening civil rights protection in general, I would like to see that. I wish that it wasn’t a partisan issue.”
While there are many counties and states lacking representation, take a look at the Ohio county that is seemingly on the right track.
According to a Poll conducted by The Columbus Dispatch, Columbus was ranked №15 in the nation of cities with the highest gay population as of 2015. “Anyone who has lived in Greater Columbus knows the city has a reputation for being accepting, welcoming and gay-friendly,” wrote journalist Encarnacion Pyle in an article in the Columbus Dispatch.
With that being said, having a more welcoming and accepting community can greatly influence the diversity of representation when it comes to elected offices.
Jeff Mackey, an endorsed Democrat Franklin County probate court judge candidate, spoke briefly about his experience of working in Franklin County in a phone interview on Oct. 19.
“It’s easier to run in Franklin County,” says Mackey, because of how visible the LGBTQ community is in the Columbus area. As a member of the LGBTQ community himself, he said he’s fortunately never had to endure any hardships during his career because of his sexual orientation.
Although Ohio Sen. Nicki Antonio was contacted, she was unable to schedule an interview during such a hectic time. As the first openly LGBTQ Ohio state senator, elected in 2018, Antonio has “been a reliable fighter for working people, voter rights, civil rights, public education, health care accessibility and addressing the opioid crisis,” as reported on her State Senate website.
Representation matters. In an era when people often question their place in the world, seeing people like yourself in positions of power, or being able to view someone like you as a role model is undeniably affirming to your self-identity.
On April 14, 2019, in Buttigieg’s presidential campaign kickoff speech, he exclaimed “There’s a long way for us to go. Life here is far from perfect. But we’ve changed our trajectory and shown a path forward for communities like ours. And that’s why I am here today.”
References
Antonio, N. (2020). Nickie J Antonio for State Senate. Retrieved October 23, from https://www.nickieantonio.com/contact/
Fitzsimons, T. (2020, July 16). LGBTQ political representation jumped 21 percent in past year, data shows. NBC News. Retrieved October 12, from https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/meet-lesbian-who-made-political-history-years-harvey-milk-n1174941
Buttigieg, P. (2019, October 11). Pete Buttigieg Reflects on His Coming Out Story — and How It Inspired His LGBTQ+ Rights Plan. Retrieved October 25, from https://www.oprahmag.com/entertainment/a29429958/pete-buttigieg-coming-out-story/
Buttigieg, P. (2019, April 14). Pete Buttigieg’s Official Campaign Announcement Rally. Retrieved October 25, from https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4792562/user-clip-pete-buttigieg-campaign-kickoff-speech
Lafayette, A. (2020, September 24). Personal Interview via Zoom [LGBTQIA President at John Carroll University]
Mackey, J. (2020, October 19). Personal Interview via Telephone [Probate judge candidate for Franklin Country Court of Common Pleas]
Maxouris, C. (2020, August 28). Transgender activist Marsha P. Johnson will get a monument in her New Jersey hometown. CNN. Retrieved 13 October, 2020, from https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/marsha-p-johnson-new-jersey-monument-trnd/index.html
O’Brien, J. (2020 November 14). Why Visibility Matters. Psychology Today. Retrieved October 16, 2020, from https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/all-things-lgbtq/201711/why-visibility-matters
O’Connor, T. (2020 January, 23). Address Lack of LGBTQ Political Representation. The Hoya. Retrieved 16 October 2020 from https://thehoya.com/oconnor-address-lack-of-lgbtq-representation/
Plye, E. (2015 March, 24). Poll: Columbus ranks 15th in cities with highest gay population. The Columbus Dispatch. Retrieved 21 October 2020 from https://www.dispatch.com/article/20150323/NEWS/303239823
Stiles, Dr. (2020, October 16). Personal Interview via Zoom [Political Science professor at John Carroll University]
Trotta, D. (2019 March 5). Some 4.5 percent of U.S adults identify as LGBT: study. Reuters. Retrieved 14 October 2020, from https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-lgbt/some-4-5-percent-of-u-s-adults-identify-as-lgbt-study-idUSKCN1QM2L6
— . Representation is Power. The Victory Institute. Retrieved October 14, 2020, from https://outforamerica.org/?office-level=Governor%2CUS%20Congress%2CStatewide%2CMayor%2CState%20Legislature%2CLocal%2CJudicial
