Delaware Voice: Dave and Sally McBride

Last week in Philadelphia, two women made history. Right before Hillary Clinton accepted the Democratic Party’s nomination for president, our daughter, Sarah McBride, became the first transgender person to address a major party’s convention. Sarah’s speech was a huge and exciting milestone for her. For us, it also represented a broader, watershed moment for a community that has seen advances and setbacks, both at seemingly accelerating rates over the past few years.

As many states around the country continue to pursue legislation that is directly aimed at harming LGBTQ Americans, we hope that Sarah’s speech communicated to all transgender people that it is possible to be your true, authentic self and have a hopeful future. And we hope her speech said to those who would seek to take away her rights: transgender people are people. Our daughter – like so many other daughters – just wants to pursue her dreams and live her life.

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In our lived experience, Sarah has been accepted and supported by our friends, our church, our community and our state, Delaware. This acceptance and support came from Democrats and Republicans, Catholics, Protestants, Jews and people of all beliefs and creeds. It came from young and old. It came from our governor, Jack Markell, and our former, now-deceased attorney general, Beau Biden. That acceptance and support made all the difference in the life of our daughter and the life of our family, as we learned about how Sarah had experienced the world through the eyes of someone whose gender did not match how the world saw her.

Thanks to that support and acceptance, Sarah continues to have the ability to make whatever contribution to our society her talents will allow. All the while, our family has been able to remain whole, living in a community that sees us as we are – human beings with all the complexity and wonder that brings. Sarah’s courage and confidence in who she is has always served to reassure us when we were most fearful for her – and when we were most uncertain about how our country would accept her in the future.

Importantly, Sarah’s speech served as a stark contrast point for where our two political parties want to take us on LGBTQ issues. At the Republican National Convention, we heard several speakers, including Ben Carson and Gen. Michael Flynn, disparage transgender people after passing the most anti-LGBTQ platform in the party’s history. We know that these speakers and this platform do not speak for the many Republicans we know. It is disappointing to see this regression on the part on their party. In contrast, at the Democratic National Convention, the Democratic Party worked to raise up the voices of the LGBTQ community – including our daughter – and passed a party platform specifically addressing the need for increased acceptance and greater protections for LGBTQ Americans. We have made such great progress over the last several years, and we cannot afford to be pulled backward by fear-mongering politicians who want to divide us.

Our positive story would not be possible in the world envisioned by the recently passed Republican Party platform. It endorses harmful “conversion therapy,” which seeks to “change” a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity through a thoroughly-debunked, anti-science sham that has been outlawed in a number of states. It promotes “bathroom bills” that are both impractical and serve to target and marginalize transgender individuals. If our daughter entered a men’s room, it would be a shock for her and for the men in that room. The platform also aims to grant legal protections to individuals who would decline service to LGBTQ people simply because of who they are. This platform is a regressive, dangerous step backward after we have witnessed so much progress.

The contrast between a party who would espouse these ideas and a party who would embrace and support our daughter could not be more clear. Our family’s story and Sarah’s success would not be possible in a world where fear and hatred win over love and acceptance.

We have learned, from our own experience, that this is a nation capable of saying to our daughter and all transgender people: welcome to our community; you are as valuable and as important as any other person and we encourage you to contribute to this nation’s work. But, we must not allow anti-LGBTQ politicians and parties to divide us. Nothing positive has ever come from divisiveness driven by hate or ignorance. America has always worked best when it is united, and when we are respectful and accepting of others’ differences.

To those on the other side of what divides us: all we ask is that you give our daughter and our family the opportunity to make a contribution. In the past four years, when we called across that divide in Delaware, there has been a hand that reached back across to help us. We know that is the true nature of the promise of America, and it will be this nature that ultimately prevails.

As President Barack Obama famously said, “The forces that divide us are not as strong as those that unite us.” As Sarah took the same stage that President Obama stood on the night before, and the first woman nominee for president would stand on hours later, we knew that must be true.

Dave McBride is a partner at Young Conaway Stargatt & Taylor, LLP, practicing corporate law and litigation in the Court of Chancery. Sally McBride has a master's in education from the University of Delaware and has served as an educational advocate for 20 years in Red Clay. Together, they raised three children, Sean, Dan and Sarah.