Advocates hail a senator who is ready to listen, learn and fight for them: ‘There is openness. There is empathy’

A group of prominent transgender activists have rallied behind one 2020 presidential campaign – and it’s not the first openly LGBTQ+ candidate with a shot at the nomination.

Elizabeth Warren has earned the support of trans community organizers across the country, who say the Massachusetts senator’s dedicated outreach and focus on protecting black trans women in particular is unprecedented in American presidential politics.

Warren started meeting trans activists last year, including Mariah Moore, 31, who talked with the senator about the violence that claims the lives of many black trans women before they turn 35 and her daily fears that she could be killed and no one would care. “She stood there with so much conviction and told me, ‘You deserve every good thing. You deserve everything you want and need. You deserve to live in a place that values your life,’” Moore recalled, adding: “I felt so seen and valued. For the first time, I felt like someone who had the opportunity to change the course of lives.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Mariah Moore: ‘For the first time, I felt like someone who had the opportunity to change lives.’ Photograph: Courtesy Mariah Moore

After surging in polls last year, Warren suffered disappointing third and fourth place results in the first three states to vote, while her progressive rival in the race, Bernie Sanders, has emerged as a clear frontrunner. Although the leftwing platforms of the two senators share significant common ground, Warren has pitched herself as the candidate better suited to implement her agenda and unite voters, and her LGBTQ+ supporters say the thoughtful inclusivity of her campaign is unmatched.

“It made me excited and energized to know there was a candidate willing to fight for us as hard as I’ve had to fight my entire life,” said Ashlee Marie Preston, a Los Angeles-based trans activist. “She was doing the work to shine visibility on the challenges we face. And she was specifically naming black trans women.”

Preston and other trans advocates have been campaigning hard for Warren in advance of Super Tuesday next week, when California and 13 other states will hold elections. Sanders also has prominent queer and trans supporters, who argue that his universal programs for housing and health care are best suited to serve low-income trans people. But his campaign also faced criticism for embracing the endorsement of the podcaster Joe Rogan, who has a history of transphobic remarks. And while LGBTQ+ leaders have celebrated the historic candidacy of Pete Buttigieg, who is gay, some trans voters said they didn’t see themselves reflected in his rise or his more moderate platform.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Ashlee Marie Preston with Elizabeth Warren. Photograph: Courtesy Ashlee Marie Preston

The stakes this year are particularly high for trans people, as lawmakers in some conservative states are aggressively pursuing local laws targeting trans youth and trans people have have become the target of attacks by the Trump administration in healthcare, housing, education, employment, the military and more.

Trans people canvassing for Warren shared similar accounts of how she had earned their support and trust: campaign staffers reached out for in-depth policy discussions on their rights and safety, and they later saw their ideas echoed in the platform and in Warren’s own words. It’s part of a broader strategy of explicitly engaging populations that are uniquely disenfranchised, such as people with disabilities, African American mothers, and communities at the border.

“We talked candidly about the murders of black and brown trans women, and domestic violence,” said Raquel Willis, a trans rights organizer and former Out magazine executive editor, who met Warren last year at a roundtable with black women. They discussed solutions and ideas critical to black radical leftists that Democrats rarely touch, including prison abolition and decriminalizing sex work, Willis said: “No candidate is perfect. But there is a willingness to evolve. There is an openness. There is empathy.”

Warren later said she was “open” to decriminalization, noting that sex workers “deserve autonomy and are particularly vulnerable to physical and financial abuse”, and also introduced legislation to study the issue.

Daniel Lander, Warren’s director for LGBTQ+ outreach, said in an email that the senator had long recognized the value in “vulnerable voices at the margins”, adding: “We knew that to build power alongside LGBTQ+ people, we needed to start by prioritizing listening to the voices of trans women of color – to tell us where we needed to show up, what we needed to talk about, and who we should talk with – precisely because their voices have been ignored for so long.”

Supporters also noted that Warren was unusual in her ability to honestly acknowledge past mistakes. Warren said she regretted speaking out against the state paying for a trans prisoner’s gender confirmation surgery in 2012, and that she now supports prisoners’ rights to “medically necessary care, like transition-related surgeries”. That was, to some, a sharp contrast to Senator Kamala Harris, a 2020 rival no longer in the race, who defended her legacy of opposing trans healthcare behind bars.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Blossom Brown: ‘She is the one willing to listen.’ Photograph: Courtesy Blossom Brown

“Elizabeth is teachable,” said Blossom C Brown, an LA-based activist, who protested the exclusion of black trans women at a candidate forum last year. “We don’t expect her to get it right 100% of the time. But she is the one willing to listen.”

Charlotte Clymer, an advocate who raised more than $170,000 for Warren this week on Twitter, said the campaign’s outreach convinced her the senator would “never throw trans people under the bus”. Although polls show overwhelming voter support for trans rights, she says political candidates who seek her advice often seem more concerned about potential backlash to pro-trans stances: “You know they support you, but at the same time it seems like they are nervous.”

Warren’s stance, Clymer said, was: “This is the right thing to do from a moral standpoint and an electoral standpoint, and we’re going to make sure we’re a leader.”

At the end of a 90-minute call, Clymer said she suggested other trans leaders to consult, but the campaign had already reached them.

At the White House, that kind of stance would be significant, Clymer added: “Standing on a national stage and telling children that they matter, and that they are going to have a great future … that courage saves lives.”

John Legend adds star power to Elizabeth Warren's primary push Read more

Warren has also earned praise for reading the names of trans women of color killed last year, which she pledged to do at the Rose Garden if elected. She also said she would have a young trans person interview her nominee for secretary of education, and her platform includes plans to combat trans discrimination in homeless shelters, the foster system and nursing homes, and a grant program to fund organizations fighting the epidemic of murders.

Gavin Grimm, a trans man who brought a landmark anti-discrimination case against his school when he was a teenager, has backed Warren, alongside Chase Strangio, one of the most prominent civil rights lawyers fighting for trans people at the US supreme court, who said he had never endorsed a candidate.

“None of this seems to be ‘for show’,” added Chris Mosier, a triathlete who was the first trans man to make a men’s US national team. “She is the only candidate consistently making commentary about my community … and she has a plan.”

In a statement, Warren said she had learned from black and Latina trans women throughout the campaign, adding: “When I am president, I ask to be held accountable as I partner alongside the LGBTQ+ community to ... fight to secure full rights and equality.”﻿