Running! is a Teen Vogue series on getting involved in the government.

In the days following the election of Donald Trump as president in November 2016, Kristen Browde sat in a crowded church in Larchmont, New York. Clusters of county officials debated the future of their towns and the tension was palpable. The questions were all the same: “What now?”

Browde, a 66-year-old lawyer and former television news reporter, lives in Chappaqua. It's the hometown of her preferred candidate, Hillary Clinton, who she campaigned for door-to-door. But in the church Browde came to listen. As she heard unresolved concerns among her district constituents she instinctively jumped in. Later, she was asked if she would consider running for town supervisor.

Aside from participating on various town government committees, Browde had no interest in becoming an elected official—she runs a successful law practice and has a three-decade newscasting career behind her. But last month, she announced that she would accept the Democratic party’s nomination, making her the first-ever transgender woman nominated to run for office in the state of New York on a major party ticket. If elected, Browde would become part of a small group of openly transgender elected officials, according to the LGBTQ Representation & Rights Research Initiative at the University of North Carolina.

Browde was already a public figure (who'd worked on literally every television station in New York) when she openly came out as a transgender woman in April 2016 at New York’s annual Inner Circle dinner, which many elite media attend. “I wasn’t subtle in the way I came out,” she told Teen Vogue, “but it was like my freedom day.” A few days afterwards, she found herself on Page Six of the New York Post’s print edition. An otherwise flattering announcement of her coming out, the headline read: JOURNO SAYS HE’S A SHE. “It’s now a sign in my office," she laughed.

“When I grew up all I wanted to be was a reporter. But it came at a price,” she said. “I was scared to death to come out; it would have been career suicide back then.” She is the most visibly open transgender person in her New York town, she said, so Browde seeks to influence and educate by example.“If you are a good person before you come out, you’re still a good person after. If you’re a bad person, coming out isn’t gonna make you any better,” she said. “I am the same person I was the day before I came out — except I’m better dressed and a hell of a lot happier.”

In 2014, she was appointed to the New Castle ethics board and in 2016, the diversity committee by Robert Greenstein, her now-opposing candidate for town supervisor. Browde arrived at her first meeting equipped with changes to Article 78 of New Castle's town code, which serves as anti-discrimination law. The now-candidate drafted a complete revise hoping to create a broader spectrum of protection in the LGBTQ community and for race and religious protections. Her proposed changes have yet to be passed.

“The message I want to impart to my kids, who are 13 and 17, and that I want to impart to any kid, whether they are cis, trans, LGBTQ, or not, is that you are not limited in your life. The world is full of infinite possibilities and it’s what you as individuals make of it," Browde said.

Just after Browde announced her candidacy for New Castle town supervisor, Greenstein had his own announcement: a transgender bathroom initiative. New decals for doors would include a man, woman, and a third icon, imposing half of each gendered icon together. This third decal was meant to identify restrooms for transgender people—and Browde was dumbfounded. It felt misguided for Browde, who identifies as a woman and not as a "third party" icon. She stood and addressed her constituents, saying, “I think I know where to go to the bathroom, thank you.”