The 2018 midterm elections present voters with innumerable “firsts” when it comes to LGBTQ+ candidates. With over 400 LGBTQ+ politicians running for office around the country, and four gubernatorial nominees who are respectively lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender, many Americans are hoping for a more diverse and progressive U.S. government.

Alexandra Chandler is part of that wave. And as she prepares to face a whopping 10 opponents in the September 4 primary, she aims to become the first out transgender representative in Congress.

Chandler, a candidate for the 3rd congressional district of Massachusetts, is also a lesbian. She’s been with her wife Kathy for 23 years (the couple has two children) and says her decision to pursue public service began on September 11, 2001. Kathy was stuck on a subway train somewhere in lower Manhattan as planes struck the Twin Towers, and Chandler says, “I wasn’t sure if she’d made it. During those two hours, I was bargaining with God and everything.”

Not long after 9/11, Chandler decided to put her Russian speaking skills to use and join the intelligence community. She and Kathy moved to Washington D.C., where Chandler rose through the ranks of Naval intelligence — and also transitioned on the job.

Last June, Chandler recorded an unofficial It Gets Better video and posted it to YouTube. As photos from her childhood and youth panned by, Chandler recalled the surprising support she received from her fellow intelligence officers, saying that a “really courageous leader of the agency” offered reassurance as she transitioned at work.

That experience gives Chandler hope; if Naval intelligence officers who “had no experience with transgender people before — and very limited experience with LGBT people, period” could accept and support her, she believes Massachusetts voters can do the same.

Chandler spoke with them. on the phone last Friday while driving from her native Haverhill to Harvard — a rural town with a population of just over 6,000, where Chandler was scheduled to meet potential constituents at a meet-and-greet that evening. After months of campaigning, she didn’t expect to encounter any discrimination or pushback around the fact that she’s transgender.

“Almost nobody cares. And that’s not just what I think, it’s what I know from thousands and thousands of conversations,” says Chandler. “And the few people who do care, they respect the fact that I’ve had to struggle.”

It’s not as if transgender candidates have been stumping for votes for decades. Until Virginian Danica Roem won her seat in November 2017 and became the first transgender state legislator ever elected — beating out a Republican rival who attacked her gender identity during the campaign — few people thought it was possible for a trans candidate to win an election. And Roem wasn’t a fluke; Christine Hallquist winning the Democratic nomination for governor of Vermont on August 14 proves that not only are voters ready for trans leaders in politics, they’re ready for them at high levels of government.

Chandler says the wins for Roem and Hallquist have emboldened her. She’d first considered a run when Rep. Niki Tsongas announced last April that she was retiring from the seat. But she was nervous about stepping further into the public eye, and says she asked herself repeatedly, “Am I really gonna do this?” Days after Roem’s victory, Chandler announced her candidacy: “I won’t deny that certainly helped me follow through.”

If trans political candidates learned anything from Roem’s playbook, it was that part of her success stemmed from her relentless refocusing of questions about her gender onto her platform issues. Whether in media interviews or in facing attacks from her opponent, Roem responded to remarks about her transness during the campaign by talking about her plans for improving the state’s transportation policy. Being transgender gave Roem a moment in the media spotlight. She used it to let voters know how dedicated she is to repairing potholes.