The Democratic National Convention will feature the first ever speech by an openly transgender person to a major political party’s convention.
Sarah McBride, who is 25, has been invited to speak by the Congressional LGBT Equality Caucus, and expressed in a statement:
People must understand that even as we face daily harassment, tragic violence, and an onslaught of anti-LGBTQ political attacks across the country, we are real people merely seeking to be treated with the dignity and respect every person deserves.
Another transgender woman, activist Marisa Richmond, will also make history by serving as the first transgender timekeeper for the convention. There are actually more transgender delegates to the Democratic Convention (27 – a historically high number) than there were African-American delegates at the Republican Convention (a crushingly low 18).
The DNC is turning out to be almost as controversial as the Republican Convention last week, where Ted Cruz actually got booed off the stage for refusing to endorse Donald Trump. There was Sarah Silverman turning on fellow Bernie Sanders supporters, or the latest email scandal, or the ensuing Debbie Wasserman-Schultz resignation/rehiring/obvious cronyism.
Given this Ted Talk from a few months ago, we’ve got good cause to hope Sarah’s speech will be a moment of inclusiveness in what has been an otherwise frustrating and divisive convention season:
Photo: Instagram
