Politics
Inside trainings for trans candidates running for public office
LGBTQ Victory Institute debuts program for trans and gender diverse candidates
When the LGBTQ+ Victory Institute convenes its flagship Candidate and Campaign Training in Los Angeles next month, the agenda will be familiar: four days of workshops, mock campaign plans, and late-night study sessions as aspiring politicians learn the ins and outs of running for office.
For the first time, however, this year transgender, nonbinary, and gender-nonconforming candidates will stay in town after the larger group disperses for a two-day extension designed specifically for them.
A collaboration between Victory and Advocates for Trans Equality, the program comes at a pivotal time of ascendant transphobia at the White House, in the Trump-Vance administration more broadly, and across the country as state legislatures have advanced anti-trans bills at a breakneck pace in 2025.
Organizers say the training is meant to build a pipeline — not just of candidates, but of resilient leaders who are prepared for campaigns fought in an era of anti-LGBTQ politics, and polarization fueled or accelerated by online platforms.
A physician steps in
Among those voices is Alexis Hoffkling, a family physician in Colorado who decided last year that her lane of impact needed to expand.
“I’ve cared about politics my whole life, in a not particularly involved kind of way that, in retrospect, is sort of like sitting in the stadium of a sporting event and not being on the field,” she told the Washington Blade during an interview last week.
“For a really long time, I’ve been operating in the mode that the best way to make a positive change in the world is to pick something and do it really well. And for me, that was providing medical care and teaching the next generation of doctors to be good doctors without losing their humanity.”
That work, she added, comes with a political education of its own. “You can’t provide safety net primary care with an open mind and an open heart without being a little radicalized by it.”
What pushed her to run, she said, was not any single policy change but a deeper recognition of the stakes.
“It became really clear that this is not a business-as-usual kind of moment in history,” Hoffkling said. “I just woke up one morning and said, ‘OK, I have to be able to say, in 20 years, if I haven’t been disappeared, that I did everything I could when history called for it.’ And I’m convinced that this is the way to do that. Never mind work-life balance.”
Hoffkling brings the daily realities of her patients with her into the political arena.
“Every day is full of stories,” she said. “My patients are wonderful and resilient and thoughtful people whose life stories really clearly demonstrate the consequences of policy decisions.”
The most immediate threat, she argued, is the federal government’s push to cut Medicaid.
“People are going to die. Many, many people are going to die,” she said. “And many more people are going to have their lives devastated by the costs of care, directly and indirectly. Communities are going to suffer. Rural hospitals are going to close, and they’re not going to reopen after they close.”
She worries, too, about the erosion of scientific authority and the exodus of biomedical research talent abroad. “Conceivably, we could restore Medicaid funding. We could even do something more than restore it. But it’s going to take a lot of work to rebuild trust in public institutions when they are being used in a corrupt, anti-scientific and persecutory fashion.”
On gender-affirming care, she is unequivocal: “This is healthcare. This is medical care. In the same way that the government shouldn’t be determining whether or not you take antibiotics or have surgery for your appendicitis, it should be a conversation between you and your doctors,” she said. “Government should stay out of it, and where the federal government is trying to muck around in it, then it is our job as states that care about human rights to do everything we can to protect the sanctity of the doctor-patient decision making space.”
Trainings will be led by trans lawmaker with a proven record
When Virginia State Sen. Danica Roem unseated a 26-year Republican incumbent in Virginia in 2017, she became the first out transgender state legislator in the country. Since then, she has turned her experience into a roadmap for others — including through her book “Burn the Page” and now through the trans and gender diverse training extension she will help lead in Los Angeles.
“What is life like as a trans person on the campaign trail? What is your day to day?” Roem said of the sessions she plans to run. “Because you know that your gender will be the headline of the story. No matter whether you’re running for soil and water conservation district or you’re running for Congress, your gender is going to be the first thing that’s going to be mentioned about you.”
The key, she tells trainees, is not to deny the reality but to control how much it defines the narrative.
“You never say, ‘I’m trans, but.’ I say, ‘I’m trans, and.’ I’m not apologizing for who I am,” Roem said. “I’m trans, and I care a lot about fixing Route 28. About universal free school breakfast and lunch. About making Virginia a more inclusive commonwealth.”
That approach, she noted, has already helped other trans candidates win. “Emma Curtis followed my playbook pretty much verbatim, and now she’s a member of the Lexington City Council,” Roem said.
Trainings prepare candidates for campaigns
For Hoffkling, the appeal of the training is partly practical — fundraising, budgeting, social media — and partly about the blind spots she may not yet know she has.
“The unknown unknowns, those are your blind spots,” she said. “Those are the danger points, and it’s worth spending time and energy to try to map those out so that they’re no longer blind spots.”
But just as important is the chance to learn from others who have been targeted because of their gender identity.
“Most of the challenges of campaigning are universal to any candidate, but some of them will be specific to the experience of navigating a campaign in a transphobic world while trans,” she said. “I want to learn more from the experience and insights of other folks who walk this path.”
Roem, who has trained dozens of candidates through Victory and Emerge Virginia, which works to elect women to public office, said those moments of connection are often the most powerful.
“The most important thing that I did in the Chicago training last year was spend one-on-one time with dozens of them,” she said. “Because then if I can connect with someone as a person, I can usually fish out something beyond the slogan of why you’re running for office. The slogan is nice, the policy position is important. [But] why are you really running? Tell me who you really are.”
Those conversations, she said, often bring candidates to tears. But they also bring breakthroughs that can prepare candidates to “really become unstoppable on the campaign trail.”
Hoffkling frames representation itself as a form of medicine.
“When I have a patient who has a trans kid who comes to her appointments, who is so excited to come to her mom’s doctor’s appointments because there’s a trans doctor — that’s one little snapshot of a moment in an exam room that’s private,” she said. “But that same phenomenon happens at scale, and in a public role in public office, it helps people to see the expanse of possibilities for their future.”
She credits trailblazers like Roem, U.S. Rep. Sarah McBride (D-Del.), and Colorado State Rep. Brianna Titone with clearing the way. “If there weren’t the wave of Sarah McBride, Brianna Titone, Danica Roem, Zooey Zephyr…then in my race, I would be facing a lot of questions about, ‘is it possible? Is it winnable, as a trans person?’ And the fact that other people have proved that it’s possible makes it more possible for me.”
Roem sees that ripple effect too. In her own district, polling after her 2021 reelection campaign found that 12 percent of voters reported a more favorable view of transgender people because of her service.
“By a 12-to-one margin, we were actually having a positive effect on how people thought about my own community, which is pretty good,” she said.
The trainings, both women emphasized, are about more than political survival. They are about equipping candidates to become the leaders they wished they’d had — inclusive, effective, and grounded in the lives of their constituents.
“Because we know what it’s like to be singled out and stigmatized by the very people who are elected to serve us in the first place,” Roem said, “which makes us far less likely to do it to our constituents when we’re elected.”
Congress
Markey reintroduces International Human Rights Act in Senate
Bill would require US to promote LGBTQ, intersex rights abroad
U.S. Sen. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) on Wednesday reintroduced a bill that would require the State Department to promote LGBTQ and intersex rights abroad.
A press release the Massachusetts Democrat released notes the International Human Rights Act would “direct the State Department to monitor and respond to violence against LGBTQ+ people worldwide, while creating a comprehensive plan to combat discrimination, criminalization, and hate-motivated attacks against LGBTQ+ communities.” The bill would also “formally establish a special envoy to coordinate LGBTQ+ policies across the State Department; a role that has been left vacant under the Trump administration.”
Gay California Congressman Robert Garcia introduced the International Human Rights Act in the U.S. House of Representatives last month.
Markey has previously introduced the bill in the U.S. Senate. He reintroduced it on International Human Rights Day, which commemorates the U.N. General Assembly’s ratification of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights on Dec. 10, 1948.
“Today, on International Human Rights Day, we must recommit the United States to the defense of human rights and the promotion of equality and justice around the world,” said Markey in the press release. “It is as important as ever that we stand up and protect LGBTQ+ individuals from the Trump administration’s cruel attempts to further marginalize this community.”
“I am proud to reintroduce the International Human Rights Defense Act and I am proud to continue to fight alongside LGBTQ+ individuals for a world that recognizes that LGBTQ+ rights are human rights,” he added.
Mark Bromley, co-chair of the Council for Global Equality, in the press release that Markey issued said the Trump-Vance administration “is fanning the flames of authoritarianism” at “a time when LGBTQI+ people around the world are facing backlash simply for who they are or whom they love.” Bromley specifically noted the State Department “has deleted reporting on the human rights of LGBTQI+ persons — despite bipartisan reporting dating back three decades — and sought to undercut universal human rights on the world stage.”
“The International Human Rights Defense Act is a clear rebuke of this attempt to erase our lives,” said Bromley. “We are grateful for the leadership of Sen. Markey and his unwavering commitment to equality around the world.”
Congress
MTG resigns after years of anti-LGBTQ attacks amid Trump feud
Greene’s abrupt departure adds fresh uncertainty to an already fractured Republican Party.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene announced on Friday that she is resigning from Congress.
In a post on X (formerly Twitter), the Georgia 14th Congressional District representative announced her sudden decision to resign from office.
The nearly 11-minute-long video shows Rep. Greene stating she will step down from her role representing one of Georgia’s most Republican districts on Jan. 5, 2026. She cited multiple reasons for this decision, most notably her very public separation from Trump.
In recent weeks, Greene — long one of the loudest and most supportive MAGA members of Congress — has butted heads with the president on a slew of topics. Most recently, she supported pushing the DOJ to release the Epstein Files, becoming one of only four Republicans to sign a discharge petition, against Trump’s wishes.
She also publicly criticized her own party during the government shutdown. Rep. Greene had oddly been supportive of Democratic initiatives to protect healthcare tax credits and subsidies that were largely cut out of national healthcare policy as a result of Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill,” passed in July.
“What I am upset over is my party has no solution,” Greene said in October.
Trump recently said he would endorse a challenger against the congresswoman if she ran for reelection next year, and last week went as far as to declare, “Marjorie ‘Traitor’ Green is a disgrace to our GREAT REPUBLICAN PARTY!” on his Truth Social platform.
Trump told ABC News on Friday night that Greene’s resignation is “great news for the country,” and added that he has no plans to speak with Greene but wishes her well.
Despite her recent split with the head of the Republican Party, Rep. Greene has consistently taken a staunch stance against legislation supporting the LGBTQ community — notably a hardline “no” on any issue involving transgender people or their right to gender-affirming care.
Rep. Greene has long been at odds with the LGBTQ community. Within her first month in office, she criticized Democrats’ attempts to pass the Equality Act, legislation that would bar anti-LGBTQ employment discrimination. She went as far as to suggest an apocalypse-like scenario if Congress passed such a measure.
“God created us male and female,” she said on the House floor. “In his image, he created us. The Equality Act that we are to vote on this week destroys God’s creation. It also completely annihilates women’s rights and religious freedoms. It can be handled completely differently to stop discrimination without destroying women’s rights, little girls’ rights in sports, and religious freedom, violating everything we hold dear in God’s creation.”
Greene, who serves one of the nation’s most deeply red districts in northwest Georgia, attempted to pass legislation dubbed the “Protect Children’s Innocence Act,” which would have criminalized gender-affirming care for minors and restricted federal funding and education related to gender-affirming care in 2023. The bill was considered dead in January 2025 after being referred to the House Committee on the Judiciary.
Her push came despite multiple professional medical organizations, including the nation’s largest and most influential — the American Medical Association — stating that withholding gender-affirming care would do more harm than any such care would.
She has called drag performers “child predators” and described the Democratic Party as “the party of killing babies, grooming and transitioning children, and pro-pedophile politics.”
Greene has also publicly attacked Delaware Rep. Sarah McBride, the nation’s first and only transgender member of Congress. She has repeatedly misgendered and attacked McBride, saying, “He’s a man. He’s a biological male,” adding, “he’s got plenty of places he can go” when asked about bathrooms and locker rooms McBride should use. Greene has also been vocal about her support for a bathroom-usage bill targeting McBride and transgender Americans as a whole.
She has repeatedly cited false claims that transgender people are more violent than their cisgender counterparts, including falsely stating that the 2022 Robb Elementary School shooter in Texas was transgender.
The former MAGA first lady also called for an end to Pride month celebrations. She criticized the fact that the LGBTQ community gets “an entire” month while veterans get “only one day each year” in an X post, despite November being designated as National Veterans and Military Families Month.
Under Georgia law, Gov. Brian Kemp (R) must hold a special election within 40 days of the seat becoming vacant.
The Washington Blade reached out to both the White House and Greene’s office for comment, but has not heard back.
PFLAG honored U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) with the “2025 PFLAG National Champion of Justice” award during their annual “Love Takes Justice” event in Washington.
Waters has represented California’s 43rd Congressional District — including much of Los Angeles — since 1991 and has been a vocal advocate for LGBTQ rights since her swearing-in.
Her track record includes opposing the Defense of Marriage Act, which would have made marriage only between a man and a woman; co-sponsoring the Respect for Marriage Act, ultimately requiring all U.S. states to recognize same-sex marriages performed by other states; and is a long time supporter of the Equality Act, which would codify comprehensive protections for LGBTQ Americans.
In addition to her work on marriage equality, she also created the Minority AIDS Initiative to help address the devastating impact of HIV/AIDS on minority communities, particularly communities of color.
The award reception took place Tuesday at the headquarters of the American Federation of Teachers, where Waters was presented with the award by former U.S. Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), the openly gay member of Congress. Frank praised Waters for her unwavering support for the LGBTQ community and her lifelong commitment to advancing equality for all.
“One of the most encouraging developments in the fight for human rights is the failure of those who traffic in any form of bigotry, including bigotry to divide the Black and LGBTQ+ communities,” said Frank, who came out in 1987 while in office. “No one deserves more recognition for strengthening our unity than Maxine Waters.”
During the reception, Waters spoke about her extensive history of LGBTQ advocacy within the halls of Congress, emphasizing that her idea of government centers around uplifting its most vulnerable and threatened communities.
“From the very beginning of my public life I’ve believed that the government must protect those that are vulnerable, including LGBTQ+ people, who have been pushed to the margins, criminalized and told that their lives and their love do not matter,” Waters said. “Discrimination has no place in our laws.”
She continued, adding that the discrimination LGBTQ people have dealt with — and continue to deal with — is unconstitutional and wrong.
“I am proud to stand with LGBTQ+ families against efforts to write discrimination into our constitution, against attempts to deny people jobs, housing, healthcare and basic dignity because of who they are or who they love,” she said.
Waters joins a slew of other LGBTQ advocates who have received this award, beginning with the late-Georgia Congressman John Lewis in 2018. Past honorees include Oakland (Calif.) Mayor Barbara Lee, who was then a member of Congress, U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.), Frank, Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, who was then a member of Congress, and Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).
PFLAG CEO Brian Bond commented on the continued fight for LGBTQ rights in the U.S. as anti-transgender rhetoric and policies coming from the Trump-Vance White House grow each week.
“LGBTQ+ people and their families — and all of you here — know too well the reality of the political climate, the attitudes of the public, and the sheer lack of respect that LGBTQ+ people are experiencing in the world today. There’s no end to the hostile barrage of harmful laws, city ordinances, and regulations, especially against our trans loved ones,” Bond said. “This particular moment in history calls us to increase and fortify our work, advocating at every level of government.”
He ended with some hope — reminding the LGBTQ community they have been on the receiving end of discrimination and unjust treatment before, but have risen above and changed the laws — saying we can do it again.
“PFLAG members and supporters are uniquely suited for this moment, because we are fighting for and alongside our LGBTQ+ loved ones, we know that our love is louder … and love and liberty are inseparable,” said Bond.
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