The agenda will become familiar as the LGBTQ+ Victory Institute convenes flagship candidates and campaign training in Los Angeles next month. A four-day workshop, mock campaign plans and late-night research sessions will help aspiring politicians learn inside and outside of running for office.
But for the first time this year, transgender, non-binary, genderless candidates will remain in town after larger groups have been dispersed for a two-day expansion designed for them.
A collaboration between victory and trans equality advocates, the program comes at a pivotal time for the predominant White House transphobia in the Trump Vance administration.
Organizers say the training is aimed at building a pipeline of resilient leaders not only for candidates but also for campaigns fought in the era of anti-LGBTQ politics, providing fuel or accelerating through online platforms.
The doctor will intervene
Among those voices was Colorado family doctor Alexis Hofkling last year, which shock lanes needed to expand.
“I’ve been caring about politics throughout my life in ways that are not particularly involved, like sitting in a sporting event stadium and not on the field,” she told the Washington Blade in an interview last week.
“For a really long time, I’ve been working in a mode where the best way to make positive change in the world is to choose something and do it really well. And for me, it was to provide medical care and teach the next generation of doctors to be good doctors without losing humanity.”
The job comes with its own political education, she added. “We can’t open our minds, open our minds and provide a little more fundamental and more fundamental to Safety Net primary care.”
What drove her, she said, was a deeper awareness of the interests, not a single policy change.
“It really became clear that this wasn’t a historical business moment in history,” Hoffling said. “I wake up one morning and say, ‘OK, 20 years later, if he doesn’t disappear, then he has to be able to say that history did everything he can when he asked for it.’ And I’m sure this is the way to do it.
Hoffkling brings the patient’s daily reality with her to the political stage.
“Every day is full of stories,” she said. “My patients are wonderful, resilient, thoughtful people, and their life stories really clearly show the outcome of policy decisions.”
She argued that the most pressing threat she argues is the federal government’s push to cut Medicaid.
“People will die. A lot of people will die,” she said. “And more people will be killed directly and indirectly at the cost of care. Communities will suffer. Rural hospitals will be closed and will not reopen after they close.”
She is also concerned about the erosion of scientific authority and the departure of talents in biomedical research abroad. “We can probably restore Medicaid funds. We can even do more than restore it. But it takes a lot of work to rebuild trust in public institutions when public institutions are corrupt and used in anti-scientific and persecutive ways.”
She is clear about gender-affirming care. “This is medical care. This is medical care. Just as the government shouldn’t tell if you’re taking antibiotics or have surgery for appendicitis, it should be a conversation between you and your doctor,” she said. “The government should avoid that, and if the federal government is trying to plague it, it’s our job to care about the human rights to do everything possible to protect the sanctity of the decision-making space for doctors and patients.”
Training is led by trans lawmakers with proven records
When Virginia Sen. Danica Rohm abandoned her 26-year Republican incumbent in Virginia in 2017, she became the country’s first outgender state legislator. Since then, she has transformed her experience into a roadmap for others – including her book Burn the Page, and now through a diverse training extension for trans and gender, she helps her lead in Los Angeles.
“How’s your life as a trans person on the campaign trail? What are your days?” Roem said of the session she is scheduled to run. “Because I know your gender will be the headlines for the story. Whether you are running for a soil and water conservation district or not, it will be the first thing you will be mentioned about you.”
The key told trainees that they didn’t deny reality, but rather control how well they define the story.
“You never say, ‘I’m a trans.’ I say, “I’m a trans.” I’m not apologizing for who I am,” Rohm said. “I’m a trans and I’m very interested in revising Route 28. About breakfast and lunch at Universal Free School. About making Virginia a more comprehensive federal.”
She said that the approach has already helped other trans candidates win. “Emma Curtis has been pretty verbatim in my playbook and now she’s a member of the Lexington City Council,” Rohm said.
Training prepares candidates for the campaign
For Hoffkling, the appeal of training is partly practical – fundraising, budgeting, social media – and about blind spots she may not know yet.
“Unknown unknowns, those are your blind spots,” she said. “These are dangerous points and they are worth spending time and energy trying to map them so that they are no longer blind spots.”
But equally important is the opportunity to learn from others who have been targeted for their gender identity.
“Most of the campaign challenges are universal for candidates, but some of them are specific to the experience of navigating campaigns during trance and in the world of transphobic,” she said. “I want to learn more from the experiences and insights of others who are on this path.”
Rohm, who trained dozens of candidates through victory and brought Virginia to work to elect women to office, said those moments of connection are often the most powerful.
“The most important thing I did in training in Chicago last year was spending one-on-one time with dozens of people,” she said. “Then, if I can connect with someone as a person, I can usually fish out something beyond the slogan of why you run for the office. The slogan is great, the policy position is important. [But] Why are you really running? Please tell me who you really are. ”
Those conversations often bring candidates to tears, she said. But they also bring about breakthroughs that allow candidates to be “not really stopped on the campaign trajectory.”
Hoffkling describes itself as a form of medicine.
“When you have a patient with a trans child who is excited to come to visit their mother’s doctor’s appointment because they have a trans doctor, it’s a small snapshot of a private exam room moment,” she said. “But that same phenomenon occurs on a large scale, in public roles in public office, which helps people see the widespread potential for their future.”
She believes Trailblazers such as Roem, US Rep. Sarah McBride (D-Del.) and Colorado Rep. Brianna Titone are clearing the road. “Without the waves of Sarah McBride, Brianna Titone, Danica Rohm and Zooey Zephyr, in my race, “Is it possible? Can it be a trans person?” And the fact that others have proved it is possible makes it even more possible. ”
Roem also sees its ripple effect. In her own district, voting after the 2021 reelection campaign found that 12% of voters reported more favorable views of trans people for her services.
“At a 12-1 margin, we were actually having a positive effect on how people thought about their community. That’s pretty good,” she said.
The training highlighted by both women is more than political survival. They are to equip candidates to be the leader they wanted.
“Because we know what it’s like to be chosen and criticized by those who were elected to serve us in the first place,” Rohm said.
Source: Washington Blade: LGBTQ News, Politics, LGBTQ Rights, Gay News – www.washingtonblade.com
