Democratic nominee Danica Roem became the first woman to openly declare herself transgender and be elected to the Virginia state legislature.
According to the almost final results, the 33-year-old Roem received 55% of the vote, winning the Republican candidate Robert Marshall, who is against the rights of the LGBTQI community and stubbornly refused to call his opponent by the feminine pronoun. Marshall held this seat for 26 years.
Roem became the first transgender person to enter the Virginia state parliament, representing a small community in the city of Manasseh.
According to the Victory Fund, an organization that funds candidates from the LGBTQI community, Roem is the only transgender person in the 50 state parliaments of the United States.
"2017 will be the year of transgender candidates, with Danica's heroic campaign at the heart of a national movement," said Aisa S. Moody-Mills, director of the Victory Fund. "It is inevitable that others will follow in her footsteps," he added.
Roem, a former journalist, did not want to enter politics as a symbol of the LGBTQI community and her campaign focused exclusively on issues of concern to the local community.
"Only a small number of people have told my colleagues that they will not vote for me because I am transgender," he said in October.
But her candidacy had caused a national outcry and received donations from every corner of the United States.
(With information from RES-ICU)
Source: HuffPost