For LGBTQ activists, the home stretch of the midterm election campaign is a good news, bad news phenomenon.
A record number of LGBTQ candidates are running for office, according to newly compiled data, and some breakthrough victories are likely. In Massachusetts, Democrat Maura Healey is favored to become the first openly LGBTQ candidate elected as the state’s governor. Another lesbian — Democrat Becca Balint — is favored to win Vermont’s lone US House seat, becoming the first woman and first out person to represent the state in Congress.
Yet these potential milestones, and the large cohort of LGBTQ candidates, coincide with aggressive efforts by some Republican politicians to target LGBTQ people, especially transgender Americans, with a wave of hostile rhetoric and legislation.
