Deja Lynn Alvarez Seeks to Become First Trans Latina State Lawmaker
The Advocate offers interviews with the trans candidate, Deja Lynn Alvarez (below), and the gay competitor, Jonathan D. Lovitz (here). “For far too long, we have had people elected into office who don’t have the lived experience of the people affected by the legislation that’s created,” says Deja Lynn Alvarez.Alvarez is out to change that.
She is running for the Pennsylvania House of Representatives in the 182nd District, located in the center of Philadelphia. She and three other Democrats (and one Republican) are vying to succeed Brian Sims, the gay man who made history as Pennsylvania’s first out state legislator and who is now running for lieutenant governor.
Alvarez would make history of her own, as the first transgender Latina state lawmaker in the U.S.“I decided that we needed a voice,” she says of her decision to run. “We need to be at every table where legislation is being discussed.”She laments the current assaults on trans rights and LGBTQ+ rights in general, plus the likely undermining of reproductive freedom at the hands of the Supreme Court. “What is happening today is the culmination of only white men running things,” she says.Alvarez, 50, asserts that her experience makes her the best candidate in the Democratic primary race, which includes gay man Jonathan D.
