Political Notebook: 1st parent of a transgender child set to serve in CA Legislature
Across the country transgender youth and their parents are coming under attack by Republican elected officials. Even in California, anti-LGBTQ groups continue to rail against legislative attempts to bolster the rights of such children and their families.Missing from the debates in Sacramento has been the voice of a state legislator whose child is transgender or nonbinary.
According to LGBTQ advocates and lawmakers no such parent has served in the state Legislature.But that is set to change with the expected election next week of Suisun City Mayor Lori Wilson to the open 11th Assembly District seat that straddles Solano and Contra Costa counties.
She and her husband, Chavares, are the parents of a transgender son now in college."It seems statistically impossible to me," Wilson told the Bay Area Reporter about her becoming the first such legislator, noting there may have been a parent who wasn't public about having a trans child.Nonetheless, she acknowledged that her joining the Legislature comes at "a pivotal time" and she pledged to be "a very strong ally" to the LGBTQ community.
Because she is not LGBTQ herself, Wilson will be ineligible to join the Legislative LGBTQ Caucus."Right now there are so many unprecedented attacks when I think about reproductive freedom and the same thing with LGBTQ rights.
