PAUL, Minn. (AP) — Minneapolis has elected a Black transgender woman to its city council in what advocacy groups say is a national first.
Andrea Jenkins hugs a supporter as she won the Minneapolis Ward 8: Council Member race in Minneapolis on Tuesday, Nov. 7, 2017. (Carlos Gonzalez/Star Tribune via AP)
Andrea Jenkins easily won the race for a south Minneapolis seat Tuesday with roughly 73 percent of the vote. Jenkins spent years as a policy aide to two previous council members in the same ward.
Victory Fund, a group that advocates for LGBT candidates, called Jenkins the first openly transgender woman elected to the city council of a major U.S. city.
She won the same night that Danica Roem became the nation’s first openly transgender state lawmaker by winning a Virginia statehouse seat. Roem defeated Bob Marshall, a longtime Republican delegate who sponsored legislation that would have restricted transgender bathroom use.