Harvey Milk was not the first LGBTQ person to run for public office. But when he won a seat on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 1977, something changed. He lit a torch. And generations of queer people have been running with it ever since.
This episode traces the arc from Harvey Milk's election and assassination to the remarkable expansion of LGBTQ political representation across the United States. By the 2020s, more than 1,300 openly LGBTQ elected officials were serving at every level of government - city councils, state legislatures, governors' offices, and Congress. That number was unimaginable when Milk first ran.
We talk about the "lavender ceiling," the unspoken assumption that being openly LGBTQ would end a political career, and how candidate after candidate proved it wrong. We talk about the first transgender state legislators, the first openly gay senator, the first LGBTQ Cabinet members. We talk about the communities and campaigns that made those firsts possible.
This is a story about hope that was earned the hard way. About people who ran not despite the danger but because of it. About what it means to represent a community that has always deserved a seat at the table and spent decades fighting to take it.
Watch the video version: https://youtu.be/Kwz3d7k5nus
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