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https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/virginia-politics/danica-roem-will-be-vas-first-openly-transgender-elected-official-after-unseating-conservative-robert-g-marshall-in-house-race/2017/11/07/d534bdde-c0af-11e7-959c-fe2b598d8c00_story.html?utm_term=.013a1e1b7877

Thought I should share some good news here.

This is what happened -

Robert G. Marshall, a 13 term incumbent Republican, most well known for an anti-transgender "bathroom bill", was challenged by Danica Roem, a Democrat, and transgender woman.
Perhaps unsurprisingly for a man calling himself Virginia's "chief homophobe", he refused to refer to Roem as a woman, only using male pronouns, while also refusing to debate her.
Virginia Republicans on his side made her gender identity the only issue of the election, hypocritically sending out ads titled “Danica Roem In His Own Words” starting with the line “Danica Roem, born male, has made a campaign issue out of transitioning to female.” while ignoring actual issues completely.
Meanwhile, Roem made a point of staying on the issues; while being questioned by the media, and while being attacked by Marshall and other Republicans.

The result?
Roem (D) 54.59%
Marshall (R) 45.36%

A lot of good happened in last night's elections. The one where Ashley Bennett defeated an incumbent who mocked the Women's March, when she only ran because he mocked the Women's March, is my next favorite, and it's actually interesting that Trump has inadvertently inspired so many women to run against his side, and I don't want to completely ignore their success yesterday, but this race seemed the most relevant to the pro-LGBT+ community.

That's heartwarming.

It's great that there are still places in the country where people don't give their votes based on personal attacks on who people are, especially in places like Virginia which isn't exactly a Left Coast bastion. I was very happy to hear about her story and her success running on the issues, and was happy with the election results last night in general.

Perhaps unsurprisingly for a man calling himself Virginia's "chief homophobe", he refused to refer to Roem as a woman, only using male pronouns, while also refusing to debate her.
Virginia Republicans on his side made her gender identity the only issue of the election, hypocritically sending out ads titled “Danica Roem In His Own Words” starting with the line “Danica Roem, born male, has made a campaign issue out of transitioning to female.” while ignoring actual issues completely.

That's.... Pretty scary...

I'm a transwoman who hopes to get into political work and that's very disheartening, how he didn't even use formalities.  Not even going into her politics. Just jumped straight for it. She's one of those transgenders, dont listen to her.

First off, I gotta say: Good fucking riddance to these career politicians who do nothing but attack their opponents while having almost no real political agenda to speak of aside from whatever their lobbyists desire.
But on the subject of the guy mocking the women's march, I have to ask: what did it actually change?
I feel like it was all too similar to the Occupy movement. The lack of central leadership and grassroots organizing sounds good, but ultimately it undermines the potency of the movement to not have any real organized leadership. Any movement hoping to achieve broad political changes must have a plan to achieve its goals, and goals which it implicitly states to achieve. The Women's March neither had an immediate, realistic, and tangible goal which it set out to have carried out nor did it have a real plan for how to carry out said changes through the protests. When Martin Luther King Jr. was organizing his followers during the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s through a central committee called the Southern Christian Leaders Conference, went after specific unconstitutional violations of the African Americans' civil rights, and specifically organized protests in the southern cities with the worst, most thuggish leaders so they would overreact andshow the rest of America their true faces. Recent major social and protesting movements have done none of these things and as a result have failed to seriously affect anything on the political level. The Women's March was just the same thing. It accomplished nothing aside from bringing together people who had already made their positions clear and likely changed exactly no one's minds on anything whatsoever. If it had happened before Election Day, there might be an argument it was there to show solidarity against the Trump campaign and convince people to not vote for him, but it wasn't. Because the Women's March happened after the inauguration, it was literally impossible for it to have accomplished anything of consequence.

First off, I gotta say: Good fucking riddance to these career politicians who do nothing but attack their opponents while having almost no real political agenda to speak of aside from whatever their lobbyists desire.
But on the subject of the guy mocking the women's march, I have to ask: what did it actually change?
I feel like it was all too similar to the Occupy movement. The lack of central leadership and grassroots organizing sounds good, but ultimately it undermines the potency of the movement to not have any real organized leadership. Any movement hoping to achieve broad political changes must have a plan to achieve its goals, and goals which it implicitly states to achieve. The Women's March neither had an immediate, realistic, and tangible goal which it set out to have carried out nor did it have a real plan for how to carry out said changes through the protests. When Martin Luther King Jr. was organizing his followers during the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s through a central committee called the Southern Christian Leaders Conference, went after specific unconstitutional violations of the African Americans' civil rights, and specifically organized protests in the southern cities with the worst, most thuggish leaders so they would overreact andshow the rest of America their true faces. Recent major social and protesting movements have done none of these things and as a result have failed to seriously affect anything on the political level. The Women's March was just the same thing. It accomplished nothing aside from bringing together people who had already made their positions clear and likely changed exactly no one's minds on anything whatsoever. If it had happened before Election Day, there might be an argument it was there to show solidarity against the Trump campaign and convince people to not vote for him, but it wasn't. Because the Women's March happened after the inauguration, it was literally impossible for it to have accomplished anything of consequence.

I think it's the less the march itself and more the vitriol hurled at women for doing so, which may or may not have underlying misogynistic intents.

I think the Women's March was more to make their presence known and their voice heard more than anything else, and if nothing else from what I read it and other protests helped put a backbone in Democrats who were considering trying to work and compromise with Trump more. I don't think it was supposed to be a movement.

That's.... Pretty scary...

I'm a transwoman who hopes to get into political work and that's very disheartening, how he didn't even use formalities.  Not even going into her politics. Just jumped straight for it. She's one of those transgenders, dont listen to her.

Maybe he thought Trump voters would eat that shit up, but if the attacks themselves are disheartening, than it's just as heartening that they failed. Hopefully it'll give other politicians who would go that route pause.