North Carolina’s first transgender candidate for Congress blazing a new trail

North Carolina has its first transgender candidate for Congress, and she hopes to make headlines that the LGBTQ community in the state can be proud of for a change.

Wendy Ella May, a 55-year-old disabled military veteran, is running on a progressive platform in the race to represent District 2. She faces off against incumbent Republican Rep. George Holding, 49, who first won election into Congress in 2012.

May was a delegate for Bernie Sanders during the presidential election, before eventually supporting Hillary Clinton. She serves as the president of the LGBT Democrats of Johnston County and second vice chair of the Progressive Caucus of the N.C. Democratic Party.

She ran for Johnston County commissioner last year, coming up short but garnering about 33 percent of the vote.

Her platform includes better treatment of veterans, equal rights in the state for LGBTQ people, a living wage, affordable healthcare and stronger public education. It is a vision that differs from what is happening both nationally and in North Carolina, where the state government has gone far-right ever since it was redistricted to give an overwhelming advantage to Republicans.

It also a platform that gives voters a distinct choice. She calls her opponent, who opposed same-sex and voted against reauthorizing the Violence Against Women Act as well as for repealing Obamacare, “probably the complete polar opposite of what I stand for.”

Read full story from Source: North Carolina’s first transgender candidate for Congress blazing a new trail