Transgender Candidate Running for MN State Legislature.
There are openly gay and lesbian politicians in America, currently there are no transgender candidates. Last year, Largo FL officials voted to dismiss City Manager Steve Stanton following his disclosure that he would be having sex-change surger and becoming a woman named Susan. A transgender woman served a term on the City Council in GA, but was defeated upon bid for re-election last year.
Chrissy Nakonsky, who until five years ago was Jeff Nakonsky, hopes to change that. She is running for the Minnesota Legislature. What is surprising is that she’s running as a Republican.
Nakonsky said the 2006 reelection of the state’s only openly gay Republican legislator, Sen. Paul Koering of nearby Fort Ripley, gives her hope that Brainerd-area voters won’t deny her a legislative seat because of her gender change.
“If people vote for or against me, it should be because of my values,” Nakonsky said.
Good luck with that. Sadly to many Republicans being LGB or T is in and of itself a “value”, and a bad one at that. They won’t look past it to see what your other qualities are, nor do they care to.
“I’ve voted Republican all my life,” Nakonsky said. “Republicans swear by not raising taxes, and raising taxes would hurt families in poverty, like mine.”
…..
Nakonsky, who grew up in Washington state and moved to Brainerd 10 years ago because her brother lived there, said she knew from the time she was young that she was female at heart. She and her wife, Jennifer, were married seven years ago, when Nakonsky still was “pretending,” she said, to be a man.
Jennifer Nakonsky said, “It’s been a learning experience, but I knew she was the one I wanted to spend the rest of my life with, either as a man or a woman. Our marriage is strong.”
Together they’ve had four children, all girls, now ages 6, 5, 3 and 10 months. While the oldest has had some trouble accepting her dad’s gender change, the rest see it as normal, the couple said.
Today, she identifies and dresses as a woman and gets female hormone therapy, but said she has yet to undergo a sex-change operation because it’s expensive.
The family lives on government public assistance in a cramped mobile home. Jennifer Nakonsky is a stay-at-home mom, and Chrissy Nakonsky hasn’t worked, she said, since quitting as a store cashier and stocker because managers required her to observe the dress code for men. She said she’s filed a complaint with the Minnesota Department of Human Rights.
While she may be at odds with many in the party on issues such as gay marriage, she said she would focus mainly on issues of education and poverty.
I honestly don’t see how Nakonsky thinks she’s going to accomplish anything with the Republican party–assuming she gets elected in the first place. Education, poverty, LGBT rights. None of those issues are strong suits for the Republicans. They cater to the rich and deplore “entitlements”. They favor private education and homeschooling over public education which leaves public schools the short end of the stick when it comes to legislation (and dare I mention NCLB?). And LGBT rights? It’s going to be a long, uphill battle to get those even from Democrats. Republicans certainly aren’t ready to fork them over.
But she’s willing to try, so more power to her. I wish her well in her endeavor, misguided as I think it is.
Tags: Local politics, Minnesota
