I’ll always remember the way it felt to hear that “advice” from a political operative as I considered running for office. I was furious. Not just for myself, but for the more than 400,000 LGBTQ+ people in Washington State. Were we all “too much”? Was it too much for us to expect a representative democracy?
That interaction lit a fire under me. I became even more determined — not only to run, but to win.