Sarah McBridesays it was a “constant feeling of homesickness and unwavering ache in the pit of my stomach” that led her to sit down and share her truth with her parents.
“I actually came out to my parents in this room right behind me,” McBride, 30, tells special contributorGretchen Carlsonin an interview airing Monday. “They were incredibly loving, but they were scared.”
“They were scared that I was giving up any future,” McBride says — “any possibility that was before me to find love, to find community, to be welcomed in this community and to pursue any kind of professional fulfillment.”
Sarah McBride.COURTESY Sarah McBride CAMPAIGN
“It was in that moment that I realized that the only way our dreams and our identities are mutually exclusive is if we don’t try,” she says. “And the only limitation on our capacity to dream is the limitations of our own imagination.”
McBride went on to intern in the Obama White House and, later, to speak at the 2016 Democratic National Convention, receiving a standing ovation as the first openly transgender person to address a major party’s convention.
She told PEOPLE last month her tenure at the White House helped cement her belief in the importance of representation and “having a seat at the table.”
Mara Keisling, the executive director of the National Center for Transgender Equality and a longtime friend of McBride’s, marveled at the significance of the activist-turned-state senator’s election.
“Now, trans kids and other kids are going to get to be able to see that and that’s a really remarkable thing when you can be that kind of a role model,” Keisling told PEOPLE last month.
McBride may be more humble about her history-making role in U.S. politics, Keisling said then, calling the new lawmaker “a great possibility model for young people.”
McBride tells Carlson she recognizes the “profound message” that her campaign and election win can send to the LGBTQ community.
“It reflects a deeper truth that the only way for us to craft solutions that meet the needs of a diverse community is to have the full diversity of that community at the table,” McBride says. “That’s true in business. It’s true in technology. And it’s certainly true in government.”
source: people.com
