On Tuesday, NOV 7th, 2017, voters elected two out transgender candidates to the Minneapolis City Council, marking the first such victories for transgender people in a major American city council race. Report includes an interview with then-candidate Andrea Jenkins.
Andrea Jenkins will serve Ward 8, which covers neighborhoods in south Minneapolis. Phillipe Cunningham won in Ward 4 in north Minneapolis.
SPEAKER: In Minneapolis, voters yesterday elected to out transgender people to seats on a major city council, Andrea Jenkins and Philippe Cunningham. Now Jenkins will serve the city's 8th Ward in South Minneapolis. Jenkins is an artist, poet, and longtime city council policy aide and oral historian. She says she won because she talked about bread and butter issues like housing and public safety.
Back in March, Jenkins sat down with Brandt Williams for an interview about her campaign. While she didn't focus on being a transgender candidate, she told Brandt there's a need for more diversity throughout society.
ANDREA JENKINS: You know, right now we don't have an out LGBT person on the city council, nor do we have a African-American identified person on the city council. I think representation in all walks of life is really, really critical and important. you know, the University of Minnesota, where I work right now, has some of the lowest graduation rates for students of color.
And you know, you wonder why that is. Well, there are very, very few people of color on the Board of Regents and on the faculty in positions of leadership. And if you go and look for people of color on that campus, they're all in Coffman Union and they're all serving food and cleaning the building.
Those are honorable jobs, but those aren't the kinds of jobs that inspire young students to be successful and to matriculate through the University of Minnesota, and it's borne out by its numbers. And so I think that people of color, women, LGBT-identified people, particularly Black transgender women, because we do face some of the harshest oppressions in our culture in society--
SPEAKER: Jenkins will take over the seat held by outgoing council member Elizabeth Glidden, who first met Jenkins when she was working for an opponent's campaign in 2005. Glidden says she was impressed enough that she offered Jenkins a job and has always appreciated her ability to ask important questions about the work of city government. More about Andrea Jenkins next hour in a report from our John Collins. Stay with us here on Minnesota Public Radio News.
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