Maryland House Candidate Would Be State’s First Transgender Lawmaker

Excerpted from Hoping Md. Is ‘Ready for a Person Like Me’, by Daniel de Vise, published Sept 2, 2006, in The Washington Post:

For the five decades preceding a fateful 2003 trip to San Francisco, Dana Beyer lived her life as a man named Wayne. The September primary will tell whether her legislative district, one of the most progressive in Maryland, is ready to elect the state’s first transgender lawmaker.

…She lived her first five decades as a man, graduating Phi Beta Kappa from Cornell University, receiving a medical degree from the University of Pennsylvania and raising two sons in a marriage that lasted 19 years. A second marriage ended amicably after the 2003 procedure that Beyer terms her “transition.”

…”You know, I think this district is ready for a person like me,” Beyer said. As evidence, she cited Richard S. Madaleno Jr. (D), the openly gay delegate she hopes to replace in the House. Madaleno is running for the state Senate.

At the candidates forum one recent evening, Madaleno introduced his partner and their 3-year-old daughter. His sexual orientation prompted much talk when he ran for office in 2002, Beyer recalled. “And now, nobody cares.”

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