Sarah McBride

Sarah Elizabeth McBride (born August 9, 1990) is an American politician, serving as the U.S. representative for Delaware's at-large congressional district, author, and LGBTQ rights activist. A member of the Democratic Party, she served in the Delaware Senate from January 2021 to January 2025, representing the state's 1st senate district. Prior, she was the national press secretary of the Human Rights Campaign from 2016 to 2021. McBride is the nation's highest ranking openly transgender elected official and the first openly transgender member of the United States Congress.

In 2020, McBride became the first openly transgender person elected as a state senator in the United States. Prior to her election, McBride lobbied for the successful passage of legislation in Delaware banning discrimination on the basis of gender identity in employment, housing, insurance, and public accommodations. In July 2016, she was a speaker at the Democratic National Convention, becoming the first openly transgender person to address a major party convention in American history. In 2018, McBride published her memoir Tomorrow Will Be Different: Love, Loss, and the Fight for Trans Equality, with a foreword by then-former Vice President and later U.S. President Joe Biden. McBride has been credited with shaping President Biden's personal views and political evolution on transgender issues.

Sarah McBride was born in Wilmington, Delaware, to David and Sally McBride on August 9, 1990. Her father was a lawyer for Young Conaway Stargatt & Taylor; her mother was a high school guidance counselor and a founder of the Cab Calloway School of the Arts in Wilmington.

McBride graduated from Cab Calloway in 2009, and then attended American University in Washington, D.C., where she earned a bachelor's degree in 2013. She was elected president of the American University Student Government in 2011, having earlier worked on "arts advocacy, the purchase of conflict-free minerals on campus and academic regulations" as a member of the undergraduate senate from 2010. During this time she had already begun political advocacy, including as a co-founder of Delaware's Young Democrats Movement and on the election campaigns for local Democrats, including Beau Biden, Matthew Denn, and Jack Markell. At the end of her term as president of the student government, she penned a letter in the school's newspaper in which she announced her transition.

In a 2011 interview, she cited Markell as a particular role model.

McBride has said that she has been interested in politics since she was a child. She worked as a staffer on several campaigns in Delaware, including that of Governor Jack Markell in 2008 and of Delaware attorney general Beau Biden in 2010. In 2011, McBride was elected student body president at American University. During her last week as student body president in 2012, McBride gained international attention when she came out as a transgender woman in her college's student newspaper, The Eagle.

McBride's coming out was featured on NPR, The Huffington Post, and by Lady Gaga's Born This Way Foundation. After coming out, McBride received a call from Attorney General of Delaware Beau Biden, saying, "Sarah, I just wanted you to know, I'm so proud of you. I love you, and you're still a part of the Biden family." U.S. President Joe Biden ([Vice President at the time]) expressed similar sentiments, sharing that he was proud of her and happy for her.

In 2012, McBride interned at the White House, becoming the first openly transgender woman to work there in any capacity. McBride worked in the White House Office of Public Engagement and Intergovernmental Affairs, where she worked on LGBTQ issues. In a speech in May 2015, Second Lady Jill Biden told McBride's story. She added, "we believe young people should be valued for who they are, no matter what they look like, where they're from, the gender with which they identify, or who they love."