Sarah McBride becomes the first openly transgender member of Congress, ABC projects

Senator Sarah McBride of Delaware will become the first openly transgender person elected to Congress, ABC News projects.

She will represent Delaware’s sole congressional district in the House of Representatives after more than three years in the Senate, which also marked a historic first for trans representation in government.

Previously, McBride was national spokesperson for the Human Rights Campaign and had served in the offices of former Governor Jack Markell and the late Attorney General Beau Biden, as well as interned in the Obama-Biden White House.

McBride has emphasized that she did not set out to make history as the first transgender member of Congress: “My day-to-day focus is not on explaining gender identity to people,” she said in a previous interview with ABC News. “My daily focus is delivering tangible results for the constituents I serve.”

She has said her focus is on policy, working through a list of plans related to affordable health care, affordable housing and child care, reproductive rights and more.

Her victory comes amid a wave of anti-LGBTQ legislation in states across the country and increasing rhetoric targeting the transgender community. No stranger to the debate, McBride says she’s used to working with people who voted against LGBTQ rights and took positions that “I personally might find offensive” in the Delaware General Assembly.

McBride entered the race for Congress with support from high-ranking Delaware lawmakers such as Sens. Chris Coons and Tom Carper, support from LGBTQ advocacy groups like the HRC and its relationships with the Biden family. President Joe Biden wrote the foreword to her 2018 memoir and she called his late son Beau one of her mentors.

McBride’s seat was filled by Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester, who also supported McBride, who had announced she was running for the U.S. Senate to fill the retiring Carper’s seat.