The Final Two States to Have Queer Legislators

Louisiana and Mississippi have yet to seat LGBTQ legislators, and it’s a shame. This lack of representation has existed for a while. Mississippi took the title to have never elected an out queer person into any seat or office. Although Louisiana has yet to elect an LGBTQ legislator, they do have two out, LGBTQ officials, those being a city council member in Baton Rouge and a city council member in Alexandria, both of whom will hold their positions past 2023. Davante Lewis is running to become public service commissioner for Louisiana’s third district, but has to win a runoff election in December.

Sean Meloy, the vice president of political programs at Victory Fund, says, “We’ve come close to electing folks on school boards in New Orleans, close to the council in New Orleans. And we just haven’t been able to break through. And so we’re gonna be working hard to do that.”

The Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law estimated in 2020 that at least 79,000 LGBTQ people live in Mississippi, and 139,000 LGBTQ people live in Louisiana. Queer people in the south, outside of office, have worked very hard to help their community from the inside, due to the fact that the South is not particularly kind to LGBT individuals. According to a recent analysis from the Movement Advancement Project, LGBTQ people in the south face, stating, “Overall, Southern states are far less likely to have state-level LGBTQ-inclusive laws and policies (such as
nondiscrimination protections), and instead are far more likely to have harmful, discriminatory laws (such as religious exemptions and laws limiting access to healthcare for transgender people). ”

Having an LGBTQ representative within these states would be monumental for positive changes within the BIPOC and LGBT communities. The Victory Fund will be pushing candidate recruitment in both Louisiana and Mississippi next year.