Misty Snow and Misty Plowright became the first transgender people to be nominated to Congress by a major political party on Tuesday, when they won their respective Democratic primary races in Utah and Colorado.

Ms. Snow, a 30-year-old grocery store cashier from Salt Lake City, bested marriage therapist Jonathan Swinton, a self-identified conservative Democrat who ran on a centrist platform.
The transgender woman will now face-off against incumbent Republican Sen. Mike Lee in November. Mr. Lee ran unopposed in the Republican primary.

Although Mr. Swinton won the initial ballot, he failed to garner 60 percent of the vote at the convention, sending the race into a run-off. The unofficial returns showed Ms. Snow with a 59.5 to 40.5 percent advantage.

Ms. Snow ran on a platform of increasing the minimum wage and criticized her opponent for supporting restrictions on abortion rights. She played up the historic nature of her candidacy on Tuesday.

“This shows LGBT people that being LGBT is not a barrier to running for political office,” she said on. “You can be you, and people will respect you for that.”

-Article originally from The Washington Times

Queer Youth Task Force (QYTF) intern Joaquín García attended the 2013 Gender Spectrum Conference in Berkeley, CA, which “provides education, training and support to help create a gender sensitive and inclusive environment for all children and teens.”

“Even as someone pretty versed in these issues,” García said, “I was still blown away by how much I learned about gender at the conference. From the familial and spiritual to the medical and legal, Gender Spectrum taught me so much that I’ll be sure to take back to my activism and daily life. I highly recommend Gender Spectrum, not only for families of transgender and gender-nonconforming youth and those youth themselves, but also for professionals from fields where gender and gendered conceptions matter — and let’s be honest, that’s basically every field, even if not obviously so.”

To find out more about Gender Spectrum, click here, and stay updated on information regarding the 2014 conference!