Primary Win ‘Gives the Transgender Community Hope’

Christine Hallquist, the former chief executive of an electric utility company, made history on Tuesday when she beat three other candidates in Vermont’s Democratic primary to become the first transgender person to be nominated for a governorship by a major party.

Posted 10:32 p.m. Aug 15, 2018 — Updated 10:32 p.m. Aug 15, 2018

Liam Stack

, New York Times

Hallquist, 62, was well-known in Vermont before she ran for office, in part because of her gender transition in 2015, which happened while she ran the Vermont Electric Cooperative and which was featured in a documentary film made by her son.

She will now compete in November against the incumbent, Phil Scott, a Republican with solid but softening approval ratings who has governed one of the country’s most deeply progressive states since 2016.

Hallquist spoke to The New York Times about the historic nature of her victory. The following is an edited and condensed version of the conversation. Q: Hi Christine. How’s it going?

A: It’s going very well.

Q: Congratulations on your victory. Did you get any sleep last night?

A: Thank you very much. I got about two hours between 2 a.m. and 4 a.m.

Q: Now that you’ve won, what do the next several weeks look like for you?

A: Tomorrow we’re taking the entire team out to my house. I live out on this beautiful body of water. Were going to get a keg of beer and enjoy the afternoon. We live in a state park, so we’re going to set tents up and people are going to stay overnight and then that afternoon, Thursday afternoon, we’re going to plan the next phase, which will start on Friday morning.

Q: Everyone is going to stay overnight?

A: Everyone is going to stay overnight. It’s going to be a mixed business-pleasure type meeting to solidify our already good teamwork and get everybody’s input on how we’re going to beat Phil and how we’re going to do the next phase. A campaign sleepover, isn’t that fun?

Q: You’re the first transgender person to win a major party nomination for governor. What does it mean for LGBT people, and transgender people especially, to see someone like you succeed in this way?

A: I think it is all about widening our nation’s moral compass to be more inclusive, and I’m certainly proud and honored to be that national leader. But of course in Vermont it’s all about, what do we do to improve the lives of Vermont citizens? And the good news about Vermont is we’ve already been leaders in civil rights, so this was obviously not an issue for people.

Q: What would it have been like for you, as a kid, to see a transgender woman from small-town Vermont win a race like this?

A: You know, I get letters every day from people all over the world, including kids, who — they bring me to tears.

It gives people hope. It gives the transgender community hope. And my hope, of course, is Vermont already has very strong protection laws, but I hope the rest of the nation will follow suit and protect their transgender citizens, including the youth, and make accommodations for those youth.

Q: How do you think the country as a whole is doing with that right now?

A: Ha! That’s why I’m running. Oh my God.

You know, I worked hard to get President Obama elected, and I went over to New Hampshire and knocked on doors. Our family got a personal invitation — of course there were 500,000 of them, but it was still a personal invitation — and my spouse and I went down with my son and his wife.

2008 was an epic moment in history for us, and it really felt like America had come to terms with being an aspirational country. And then, of course, this last — 2016 — happened and it was just a blow to all of us who think that way.

And that is really what our call to action is. In the physics world, for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Well, 2018 is the reaction to 2016. And hopefully a couple of years from now we’ll look back in history and say, ‘Hey, our democracy is incredibly healthy because we survived a despot.’ Q: You would describe President Trump as a despot?

A: Absolutely. Of course he is. He’s using all the fear and division tactics that any third-world leader would use. Of course he’s going to start with the transgender community, he’ll start with the most marginalized. But no community should feel comfortable when any community is being attacked.

Q: What would you say to people, both inside and outside the LGBT community, who doubted that a transgender woman could win a political victory like this?

A: I would say, “Have more faith in your fellow human beings.” I’ve never lost faith in my fellow human beings, and I continue to get reaffirmed in that goodness.

Q: What kind of responses did you get while campaigning to your status as a transgender woman? How did you make it part of the story you told voters?

A: In Vermont, it is not part of my story. I can safely say I have talked to thousands of Vermonters, and I can only think of one who brought it up. It’s just not an issue here in Vermont, and I think the data proves that.

Q: What did that one person who brought it up say?

A: It was simply a curious statement. He asked me, ‘Well don’t you think your transgender status is going to get in the way of you getting elected?” And my answer was, “Nope.” That was the extent of the conversation.

Q: I recently interviewed Sharice Davids, a lesbian who won a Democratic congressional primary in Kansas, and she said the same thing: Exactly one person asked about her sexuality during the campaign, and their question was more curious than malicious.

A: Those statements just prove that the only people that are going to use that are the people who are in power who are trying to maintain their power through unjust means. It’s not an issue for the population. Why do people in power make it an issue? Because they have an unholy relationship with their power.

Q: Well, it could also mean that people who vote in Democratic primaries don’t penalize a candidate for being gay or transgender, right? It might say more about liberal voters than it does about the population as a whole. I mean, not to be a Debbie Downer.

A: No problem. I’m going to prove that in November. And I’m equally confident. You know why I knew that? Because I serve some of the poorest and the most rural parts of Vermont, that’s what I did as a CEO. I served what some might call the reddest part of Vermont, and people were cool with it. It’s like, “OK, just keep my lights on and keep my rates low, I’m OK with you.”

Q: Let’s talk about some issues. You’ve emphasized your experience as the former chief executive of the Vermont Electric Cooperative, where you worked for 12 years, and pledged to improve internet access in rural parts of the state. Others have tried, and failed, to do that. How will you succeed?

A: I spent 10 years on the technical advisory committee to the National Rural Cooperative Association, which is the organization responsible for providing electricity to all of rural America.

We, at that technical level, saw the problems of rural America were following the same pattern that we saw in the 1930s. In the 1940s, rural America didn’t have electricity and the cities did. And of course, you’re seeing increasing rates of poverty, aging demographics, flight to the city.

We came to a conclusion of fact that said, man, we’re facing a digital divide today. So we worked on a model that we can hang fiber for a third of the cost that it’s done for today. You have the electric utility hang the fiber in the electric station using their equipment — it’s just another wire. And, by the way, that’s what electric utilities do — they build infrastructure, and they can borrow over a 30-year period at very low interest rates. Q: According to local news reports, you voted for Phil Scott in 2016. Why did you decide to run against him after voting for him two years ago?

A: A lot of Democrats voted for Phil Scott in 2016, and that’s why he won, of course, because Vermont is primarily Democrats to start with. He had to pick up a lot of Democratic votes, so I don’t think I’m that different from a lot of folks.

I did a lot of work with the Legislature and I knew Phil for many years. He was a nice guy and I thought he’d be a nice guy governor. And he’s still a nice guy. But the reality is, and I think this surprised all of us, he’s employing the same tactics that the national GOP is doing.

He’s focused on division rather than unity and solidarity, he’s using fear and division as a leadership tool, and he’s also going after our public education system, favoring privatized education.

Q: The chairwoman of the Vermont Republican Party said she didn’t think your status as a transgender woman, which is the basis for the historic nature of your candidacy, should play a part in the race. Why do you think they want to downplay that?

A: I’m sorry, what was her statement?

Q: She said she didn’t think you being transgender should “play a part in this.”

A: Oh, well you should know that is bigotry, and I am going to call that out. When you elect a candidate, you hear the candidate’s life story. So it’s OK if you’re a man to say, “I grew up hunting, I grew up in the rural woods,” but it’s not OK for me to say I’m transgender? I’ve got news for you, that’s bigotry, and I’ll call that out.

You can’t tell your story because you’re transgender? Well too bad, I’m telling that story, and people have to get over it because they have to recognize their own implicit bias.

That’s just who I am. I am a transgender woman. I don’t say I’m a woman. I’ve been a woman only, legally, for three years. So I tell them the truth.

I am a transgender woman. People have to get over that fact, because I am not saying anything else. You always hear people say they’re a woman or a single mom, this or that. Well this is my story.

Suggest A Correction