That wasn’t the transition I was actually going to ask you about, I only phrased it jokingly to highlight when writers do awkwardly focus on our trans status rather than ideas. If you are comfortable, is there part of that journey that has inspired your candidacy?

“At 21, I had known I was transgender for well over a decade. I had very few outlets of expression for that. I was afraid that if I were to come out in a community where Marshall is re-elected every two years, where we had so many anti-LGBTQ legislators, that my neutrality [as a reporter] would be called into question. I’d be considered as something different than a neutral, disinterested, third-party observer. I only changed my by-line in the newspaper in July of 2015. There wasn’t any negative reaction among our readers. I’m like, ‘Great, apathy is wonderful!’”