24 to watch in 2024: She’s working to get more Kentucky transgender candidates on ballot
The Lexington Herald-Leader is profiling 24 individuals this month that you should be keeping an eye on in 2024. The selected group represents a cross-section of industries, political parties, missions and the state itself. We believe each is notable for their contributions to Kentucky, as well as their plans for the next 12 months.
Who: Rebecca Blankenship, executive director of Ban Conversion Therapy Kentucky since 2021, and elected to Berea Community School Board in 2022.
Background: The Marshall County native became the first-ever openly transgender person to win office in Kentucky when she secured a seat on the Berea Community School Board in the 2022 election cycle. Through lobbying, advocacy and work with various campaigns, Blankenship’s work has been focused on giving transgender people a seat at the decision maker’s table.
In an election year that opens with a budget-deciding state legislative session, Blankenship expects to stay busy. In the state’s Republican-controlled legislature, Blankenship said she remains focused on “playing defense.” There’s a concern that the transgender community will not only be harmed, but also “be used as a cudgel to harm other communities,” she said. At the ballot box, Blankenship said to expect more transgender people running for offices statewide than ever before.
All told, this year will be one that builds on 2023, which while disturbing in many ways for the transgender community was also the first time in state history that a group of transgender people “exercised power collectively,” Blankenship said. As an example, Blankenship pointed to the collective condemnation by 12 Kentucky transgender people of a comment made by now-Democrat Kentucky House Rep. Adrielle Camuel during the race for her 93rd District seat in September. Following the condemnation, Camuel apologized. “In the context of Kentucky politics, I think that the impact of that is really, really significant,” Blankenship said.
Why will she be successful in 2024? “She has the drive, and she has a really clear sense of purpose,” said Oliver Hall, the trans health director for the Kentucky Health Justice Network. “I think she sees the collective power that the trans community can have. So having her there to kind of bring folks together and help people realize their individual power lends toward all of her goals, especially this year.”
Why is 2024 such an important year for you or your organization? “This is going to represent, I think, a banner year in certain ways for transgender people running for office, not just in the cities, but out in rural and even Eastern Kentucky as well,” Blankenship said. “Our experience, I think, has always been that while the cities are taken as being these liberal bastions of progress and things like that, rural Kentuckians are not bigoted. They don’t view transgender people as inherently bad and I think that making efforts to show that, to prove it at the ballot box is going to pay dividends.”
