By Mike Broemmel
August 24, 2014 was a typical D.C. summer day. The daytime temperature hit nearly 90 degrees Fahrenheit with humidity at a point where many tube travelers quickly donned dampening blouses and shirts on the elongated escalator from the Metro Center subway station to ground level.
Washington, D.C. summers can be daunting and many residents and visitors to the nation’s capital find themselves detoured if not routed by the collision of high temps and stifling humidity. But not all.
Former D.C. First Lady Effie Barry is one such warrior. When campaigning for her husband Barry’s second term as the District’s Mayor, Effie appeared at the top of the Metro Center escalator during a summertime morning rush hour, with the temperature already over 80, in a fashionable outfit that included an ankle length mink coat.
On its surface, not a political act like Effie’s hand-pumping a generation earlier, a couple of District residents who met while they both worked in the Obama White House decided to exchange wedding vows on the roof of a D.C. apartment building on August 24, 2014. The couple, together with their 50 guests and Episcopalian Bishop Gene Robinson who presided over the nuptials, were shielded from the worst the sun had to offer thanks to a somewhat diaphanous white tent set on the rooftop.
An onlooker from a neighboring building who cast eyes upon those August nuptials understandably would conclude that the ceremony was nothing out of the ordinary. In reality, the wedding of Sarah McBride and Andrew Cray fairly can be called quite extraordinary. For example, both the bride and groom were transgender individuals. Bishop Gene Robinson, the presiding minister, is considered the first openly gay priest to be consecrated a bishop in a major Christian denomination, the Episcopal Church.
Two Years Earlier and a Chance Encounter at the White House
Sarah McBride became the first openly transgender person to become part of the White House staff when she was selected as an intern in the Office of Public Engagement and Intergovernmental Affairs in 2012. She was assigned to specifically work on LGBTQ+ issues for the Administration of Barack Obama.
Elsewhere, her future husband Andrew Cray was Policy Analyst for the Center for American Progress and that organizations LBGTQ+ Research and Communications Project. Cray specifically was charged with focusing on ensuring that the state implementation of the Affordable Care Act (or Obamacare) included health insurance policies that provided suitable coverage for LGBTQ+ individuals and families. A transgender man, a particular focus of Cray’s work was to ensure transgender-inclusive health coverage across the United States.
A reception was held at the White House to celebrate the enrollment of 8 million Americans in the Affordable Care Act. At the event, Cray received a standing ovation for his tireless efforts. It was also at this gathering, Andrew Cray and Sarah McBride “bumped into each other,” literally according to the future Member of Congress. Their meeting at the Obamacare celebration marked the starting point of a relationship that culminated with their rooftop wedding a couple of two summers later.
Image: Sarah McBride
Cheers to the Adorable Couple But No Honeymoon
McBride and Cray would tuck themselves in their apartment after bidding adieu to the last of their rooftop wedding guests. The couple had lived together for a stretch before they wed; thus, coming home to a shared residence was not a moment of consequence in and of itself. Nonetheless, a fair observation is that their wedding night together certainly was dabbed by an unenviable measure of tension.
The freshly wed couple had to rise and shine early the following morning – but not to traipse to Reagan National Airport to embark on a happy honeymoon holiday. Rather, the couple made way to MedStar Washington Hospital Center in the otherwise tony section of the District. Andrew was scheduled for surgery for oral cancer, a procedure that would stretch over 12 hours the day following the wedding.
Nurses providing care to Andrew would post wedding anniversary announcements on the white board in groom’s hospital room: Happy First Anniversary! Happy Second Anniversary! Happy Third Anniversary! Happy Fourth Anniversary!
Thing is that those kind, even enthusiastic, anniversary notices did not demark the passage of years. Rather, only days were noted by the care team. Four days. And then, Andrew died. Wed for less than a handful of days, Sarah McBride was a 24-year-old widow.
Her husband’s death is only one instance of the momentous challenges the woman born on August 9, 1990, in Wilmington, Delaware, would face from that point in time and then over the course of the following decade.
“Sarah McBride’s story is one of resilience, but her mission is about more than herself,” explained Andrew Short, National Democratic Strategist and LGBTQ+ leader. “Sarah’s mission is about making sure every LGBTQ+ person and every working family in the United States has the dignity, protections, and opportunities they deserve.”
On the Hustings in Delaware: McBride Returns Home
In its November 2, 2015 issue, an article by Andrew Reynolds in The New Statesman reported that transgender people were invisible in electoral politics. The article made note that as of that date, there were 20 elected transgender people at any level of government – not just in the United States, but around the world. The in-depth report concluded by asking a question:
Who will be the first transgender person elected to office in the United States? The magazine directly answered its own question:
“Sarah McBride has all the right credentials in the United States – former student body president at American University, staffer for Delaware Attorney General Biden, White House intern, campaign director for the Center for American Progress.”
Several years after the publication of this prophetic magazine article, McBride announced her candidacy for the Delaware State Senate. In November 2020, as Donald Trump was turned out of the White House by fellow Delawarean Joe Biden, McBride won her election, becoming the first transgender person elected to a State Senate in American history, winning with over 73 percent of the vote.
Upon her election, McBride announced that healthcare and paid family medical leave would be at the heart of her legislative agenda. She succeeded and successfully sponsored the Healthy Delaware Families Act, a law that provides citizens of Delaware with paid 12-week medical or family leave.
2024 Campaign for Congress: McBride Marches Onward
Three years into her term as a State Senator, McBride announced her candidacy for the open at-large Congressional district in her home state. Delaware and six other states have smaller populations that result in only one at-large U.S. House district in the jurisdiction.
Her status as a transgender American was not much of an issue in the statehouse race. Indeed, McBride didn’t lean into her gender identity during her campaign. She focused her race on her record of service, including getting family and medical on the books in Delaware. Her campaign emphasized her commitment to addressing economic insecurity, protecting women’s healthcare rights, and expanding access to healthcare more generally.
McBride won the Democratic primary with 80 percent of the vote. She was elected to Congress in the general election with 58 percent of the vote.
Congresswoman Sarah McBride and Potty Princess Representative Nancy Mace
Many on Capitol Hill contend that twice-divorced U.S. Congresswoman Nancy Mace finally found her legislative calling when she introduced House Resolution 10186, a bill designed to prevent then-newly elected Sarah McBride from accessing a Capitol restroom based on the Delaware Representative’s gender identity. Fellow GOP Congressperson Marjorie Taylor Greene quickly jumped on Mace’s anti-LGBTQ+ bandwagon. Like Mace, Taylor-Greene has been a keen attention-grabber while in the House of Representatives, including when she blamed California wildfires on a space-based laser beam operated by Jewish people exemplified by the Rothschild family.
While the bill contained a flourish of language always associated with federal legislation, Mace had two aims in mind. First, Mace was determined to harass the incoming transgender Congresswoman from Delaware. Second, according to some of her current and former staffers – many speaking on the record – Mace believed that she would attract a great deal of national press by pushing anti-LGBTQ+ legislation such as H.R. 10186.
Image: Sarah McBride
A plethora of Mace staffers have made note that this Member of Congress was most intent on garnering press attention. Indeed, Mace created an internal staff handbook that required her communications team to “book her” on national television outlets at least one to three times every day of the week.
With Mace’s lack of attention to bona fide legislative initiatives and constituent services, combined with her “laser focus” on garnering media attention, her D.C. office experiences unusually high staff turnovers. Indeed, during the three-month period between November 2023 and February 2024, her entire staff quit.
When presenting before the House Oversight Committee in February 2025, after she introduced her targeted bathroom use legislation, Nancy Mace used the slur “tranny” when speaking about transgender Americans. When called out for making this degrading statement, Mace tripled down and repeated the slur three more times. When it comes to slurring members of the LGBTQ+ community, Mace explicitly stated “I don’t care.”
Representative McBride’s commitment to her constituents was clearly demonstrated when Members of the House assembled in Washington following the 2024. election. While Congresswoman McBride attended issue briefings and assembled her staff, Nancy Mace focused on middle school-style bullying like taping the word “BIOLOGICAL” next to the word “Women” on Capitol restroom signs. According to The New Republic, Mace was hawking “anti-trans T-shirts on a seemingly hourly basis.”
When asked about the brouhaha Nancy Mace tried to engender about Sarah McBride’s gender identity, starting even before the Delaware Congresswoman was sworn in, Democratic strategist and LGBTQ+ rights champion Andrew Short remarked: “Sarah’s historic leadership isn’t just about representation – it’s about delivering real change for working people, expanding economic opportunity. And ensuring that LGBTQ+ people have a seat at the table.”
For her part, Congresswoman McBride responded simply and succinctly to Mace’s explosive machinations and targeted legislation: "I'm not here to fight about bathrooms. I'm here to fight for all Delawareans and to bring down costs facing families. Like all members, I will follow the rules as outlined by Speaker Johnson, even if I disagree with them.”
Congresswoman Sarah McBride’s Legislative Agenda
Giving credit where credit surely is due, The New Republic arguably has best summed up Sarah McBride’s initial days on Capitol Hill when it published an article about Congress in a section entitled “Trailblazers.” The headline over the piece about Congresswoman McBride ran a total of six words that those on her Capitol Hill staff would agree are spot-on:
“Sarah McBride’s Quiet Revolution on Capitol Hill”
Paying little attention to the rabid bathroom sniping and transgender bigotry exhibited by some fellow Representatives like Nancy Mace and Marjorie Taylor-Green, Sarah McBride dove directly into pursuing a legislative agenda that she spoke of during her campaign for Congress. As was the case during her time in the Delaware statehouse, at the heart of McBride’s agenda as a Congresswoman is to advance the needs of working families and to protect the interests of LGBTQ+ Americans.
As Sarah McBride begins work as a Member of the House of Representatives, Democratic consultant and LGBTQ+ rights advocate Andrew Short concluded: “Congresswoman Sarah McBride has shattered barriers. She’s never lost sight of who she’s fighting for – working- and middle-class families and every person who has ever felt unseen or unheard.”
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About the author
Writing and journalism has been at the heart of Mike’s life after graduating from college with a degree in political science and journalism and beginning his career in the White House Office of Media Relations and Planning (and then in the Office of the First Lady). A primary focus of his work has been in the realm of political analysis and commentary. Mike is also a playwright with several productions addressing issues of equality, diversity, and inclusion that have been produced internationally.