Mauree Turner won her race for Oklahoma state House for District 88 becoming the first non-binary state legislator in US history and first Muslim lawmaker in Oklahoma.
As per reports, Turner, 27, defeated Republican candidate Kelly Barlean to represent the district, winning about 71% of the votes, according to the Oklahoma State Election Board’s unofficial results.
Turner identifies as non-binary, which the National Center for Transgender Equality defines as gender understood as neither male nor female. Turner uses both they/she as pronouns, according to Turner’s Twitter profile. She used the same on her campaign website.
According to the LGBTQ Victory Fund, a national organisation dedicated to electing LGBTQ people, there are currently four known genderqueer or nonbinary-identified elected officials serving in the US and five public LGBTQ elected officials in Oklahoma. Turner is the first non-binary person to be named to a state legislature.
An activist, community organiser and native Oklahoman, Turner has spent most of her life fighting for issues such as immigration rights, racial justice and criminal justice. Living as a black Muslim American queer woman in the state of Oklahoma, Turner said, she experienced not being seen or heard by lawmakers. Her campaign ran on a platform of seeking to drive conversations about what inclusive
