These LGBTQ candidates in Texas are making history in 2018 elections

AUSTIN — Before Lupe Valdez announced plans to run for Dallas County sheriff in 2004, she invited her older siblings to breakfast at a small taqueria to let them know.

"They said, 'No, you can't do this,'" Valdez recalled. "'This is going to bring shame to the family.'"

The "shame" was the unwanted attention her family feared would come when word traveled that Valdez, then a political novice, was an open lesbian seeking the highest-profile law enforcement job in Texas' second-largest county.

"It was very painful," she said of her family's reaction. "I went out of the restaurant in tears."

Despite the misgivings, Valdez ran, and, despite some slurs her family had warned her about, won. Now, 14 years later, she is the first member of the LBGTQ community to win the nomination of a major party for a statewide office in Texas. And with her on the November ballot for offices ranging from city council to congressional seats are more than 30 candidates who are openly gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender.

Gina Ortiz Jones, a veteran of the Iraq war who joined the Air Force during the "don't ask, don't tell" days that forced gay service members to remain in the closet, is a Democrat running for Congress against Republican Rep. Will Hurd of San Antonio.

In the seat vacated by Congressman Blake Farenthold of Corpus Christi, Democrat Eric Holguin, who has been active in LGBTQ causes, won the Democratic runoff last month. He'll face off against Republican Michael Cloud in November. Both are also on the ballot for a June special election.

Dallas lawyer Jessica Gonzalez, a Democrat with no Republican opponent, is expected to become the third member of the LGBTQ community to win a seat in the Texas House in November, joining Austin's Celia Israel and Mary Gonzalez of El Paso, both Democrats.

• See the full list of LBGTQ candidates who filed in Texas this year

Like many of the others who are celebrating June as Pride Month, Valdez, who last month won the Democratic runoff for governor, refers to her orientation in matter-of-fact terms. It's part of who she is, she told the USA TODAY NETWORK, but it's not the only part of who she is.

"I recognize that there is a historical factor to this, but what is important is that it's Texans that (nominated) me," Valdez said. "Texans are the ones that are diverse and making choices."

Several LBGTQ activists and political figures said that in the years since Valdez won her first race in what had been considered a conservative Republican stronghold, the Texas political landscape has shifted.

"Sexual orientation is clearly not an impediment for somebody to be involved in the political process at any level, even at the highest level," said Glen Maxey, who in 1991 became the first openly gay candidate to win a seat in the Texas House.

"I expect that in almost all of their cases, they are not running (because) they're gay," he added. "They're running because they share values on issues that are a whole lot broader than their sexual orientation."

Maxey, then a 29-year-old Austin Democrat who had worked as a legislative staffer and political operator, was told he was chasing a pipe dream.

"Most of the counseling I got was, 'You shouldn't do this because you know a gay person can't get elected,'" he said. "The general feeling among even progressives was that the electorate was going to make a decision just on somebody's orientation.

"I was never going to get an opportunity to lay out my vision about where I stood on the environment, about public education, the economy and those kinds of things. Nobody would ever hear me."

Still, Maxey persevered, emerging from a crowded field in a special election to win the seat in the 150-member statehouse.

But his first term was a lonely one, he recalled. Powerful committee chairman didn't want to hold hearings on his bills. Even his political allies told him not to vocally support even their routine legislation lest it be labeled part of the "gay agenda."

"My first session was pretty dismal," he said, noting that even when he offered a resolution honoring the life of a deceased Austin priest, he encountered a resistance.

"There was some people who voted against because it was sponsored by a gay guy," said Maxey, who served 12 years in the Legislature.

Joel Burns said that when he first sought a seat on the Fort Worth City Council in 2007, he braced himself for a similar experience. His parents are from a conservative rural suburb in North Texas. Both were active church members.

"I said to them, if I'm doing this we're all doing this and you're going to see on the front page of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram people saying ugly things about me,'" he said. "'And folks at the grocery store and folks at church you run into are going to read those things.'"

Burns, who in 2010, made national headlines when he made an impassioned speech titled "It Gets Better" aimed at young members of the LGBTQ community contemplating suicide, said attitudes toward gays and lesbians have become more tolerant in recent years.

"The year 2018 is an easier road than it has been in the past," he said. "There have been enough firsts along the way that it's less of a big deal now for voters."

Helping that acceptance is economics, he said. During the 2017 legislative session, the business community sided with progressives and transgender activists to defeat the "bathroom bill" on grounds that it would drive commerce from Texas.

Asked if the recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling that sided with a baker who cited religious faith for refusing to make a wedding cake for a gay couple was a set back, Burns said no because voters are increasing already looking past such wedge issues and focusing on pocketbook and other issues.

"I don't think a Supreme Court (decision) is equivalent to people's willingness to vote for candidates who support issues that they care about, whether or not they are gay," he said.

Ortiz Jones, who is competing in one of the few swing congressional districts, would become the first open member of the LBGTQ community to serve Texas in Washington.

“I’d be honored to be the first," she said. "It is more important to not be the last.”

John Wright, editor of Houston's OutSmart Magazine, said the LGBTQ community approaches political involvement the same way any interest group does. Issues like the bathroom bill and efforts to limit marriage and adoption rights should be fought by people with a seat at the decision-making table, he said.

"Our community is under attack, so we're going to stand up," said Wright, whose magazine lists all the LBGTQ candidates on this year's ballot in Texas.

Valdez, who is 70 and the youngest of eight siblings, said she's counting on a generational shift in attitudes as she attempts to unseat Republican Gov. Greg Abbott in the fall. To illustrate that, Valdez added to her story about the family meeting just before she announced for sheriff.

After the breakfast with her brothers and sisters, she said she sat down with her  grown nieces and nephews. Their reaction was 180 degrees different from when she told them of her plans to enter politics.

"Oh, good. How can we help?" she recalled them saying. "Totally different. I don't know if it was the age or the culture, but there was a total different attitude."

She said that members of the LGBTQ community inside and outside politics deal with similar cultural and generational divides.

"I continue to believe that group that is fair and honest and inclusive is that group that wins," she said.

Follow John C. Moritz, who covers Texas government and politics for the USA TODAY NETWORK in Austin, on Twitter: @JohnnieMo

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