🏳️🌈🏺lgbtq legislators in VA
🏳️🌈🏺 2-Gay in History 🏺🏳️🌈
In 2003, the new representative from Fairfax, Adam Ebbin, became the first openly gay Virginian ever elected to the General Assembly. He entered a legislature that still banned marriage equality and clung to pre-Lawrence “crimes against nature” laws. Yet his very presence began to rewrite what was possible—and Equality Virginia, the ACLU, and the Diversity Gay Community Center would help lead the way.
A decade later, in 2014, love itself stood trial. In Bostic v. Schaefer, two Virginia couples challenged the state’s marriage ban. That case was born from a decade of Valentine’s Day marriage-license protests, when queer couples walked into courthouses hand-in-hand, knowing full well they would be denied. When the Fourth Circuit’s ruling came down, city and state officials joyously gathered at courthouses to issue the long-denied licenses.
Ebbin was soon joined by new voices—Mark Sickles, Mark Levine, and Dawn Adams, the first openly lesbian delegate. Then Danica Roem shattered another barrier, becoming the first openly transgender state lawmaker in U.S. history, followed by Rozia Henson, the first gay Black man elected to the Assembly, and Laura Jane Cohen, an openly bisexual delegate continuing the momentum—most of whom still serve today.
Together they championed the Virginia Values Act, the South’s first comprehensive LGBTQ+ nondiscrimination law—protecting queer Virginians in housing, employment, credit, and public life. They also passed a statewide ban on conversion therapy for minors and expanded hate-crime protections to include sexual orientation and gender identity.
But these victories are again under threat. Two LGBTQ delegates—Laura Cohen and Mark Sickles—are up for reelection; Ghazala Hashmi was a brave advocate for the VVA; and without an Attorney General like Jay Jones, Virginia could lose its conversion-therapy protections.
