Zephyr appeared on “The View,” visited the White House and was featured at the Pride Night for the Seattle Sounders in the past month. Some supporters have pitched her running for Congress to represent western Montana, and while she hasn’t ruled it out, Zephyr says, her immediate focus is finding “rooms that my voice can do good in.” She plans to run for reelection to the Montana House and says she is “willing to explore” the possibility of holding other public offices in the future. Zephyr adds that she has “seen the response in individuals coming up to me in the quiet corners of the Capitol, saying, ‘We see you, we know what’s happening, this isn’t right, we have to stay quiet, but this isn’t right.’” “I can say honestly with all my heart, I have a lightness in the work and a joy and hope that I have not felt in a long time.” “The question I’ve been asked a thousand, thousand times is, ‘Are you OK? How are you holding up?’” Zephyr said at Missoula Pride in June. In that role, she is a frequent recipient of online vitriol and both women have experienced “swatting” attempts, in which someone made a false report to law enforcement to try to draw armed officers to their homes. Reed watched it all unfold from her home in Gaithersburg, Maryland, where she has cemented herself as one of the nation’s leading independent researchers monitoring the torrent of anti-LGBTQ+ bills. GOP state leaders called her words “hateful rhetoric” and condemned her for leading a protest with supporters that brought a legislative session to a temporary halt.Ī conservative caucus also repeatedly and deliberately referred to Zephyr with masculine pronouns while also suggesting her actions were “nothing more than an ego trip.” Zephyr, a Democrat, surged into the spotlight this spring when she was silenced by her Republican colleagues in the Montana Legislature after she refused to apologize for saying some lawmakers would have blood on their hands for supporting a ban on gender-affirming health for youth. Debates rage in statehouses over any number of related issues - whether transgender girls should be allowed to compete in female sports, if parents have a right to know when their children start going by a gender identity at school or if young children should be banned from taking hormone blockers. Their rise in prominence has also made them a lightning rod for criticism and vitriol that’s emblematic of the larger divisions around LGBTQ+ issues in the United States. They recently rubbed elbows at a bar in the nation’s capital with Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and his husband, Chasten, during Pride festivities. Documentary film crews follow them around. People lined up to meet them after speaking in Florida, Ohio and Los Angeles, and even recognized them during their recent trip to Glacier National Park. They’ve appeared at dozens of events, including the GLAAD Media Awards in New York City in May. Largely unknown just a few months ago, the two women now rate among the most prominent figures in the world of LGBTQ+ advocacy.
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