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More than 1,000 openly LGBTQ+ candidates are running for public office this election cycle, new data shows, a record-breaking total that signals a potential shift in the national political landscape during one of the worst legislative years in recent history for LGBTQ+ Americans.

At least 1,008 openly LGBTQ+ people are running for office – from school boards to Congress – this year, the LGBTQ Victory Fund, which works to elect more LGBTQ+ candidates to public office, said Thursday. The total is just slightly higher than the previous record set in 2020, when 1,006 out LGBTQ+ people ran.

In 2021, an off-year election cycle, 410 openly LGBTQ+ people ran for office.

More than 40 percent of openly LGBTQ+ candidates this year are running for a state legislative seat, according to the LGBTQ Victory Fund data. In just the first half of the year, hundreds of bills have been introduced in state legislatures nationwide that would restrict the rights of LGBTQ+ Americans.

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Dozens of those measures, including a ban on classroom instruction related to sexual orientation or gender identity in Florida and limitations placed on transgender athletes in at least 10 states, have already become law.

Battles over LGBTQ+ rights have thus far primarily been fought at the state level, although House lawmakers earlier this week passed legislation that would codify the Supreme Court’s ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges, the landmark 2015 decision that legalized same-sex marriage nationwide.

The measure would also address a national patchwork of marriage laws – most of which were rendered unenforceable by Obergefell. One hundred and fifty seven House Republicans voted against the bill, titled the Respect for Marriage Act.

At least 138 openly LGBTQ+ candidates are running for federal office this year, the LGBTQ Victory Fund said Thursday, a 73 percent increase over 2020, when 80 out LGBTQ+ people ran.

Currently, just 11 members of Congress – all of them Democrats – identify as LGBTQ, according to data from the group’s partner organization, the LGBTQ Victory Institute.

In a statement, Annise Parker, the president and chief executive of the LGBTQ Victory Fund, said the election of more LGBTQ+ candidates this year will be a “deafening rebuke to the wave of hate impacting our community.”

“The writing is on the wall for the LGBTQ community and our allies: our rights are on the ballot this year,” Parker, formerly the mayor of Houston, said Thursday. “The people we elect this cycle will make decisions about what our kids are allowed to learn and say in the classroom, what health care choices people will be allowed to make about their own bodies and possibly, whether we will continue to be allowed to marry those we love.”

Openly LGBTQ+ people running for office this year also represent the most diverse slate of candidates in history, the LGBTQ Victory Fund said.

At least 100 more LGBTQ+ people of color are running this year compared to 2020, the group said, a 58 percent increase from two years ago and a 225 percent increase from 2018.

From 2020, there has been a 66 percent increase in Black/Afro-Caribbean candidates (141 in 2022 versus 85 in 2020), a 78 percent increase in Asian American/Pacific Islander candidates (41 versus 23) and a 34 percent increase in Latino/Hispanic candidates (123 versus 92).

A record 55 transgender people are also running for public office this year, according to the LGBTQ Victory Fund data, a 62 percent increase over 2020. The number of gender non-conforming candidates on the ballot this year also sits at a record high of 20, compared with zero in 2020 and two in 2018.

Gay candidates continue to represent the majority of openly LGBTQ+ people running for office, at 515, although the number of bisexual, pansexual, queer and asexual candidates ticked up substantially this year compared with prior cycles.  Notably, the number of lesbians running for office has declined since 2020, but two lesbian women – Tina Kotek of Oregon and Maura Healey of Massachusetts – could make history later this year as the nation’s first openly lesbian governors.

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