Nonbinary Democrat Bentley Hudgins may make history: 'Hope is a discipline'

Bentley Hudgins has discovered that online bigotry sometimes trips over accidental affirmation.“Some of them are like, ‘I can’t tell if you’re a man or a woman,’” Hudgins says. “I’m like, ‘Thank you. That’s the point.’”Another stranger declared the Georgia Democrat a “coward, sir.” Hudgins’ reply: “Sir? Oh, is that how this engagement’s going to go? Thank you for your politeness, and I’m not your dom, so don’t call me ‘sir.’”The exchanges capture Hudgins’s politics in miniature: meet cruelty without surrendering joy, and never waste an opening.Hudgins is the Democratic nominee for Georgia House District 90, a heavily Democratic seat spanning eastern Atlanta and southern DeKalb County. They face Republican Samantha Boston on November 3, but their primary victory leaves them poised to become the first out transgender and nonbinary member of the Georgia legislature. They would also become the Deep South’s first Japanese American state representative. Anna GirzoneThe firsts collect around Hudgins, but they are determined not to be flattened by them. “People oftentimes expect history makers to only talk about how we’re making history,” Hudgins says. Voters, however, live beyond symbolism. They need affordable homes, functioning infrastructure, fully funded schools, accessible health care, and sidewalks that reach the bus stop.Hudgins didn’t develop that understanding in a consultant’s conference room. They grew up near a Christmas tree farm, moved to Macon, and graduated from Mercer University with a philosophy degree. At 19, they were diagnosed as legally deaf; Affordable Care Act coverage later made reconstructive surgery possible.After the 2016 Pulse massacre, Hudgins organized a Macon vigil that drew roughly 300 people. The gathering helped produce a coalition that secured protections for LGBTQ+ public employees in Macon-Bibb County. A year later, after leaving an unsafe home, Hudgins slept in their car, on a