Page 4 - Demo

4 | Produced by ST Content Studio Congresswoman Randall leads the charge and the Pride paradehe%u2019s the first queer Latina in the U.S. Congress and the first LGBTQ+ member of Congress in Washington state, but Rep. Emily Randall didn%u2019t run to be the first of anything. %u201cThere are days I don%u2019t think about it at all,%u201d she says.By Bree CovenRep. Emily Randall is the first queer Latina in Congress and the first LGBTQ+ member in Washington state. (Courtesy of the office of Congresswoman Emily Randall)Then there are days she goes to speak with a group of LGBTQ+ students in Tacoma and sees what her trailblazing means to others. %u201cThe students were so excited to hear I was like them. Soon, hopefully, it will be easier for more to join the ranks,%u201d she says.Randall represents Washington%u2019s 6th District, where she was born and raised in Port Orchard on the Kitsap Peninsula. Seattle Pride 2025 marks another first for her %u2014 the first time she will lead the parade as its Grand Marshal. It%u2019s a full-circle moment.%u201cIt%u2019s really special because the first Pride I ever went to was Seattle Pride,%u201d she says, 20 years ago in 2005. %u201cI was home from college. I had just come out and signed up to volunteer.%u201d%u201cI checked people in [to the Pride festival], handed out water, lay in the grass [in Volunteer Park] listening to music. I made a daisy chain,%u201d Randall recalls. %u201cHaving grown up in a community where we didn%u2019t have a public Pride celebration, it felt really special to be in Seattle with all these queer people who were just living their lives.%u201dShe had also just met the woman who would become her wife.%u201cIn that window of time, I%u2019ve watched our region have so many other small Pride celebrations pop up, with a proliferation of Pride clubs and GSAs in schools locally,%u201d she says. %u201cIt feels really exciting to get to be the Grand Marshal of the parade, breaking another glass ceiling as the first LGBTQ+ member of Congress in Washington.%u201d