Zeloszelos
Marchandt would bring experience in theater, health care, and journalism plus
an extensive activist background to the Oregon House.
Zeloszelos
Marchandt has a varied résumé — journalist, health care worker, entrepreneur,
playwright, theater director. Now he’s looking to add state representative to
that list, becoming the first transgender male state legislator in the nation.
“We’re all
anxious about the fate of the world for a variety of reasons,” Marchandt says
by way of explaining his motivation to run for office.
He is running
for the Oregon House of Representatives in District 35, a newly drawn district
in the suburbs of Portland. In Tuesday’s Democratic primary, he’s facing
straight cisgender woman Farrah Chaichi. Daniel Martin is the only candidate in
the Republican primary. The district is heavily Democratic, so the Democratic
nominee is basically assured of election in November.
Marchandt, 42,
who is Black and Indigenous, was born in Nashville and moved to Oregon as a
child with his brother and mother, who was leaving an abusive marriage. His mom
found employment, but the family still often struggled financially and at times
experienced homelessness. He’s lived most of his life in Washington County,
where District 35 is located. The county’s population is 45 percent people of
color, and it has a large proportion of LGBTQ+ residents.
He worked for
several years as a journalist, writing for various publications and serving as
news editor at public radio station KBOO. He spent some time in health care,
assisting medical examiners and emergency response teams. He runs Peacock House
Oregon, a community-supported agriculture project that connects farmers and
food buyers. In 2020 he founded T & A Grand Theater, a company that focuses
on productions centering Black and Indigenous trans, Two-Spirit,
gender-nonconforming, and queer people. The theater, in partnership with
another troupe, has an artist-in-residency program called Ten, Tiny, Talks,
specifically for Black and Indigenous trans, Two-Spirit, gender-nonconforming,
and queer artists.
With all that,
Marchandt has also been active in politics as a leader of the Washington County
Democratic Party and chair of its Black Americans Caucus. He has worked with
Black Lives Matter and in the LGBTQ+ and reproductive rights movements, and he
has helped write legislation to expand housing opportunities.
He plans to
continue working for all those causes as a state lawmaker. His priorities also
include fighting climate change, increasing education funding, and assuring
that the economy works for everyone, not just the people at the top. He has the
endorsements of the LGBTQ Victory Fund, Basic Rights Oregon, and Planned
Parenthood PAC of Oregon, along with labor unions and other groups.
Oregon, where
he’d be the first out trans person elected to state office, is often seen as
friendly to LGBTQ+ people, but there is still room for improvement, Marchandt
notes. To support existing protections, he says, there needs to be better
training for lawyers. There also needs to be more education on civil rights at
the grassroots level, and the LGBTQ+ community should be included whenever
demographic data is collected, he adds.
On racial
justice, he tells The Advocate, “Conversations have to be had one
on one. Going forward, I’m going to continue to have these conversations.”
Marchandt, who
is gender-expansive and has a trans partner and a 19-year-old queer son, is
currently estranged from his family of origin. He came out to them several
times, and they didn’t take it seriously until he changed his name. They didn’t
take that well. “We haven’t talked in seven years,” he notes. His father is a
devout Seventh-Day Adventist, a faith that is not accepting of LGBTQ+
identities. “I don’t think he’s ever going to really understand who I am,”
Marchandt says.
But there is
hope where his mother is concerned. “I’ve heard through the grapevine,” he
says, “that she’s rooting for me and wants me to win.”
SOURCE: ADVOCATE
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