Nashua, New Hamphire voters elected the first transperson ever to the New Hamphire House of Representatives on Tuesday. Stacy Laughton, 28, places gender issues at the top of her agenda, but wants to be treated like any other woman on the House floor.
Laughton has been politically active since she was a teenager. When she lived in Laconia, she was unsuccessful in several attempts at securing city positions and one attwempt at a run for the State House while running as a Republican.
She worked on John Kerry’s campaign in 2004 as an independent. Her shift in allegiance had a lot to do with Gov. Craig Benson’s budget cuts.
He cut welfare funding, he cut special ed funding, he cut a lot of these vitally important programs, and these were programs that I knew lots of people who were on, and I started to see their lives change, but they didn’t change for the better.
–Laughton
Laughton became a Democrat in 2010 and was elected as a selectman in Ward 4 in Nashua, where she now lives. Several friends and mentors suggested a run for higher office, but it was newly-elected Rep. Maggie Hassan’s plea for people to run which ultimately caused her to do so.
This area of New Hampshire needed somebody like me, somebody who understands the complex issues that this district faces, somebody who understands what it’s like to live with a lower income, somebody who knows the people in the area.
–Laughton