News Item
Alumna Andrea Marra wants to be NY’s first transgender state senator featured in "City and State New York"
City and State NY: "IDC's Peralta gets second challenger, who would be a first"
By David Colon
Andrea Marra wants to be NY’s first transgender state senator
Since the 2016 election resulted in Donald Trump’s presidency and a renewed energy among New York’s liberal activists, candidates across the state are lining up to challenge members of the Independent Democratic Conference, the breakaway group of Democratic state Senators who share power with the Republican caucus. Progressive pressure groups such as the Working Families Party, have labeled IDC members “Trump Dems,” and lent support to their primary opponents.
Most of the races only feature one primary challenger. On Monday, Lewis Kaminski dropped his campaign against IDC leader Jeff Klein and endorsed fellow challenger Alessandra Biaggi. But, with the entrance of trans activist and Jackson Heights resident Andrea Marra, Queens’ District 13 will now host a three-way race to determine whether state Senator Jose Peralta remains the Democratic nominee in November.
Until early February, Peralta was only facing a primary challenge from Jessica Ramos, a former press aide to Mayor Bill de Blasio. But Marra’s announced her candidacy on February 8th in a district composed of Jackson Heights, East Elmhurst, Corona and parts of Astoria and Woodside.
Marra, 32, who was born in Seoul before she was adopted by a white family who lived in the Capital Region, has spent her career as an activist working on LGBTQ rights and pro-immigration causes. She first got a taste of activism in high school by lobbying for the passage of New York’s Dignity for All Students Act, which was eventually signed into law in 2010 to combat bullying and discrimination in schools. Marra moved to New York City to study at Pace University and has spent her post-college career working with organizations including Nodutdol for Korean Community Development and GLAAD, where she worked to help end Don’t Ask Don’t Tell in the US military. Currently she serves as a communications manager for the Arcus Foundation, an LGBT right organization.
Marra believes that her election, which would make her the first transgender state Senator and the first Asian-American state Senator in New York history, would help add a sense of urgency to efforts to pass the Gender Expression Non-Discrimination Act (GENDA), a bill which would add gender identity to the state’s Human Rights Law and has been unable to make it out of the Senate since its introduction in 2003. “Even for some Democrats, they’re still coming to terms with what GENDA means and how it impacts the trans community,” Marra told City & State. “I think that’s fair, but we need fresh leadership in the state legislature to be able to talk about those issues in an authentic way.”
In addition to Marra's campaign to become the first transgender state Senator, Melissa Skarz from Queens is vying to unseat Brian Barnwell in the 30th Assembly district to become that body's first trans legislator.
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