Trans (I) Am

“I’m the regular run-of-the-mill person,” says Chrissy Nakonsky, a Brainerd Republican candidate for the Minnesota House. “I’m like everybody that’s struggling.”

It may seem a strange statement coming from a trans woman. But Nakonsky doesn’t want her gender to be an issue in her campaign—and so far it hasn’t been.

“The community has been super,” she says.

She’s campaigning on poverty, education and prescription drug costs. These aren’t abstract issues to Nakonsky—she has a wife and four children, but no job. The family lives in a trailer home.

She left Wal-Mart in May 2007 because of harassment for being trans. “I was getting threatening notes,” she says. “Someone vandalized my van to where it caught on fire.” She has filed a discrimination suit.

Her campaign budget is only $1,000 and she doesn’t ask for donations. “People can’t afford it,” she says. So she does a lot of door-knocking and puts information up in local stores. “I’m constantly talking to people.”

Nakonsky says she has gotten no negative comments about being transgender. When the Brainerd Dispatch wrote its first article about her candidacy, the writer got angry letters—for using male pronouns to describe her.

More often, people question Nakonsky’s choice of parties. But she’s been a Republican all her life. “I will not change sides,” she says. “I trust the Republicans more than I do the Democratic side. The Democrats want to raise our taxes.”

And she says Republicans support her, despite her support for a higher minimum wage. “I’m the best chance the Republicans have to get [Democratic incumbent] John Ward ousted.” At this point, no other Republican is running—but Nakonsky will “fight to beat whoever comes.”

She has attracted national media attention—not typical for a state House seat run. She knows it’s because she’s trans and she acknowledges that sooner or later, things might get ugly.