The US Midterms show us that LGBTQIA+ candidates can still see success in elections, even when they face hardship, lies and campaigns against them.
LGBTQIA+ representation in politics, parliament and democracy is no silver bullet when systems feel stacked against us, but it’s progress we shouldn’t ignore either. American politics is changing.
Chris Pappas and Allison Montgomery respectively were elected as the first gay man in the US Senate and as the first trans woman in the Alabama State Legislature. These once unknown politicians are now situated in key positions to make meaningful change against the harmful rhetoric targeted towards the LGBTQIA+ community that has proliferated in the media.
The US 2026 Midterm elections challenged the right-wing trend in contemporary politics, with Democrats gaining control of both the Senate and the House of Representatives.
Upon first glance, it appears as though the political pendulum has swung relatively left for now; however, the reality is more complicated. After all, we have seen these kinds of swings many times throughout history, and queer communities have still had to find ways to exist and thrive. So what does this moment tell us about queer representation in politics?
Led by Brazil, which elected 35 LGBTQ+ political leaders last month up from 14 queer members of congress in place previously, the US is now following suit with 23 elected LGBTQ+ political leaders after the Midterm elections. Voters in both countries are showing that they want change.
They want leaders who will hear them and deliver on their promises, not leaders who propagate a false narrative that marginalises a minority.
Across the 2026 Midterms, Elon Musk injected $446m of funding into Republican candidates, with $200m of total funding spent on attacking trans people.
However, they failed to cover up the social implications of the cost of living crisis and the Iran war. That may be a win, but the propagation of anti-trans misinformation still incurred harmful consequences for the community. The elections saw several anti-trans bills voted in.
Meanwhile, as of October 2026 the UK has 78 LGBT+ MPs across 5 parties, which constitutes 12% of the House of Commons, and yet we’ve seen this parliament wave through several anti-trans policies.
Although the UK has largely surpassed the US in terms of representation within politics, there are still clear signs of the impact of anti-queer sentiment spreading. The BBC’s removal of queer shows illustrates this issue well, in that the mood of UK politics means the broadcaster feels it can do this without consequence.
Where we can see hope, however, is in the amount of backlash to these executive decisions, and the community and allies fighting back. The increasing marginalisation and erasure of queer people have incited growing discourses that not only raise awareness of queerness, but also celebrate those queer people who are now holding positions of power.
While countries across the globe continue to criminalise or harshen sentencing for LGBTQIA+ people, the significance of these progressive strides cannot be underestimated in advocating for inclusive lawmaking which takes into account all people in the LGBTQIA+ community.
As the saying goes, ‘when the US sneezes, the world catches a cold’. The significance of genuine political representation that goes far beyond tokenism cannot be undervalued for the queer community.
Genuine representation allows democracy to function. As ever, what our community is stacked up against while trying to change the system from the inside, is the biases and flaws that make that work much harder. But these recent results do represent real progress – and we should celebrate that.
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