Meet Georgette Gomez: The First LGBTQ+ Latina Who Could Make It to Congress

Georgette Gomez BELatina Latinx
Photo Credit San Diego City Council President Georgette Gómez, a Democrat, kicked off her campaign for U.S. Congress, to replace retiring Rep. Susan Davis in 2020 at the United Domestic Workers Union offices.(Howard Lipin / The San Diego Union-Tribune)

While millions of women take to the streets to defend their right to stay alive and to gender equality, there are those who fight from the trenches of politics to democratize all spaces.

Such is the case of Georgette Gomez, the candidate for San Diego’s 53rd Congressional District, who wants to be the first queer Latina in U.S. Congressional history, according to HOLA!.

Born in San Diego to a working-class immigrant family, and knowing firsthand the experience of Latinas in working class neighborhoods around the country, Gomez trained at San Diego State University in Environmental and Natural Resource Geography and saw her first opportunity to raise the voices of her community when a City Council seat was opened in 2016 after Marti Emerald decided not to run for reelection.

The position was to represent District 9, which includes the neighborhoods of Alvarado Estates, City Heights (where Gomez resides), College Area, College View Estates, El Cerrito, Kensington, Mountain View, Mt. Hope, Rolando, Southcrest, and Talmadge. 

Gomez finished second in the first round in 2016, but because no candidate got a majority of the votes in the primary, a runoff allowed her to get the votes needed to take over.

Two years later, the City Council voted unanimously to appoint her as Council president; she served as president of the San Diego Metropolitan Transit System from January 2018 until October 2019, when she announced her candidacy for the 53rd Congressional District.

With a campaign focused on the environment and “to stand up against Trump’s dangerous agenda,” Gomez has set forth a political vision aligned with the progressive wing at the national level, in favor of Medicare for All, expanding affordable housing, reducing homelessness, investing in public transit and infrastructure, championing clean air and water, defending immigrants’ rights ,and fighting for more federal funding for San Diego communities, according to her platform.

“A longtime community organizer, Georgette is a former associate director of the Environmental Health Coalition, where she led the Toxic Free Neighborhoods Campaign to protect kids from lead paint and keep polluting industries out of residential communities,” her campaign website adds. “Earlier in her career, Georgette worked as a victims’ advocate for survivors of domestic violence and sexual abuse.”

Similarly, her candidacy has received the endorsement of organizations such as the California Democratic Party, California Federation of Teachers, the LGBTQ Victory Fund, the California Labor Federation, UNITE HERE, among others, as well as important political figures such as Senator Catherine Cortez Masto, presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, and several members of the new generation of Congress such as Nanette Barragán (CA-44), Pramila Jayapal (WA-7), and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (NY-14).

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