Photo: Joshua Higginbotham/Twitter
A 24-year-old West Virginia Republican state lawmaker came out as gay this week.
In avideo messageshared on Twitter Sunday, Joshua Higginbotham came out to his constituents, assuring them that his conservative values have not changed.
The young lawmaker was elected to the West Virginia House of Delegates in 2016, making him the state’s youngest member of the legislature at age 19. He explained that he hadn’t chosen to publicly share his sexuality sooner because he had been privately coming out to family first.
“There were some people in my family…who didn’t know yet about this, and frankly they weren’t really ready to know,” he said. “I was quite concerned that they might disown me if I told them. They didn’t. We’re all good, they’re 100 percent supportive of me.”
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“Nothing has changed, other than, now you know this about my personal life, whereas you didn’t know beforehand,” he said. “I’m still the same guy you’ve voted for in six elections, three primaries and three generals. And I’ll continue to serve the Kanawha Valley. I don’t see anything wrong with it.”
RELATED VIDEO: Sarah McBride Says Her Parents Were ‘Incredibly Loving, But They Were Scared’ When She Came Out
Higginbotham followed up the video withanother tweet that read: “It’s ok to be gay and Christian. It’s ok to be gay and a conservative Republican official in West Virginia. My family accepts me. My friends accept me. Now I’m asking you to accept me as well.”
According to NBC News, Higginbotham wasthe only Republican delegate who voted againstthe bill that passed in West Virginia in April that requires transgender student athletes to compete on teams based on the sex they were assigned at birth. A federal lawsuit was filed in Maychallengingthe bill, the Associate Press previously reported.
Higginbotham won his third general election in 2020, which marked a historic year for LGBTQ lawmakers.
In November, Delaware senator Sarah McBride became the first openly transgender official ever elected to a U.S. state Senate, while Ritchie Torres and Mondaire Jones earned themselves a place in the history books as thefirst openly gay Black men elected to Congress.
source: people.com
