>> Oregon’s Kate Brown will be the first openly bisexual governor in American history
Après l’invalidation de l’interdiction des unions entre personnes du même sexe en mai 2014 dans cet État du nord-ouest américain, ce vendredi, la secrétaire d’état Kate Brown est devenue la première « politicienne LGBT » à occuper le poste de gouverneur de l’Oregon, après la démission de son prédécesseur, John Kitzhaber, impliqué dans un scandale de corruption.
« Outée » au début des années 1990 par un journal local qui dévoilait sa relation avec une autre femme, Kate Brown répondait dans une tribune publiée sur le magazine Out, témoignant des difficultés qu’elle avait rencontré dans sa carrière, semée de controverses et faux-semblants :
« Je rejoignais la législature de l’État et j’étais terrifiée. Je craignais qu’en étant “démasquée” je perde également mon emploi. Je n’étais pas prête à évoquer mon orientation sexuelle surtout lorsqu’on est déjà témoin de préjugés.
Lorsque la rédaction du journal m’a appelé pour me dire qu’un article serait publié dans l’édition du lendemain concernant ma liaison avec ma compagne à l’époque, j’en ai eu les jambes et les bras coupés. Coming-out forcé. Je marchais déjà sur des œufs… Difficile de ne pas pouvoir être qui nous sommes vraiment ou d’être contraint à n’afficher qu’une infime partie de soi. Surtout lorsque l’on se retrouve toute seule dans cette position. Qui d’autre ? »
Élue chef du parti démocratique en 1998, poste qu’elle va occuper pendant 10 ans, Kate Brown jouera un rôle clé dans l’adoption d’un projet de loi de partenariat pour les couples homosexuels dans l’Oregon en 2007.
Elle se marie à Dan Petite, son époux depuis 10 ans, et devient secrétaire d’État en 2008. Second mandant et en 2012 avec tout le soutien de ses partenaires politiques et la confiance des électeurs, sa candidature est désormais envisagée pour le poste de gouverneur, auquel elle vient enfin d’accéder.
Ouvertement LGBT
En 2004, Jim McGreevey, alors gouverneur du New Jersey, présentait sa démission en dévoilant son orientation sexuelle. Mais en 2013, Tammy Baldwin, élue dans le Wisconsin, devenait la première sénatrice ouvertement homosexuelle.
L’expression d’un changement notable de l’opinion américaine en une décennie, alors même que nous attendons la décision de la Cour Suprême américaine, qui devrait statuer en avril prochain sur l’autorisation pour les couples de même sexe de se marier partout aux États-Unis.
Terrence Katchadourian
@stop_homophobie
>> Oregon Secretary of State Kate Brown will become the state’s governor, after sitting Governor John Kitzhaber announced Friday he would resign due to a corruption scandal. She will take office on Wednesday, February 18.
Brown, who is bisexual, will be the only current openly LGBT governor of a US state, and the second LGBT governor in US history (after New Jersey’s Jim McGreevey, who announced he was gay shortly before resigning).
Brown has worked in Oregon politics for over two decades, serving in the state House and state Senate, eventually becoming the Senate Democratic leader before winning election as Secretary of State in 2008.
“It was definitely a forced coming out”
Brown has spoken extensively about the difficulties she faced being closeted — and then being outed. During her early law career, she was “terrified” she’d lose her job if her employers found out she was dating a woman. “I was walking on eggshells the whole time,” she said in Breaking Through, a documentary about LGBT politicians. “Like I couldn’t be who I am — I’m not free to be myself. It feels like you’re cutting off your legs or your arms. It feels like you can’t be a whole person.”
Then, a few years after joining the state legislature in the early 1990s, Brown was outed by an Oregon newspaper. “I got a call the night before and they said we’re gonna print that you’re bisexual in a story,” Brown says in the documentary. “So it was definitely a forced coming out. It was probably good that it happened, but it wasn’t sort of in my own terms and in my own timeline.” She continued: “It’s challenging to be up-front about who you are with people, and it’s really challenging when there are not a whole lot of other people like you.”
In an essay for Out and Elected in the USA, Brown wrote that, after she came out, some of her “gay friends” called her “half-queer,” and an elderly conservative legislator said to her, “Read in the Oregonian a few months ago you were bisexual. Guess that means I still have a chance?” She continued, “Some days I feel like I have a foot in both worlds, yet never really belonging to either.”
Up the ladder
Brown won the loyalty of her state Senate colleagues, and was elected Democratic party leader in 1998 — a post she’d hold for 10 years. There, she’d push for campaign finance transparency, and would play a key role in passing the state’s same-sex partnerships law in 2007. She herself has been married to her husband Dan Little for over a decade.
In 2008, she was elected Secretary of State, a position in which she oversees the state’s elections and audits state spending. She won a second term in 2012, and was frequently mentioned as a possible gubernatorial candidate in the future.
Her career hasn’t been without controversy, though. Spencer Woodman of The Verge has reported that Brown sent a letter to the FCC backing the Comcast / Time Warner Cable merger that was “almost wholly written by a Comcast Government Affairs specialist.” Brown’s spokesperson later defended the move, saying she supported the merger and the borrowed language was just “the most expedient way” to back it.
A historic first
No out LGBT politician has ever been elected governor of a US state. Jim McGreevey of New Jersey, who announced he was “a gay American” in 2004 on the same day he announced he would soon resign, is the only governor to come out while in office. Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin became the first openly LGBT US senator in 2013.
