WATCH: Transgender Candidate Out to Make History in Florida

A transgender candidate for the Orange County Commission in central Florida is drawing favorable attention from local media for her historic bid.

Gina Duncan, who was born Gregory Pingston and transitioned in 2007 at age 50, is a small-business owner and former bank executive focusing on economic issues in her race. Duncan, a Democrat, was recently profiled by Orlando Fox affiliate WOFL.

The segment focuses on her tireless campaign efforts and her emphasis on job growth in the region, treating her transgender identity as incidental, while acknowledging the potentially history-making nature of her candidacy, as she would be the first transgender person elected to office in the southeastern United States. Reporter Chase Cain does ask her when being transgender will not longer be an issue, and she says, “Maybe not in my lifetime, but someday being transgender means no more than being right- or left-handed.”

She will face incumbent Ted Edwards and write-in candidate Ariel Christenson in a nonpartisan election August 14. Watch the interview with WOFL below, and follow this link to Duncan’s and Edwards’s interviews with the Orlando Sentinel editorial board. Duncan’s campaign website is here.