Nonbinary Democrat Bentley Hudgins may make history: 'Hope is a discipline'

Bentley Hudgins has discovered that online bigotry sometimes trips over accidental affirmation.

“Some of them are like, ‘I can’t tell if you’re a man or a woman,’” Hudgins says. “I’m like, ‘Thank you. That’s the point.’”

Another stranger declared the Georgia Democrat a “coward, sir.” Hudgins’ reply: “Sir? Oh, is that how this engagement’s going to go? Thank you for your politeness, and I’m not your dom, so don’t call me ‘sir.’”

The exchanges capture Hudgins’s politics in miniature: meet cruelty without surrendering joy, and never waste an opening.

Hudgins is the Democratic nominee for Georgia House District 90, a heavily Democratic seat spanning eastern Atlanta and southern DeKalb County. They face Republican Samantha Boston on November 3, but their primary victory leaves them poised to become the first out transgender and nonbinary member of the Georgia legislature. They would also become the Deep South’s first Japanese American state representative.

Anna Girzone

The firsts collect around Hudgins, but they are determined not to be flattened by them. “People oftentimes expect history makers to only talk about how we’re making history,” Hudgins says. Voters, however, live beyond symbolism. They need affordable homes, functioning infrastructure, fully funded schools, accessible health care, and sidewalks that reach the bus stop.

Hudgins didn’t develop that understanding in a consultant’s conference room. They grew up near a Christmas tree farm, moved to Macon, and graduated from Mercer University with a philosophy degree. At 19, they were diagnosed as legally deaf; Affordable Care Act coverage later made reconstructive surgery possible.

After the 2016 Pulse massacre, Hudgins organized a Macon vigil that drew roughly 300 people. The gathering helped produce a coalition that secured protections for LGBTQ+ public employees in Macon-Bibb County. A year later, after leaving an unsafe home, Hudgins slept in their car, on a friend’s couch, and sometimes on the porch while canvassing for Bee Nguyen’s first state House campaign.

Anna Girzone

Their résumé eventually included the ACLU of Georgia, the Georgia Budget and Policy Institute, the New Georgia Project, and the Human Rights Campaign, where Hudgins served as Georgia state director. Hudgins learned government from outside its doors — by knocking on thousands of them.

They already treat representation as more than winning. After residents documented gunfire around neglected Longdale Park, Hudgins helped convert that evidence into $500,000 in county restoration and planning investments. Since winning the primary, they have established district commissions focused on faith and the “beloved community,” neighborhood leadership, policy solutions, and outreach.

“These folks elected an organizer, so I want to organize,” Hudgins says. “Democracy is a verb.”

That faith in collective action has survived homelessness, family estrangement, disability, and death threats. Hudgins credits therapy and the mentorship of Black women in Atlanta’s movement tradition with teaching them that optimism can be rigorous rather than naïve.

“Hope is a discipline,” Hudgins says, “and cynicism is a luxury that I cannot afford.”

This article is part of The Advocate’s Nov-Dec 2026 print issue, on newsstands November 3. Support queer media and subscribe — or download the issue through Apple News+, Zinio, Nook, or PressReader starting October 22.