The next out member of Congress may be a gay man from Utah

One of the next out LGBTQ+ members of the U.S. House of Representatives may be a gay man from … Utah.

Derek Kitchen, a former Utah state senator and Salt Lake City Council member as well as a marriage equality activist and Biden administration official, has entered the race for the Democratic nomination in the newly drawn First Congressional District, which covers all of Salt Lake City and some of its nearest suburbs. It’s likely the most Democratic-leaning district in the deeply conservative state. Kamala Harris easily carried Salt Lake City and its surrounding county of the same name in the 2024 presidential election.

“The people of Salt Lake City have not had real representation in Congress in generations,” he says. Salt Lake City and the surrounding area that have been divided for 35 years or so by congressional or by statewide gerrymandering, he says.

“This is my community,” he says, noting that he grew up and went to school within the boundaries of the new district and that the restaurant he opened nine years ago, Laziz Kitchen, is there too — on Harvey Milk Boulevard; he advocated for the renaming as a member of the City Council. (A Republican state lawmaker wants to rename it again — for Charlie Kirk.) His Utah Senate district covers about a third of the congressional district. “This has been where I've spent my entire life,” he points out.

Related: A (Virtual) Walk Down Salt Lake City's Harvey Milk Blvd.

“When I saw the map and how close to home it hits, for me, this became a no-brainer,” he says. “My gut and my, my heart just aligned, and it became clear that I needed to jump in and continue to advance the interests of my community here in Salt Lake.”

“Utah’s never had a member of Congress like me, someone who represents the LGBTQ community, young people, public service and labor groups,” he says. “So that's number one. And the second thing here is this community raised me, and it raised me to be a fighter for people and to include everyone.

“Right now, for the LGBTQ community especially, but people of all different types of backgrounds, they’re being targeted by not only Donald Trump and his administration but being scapegoated by members of Congress. You’re seeing them being bullied by the state legislatures, including the Utah state legislature, and I just sit back and think, wow.”

“I’ve built a career of standing strong for my community, sometimes taking positions that the establishment doesn’t like but ultimately prevailing, and I know that this is what the moment needs right now,” Kitchen adds.

He first made news in 2013 as the lead plaintiff in Kitchen v. Herbert, a case challenging Utah’s ban on same-sex marriage. A federal judge ruled the ban unconstitutional, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10^th Circuit upheld that ruling in 2014, meaning same-sex couples in all states in the circuit were entitled to legal marriage. Besides Utah, those states were Colorado, Kansas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Wyoming.

That was poetic justice, he says, because in 2008 Proposition 8 passed and temporarily revoked marriage equality in California — and much of the money behind Prop. 8 came from Mormons in Utah.

Kitchen was elected to the Salt Lake City Council in 2015, and he left that post in 2018 when he was elected to the Utah Senate. He served one term in the Senate, losing a close Democratic primary race in 2022.

One of his proudest accomplishments in the Senate, he says, was passage in 2020 of the Housing Loss Mitigation Amendments, which helped families avoid eviction. He also worked with a bipartisan coalition to bar licensed professionals from subjecting minors to conversion therapy. He sponsored bills to address climate change, expand family planning services, raise wages, and end LGBTQ+ “panic defenses.” These didn’t get through the Republican-dominated legislature.

After leaving the Senate, he was senior vice president and deputy director of the U.S. Export-Import Bank during the Biden administration.

Related: The Advocate's Champions of Pride From the Pacific West Come to Life

If elected to Congress, he says, he would work for affordable housing, health care, and childcare, and for passage of the Equality Act, which would ban anti-LGBTQ+ discrimination in employment, housing, public accommodations, and several other aspects of life. He says he would stand up for transgender people, who are under constant attack by the Trump administration.

“It’s the responsibility of the lesbian and gay members of our community to stand shoulder to shoulder with members of the transgender community, because they are our brothers and sisters,” he says.

The last Democratic congressman from Utah was Ben McAdams, who held office from 2019 to 2021. McAdams and Kathleen Riebe, a Utah state senator, have entered the race for the First District’s Democratic nomination. Both are LGBTQ+ allies; McAdams received a score of 81 out of 100 on the Human Rights Campaign’s Congressional Scorecard in his single term, while Riebe has opposed anti-LGBTQ+ bills in the state legislature.

Kitchen says he respects both of them, although he notes that McAdams, a former Salt Lake County mayor, won in what was then a Republican-leaning district. It’s a now solidly Democratic district that needs more progressive representation, Kitchen says: “We deserve somebody who is pro-choice and going to fight for a woman’s right to choose.”

McAdams has said he opposes abortion in most cases, in keeping with the teachings of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, of which he is a member. But he has also said politicians should not be making decisions about terminating a pregnancy.

“I want Ben to do well in his life, but this is not the right seat for him,” Kitchen says. He adds that Riebe is a friend, and they worked together in the legislature.

The one Republican who has declared his candidacy for the seat is U.S. Rep. Blake Moore, who is currently representing the old First District, before the boundaries were redrawn.

Utah’s Republican-controlled government is still fighting the new boundaries. In November, Utah District Judge Dianna Gibson ruled in favor of voters and activists who had challenged the legislature’s map and approved the map that is in place now, with the First District covering all of Salt Lake City and leaning Democratic.

Republican legislative leaders call the Gibson-approved map gerrymandered — which is what Kitchen and others say about previous maps — and the legislature is meeting in special session beginning Tuesday to propose a state constitutional amendment on redistricting. Kitchen says he’s also heard the legislature may move the candidates’ filing date from January to March to give the state time to appeal Gibson’s ruling.

He’s concerned, but despite that, “I am in the race” to stay, he says.

The primary election will be June 23. “So we’ve got about seven months,” he says, “and doing this really well will mean the LGBTQ community is going to be able to send another member of Congress to Washington and grow the Equality Caucus, which to me is such a powerful statement coming from a place like Utah.”