Pennsylvania state Rep. Jessica Benham is running for a third two-year term in her heavily blue district in Pittsburgh, south of downtown, two rivers away from the Andy Warhol Museum, and not far from Liberty Ave., where the chosen family of Queer as Folk cavorted a generation ago.
Benham, who identifies as bisexual and speaks freely about living with autism, has racked up Soviet-style vote totals in her previous elections, winning with 78.8% in the general in 2022 and a whopping 98.2% in the Democratic primary in April. Republicans aren’t even running an opponent against the 32-year-old in November.
Those facts have freed Benham to concentrate on policy in her roles on the Pennsylvania Health and Human Services committees, and most importantly, constituent services in House District 36, which she says gives her the most “hope and joy” in her job.
Benham spoke from her district office in a converted row house in the Carrick neighborhood of Pittsburgh, across the street from a branch of the Carnegie Library. The high-visibility location is a promise to constituents that “government is there and working for them.”
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LGBTQ Nation: You studied political science and communications at Bethel University in St. Paul, Minnesota, which describes itself as a Christian college. How big a role does faith play in your life, and what’s your reaction to the rise of Christian nationalism in the country?
Rep. Jessica Benham: I am a queer pastor’s daughter, and so that comes with its own set of difficulties: growing up feeling like you couldn’t be who you are, even struggling to really understand early on who you are. And that was something that I was really processing, I think, throughout college. But moving away from home really gave me a chance to explore who I was, to meet other LGBTQ+ folks who were experiencing similar things, because I certainly wasn’t the only person in that boat, even at a place like Bethel University.
For a long time, I didn’t really want much of anything to do with religion because of what I had experienced, but now I have the opportunity to define my own relationship with a higher power. There’s nothing in the Bible that says that we can’t love who we love or be who we are. In fact, it very much says the opposite, that God has created us as who we are and loves us as who we are.
And so for me, looking at the rise of Christian nationalism is scary because it’s a stark departure from what I believe the true values of, frankly, most if not all religions are, which is love, community, acceptance, and support. And so weaponizing religion against vulnerable people, and seeing that done so openly by members of the Christian right, is disappointing and terrifying, but not unexpected.
Does religion have a place in U.S. politics?
Anybody who tells you that their religious beliefs don’t influence how they govern, they’re lying to you, right? We govern and we legislate from our lived experience, but a formal role? Absolutely not. Folks can have their individual religious beliefs, but there is no formal role for religion in government.
Donald Trump and J.D. Vance have spent a lot of time campaigning in Pennsylvania. You are an admitted childless cat lady living in the Southside Slopes of Pittsburgh with your feline companion, Ravi. Let’s say you ran into the Republican nominee for vice president at a donut shop. What would you say to him?
[Laughing] Oh, that he made a big mistake. Anyone who’s been on the internet for more than five minutes should know that you don’t take on the childless cat ladies.
What’s the status of reproductive rights in Pennsylvania, and are they legally protected?
At this point, they are mostly legally protected in the state of Pennsylvania. There are some exceptions and stipulations, and I would, of course, like to see stronger protections, not just around the issue of abortion, but also around IVF, around birth control. I do think that we need to be as proactive as possible in defending our access to reproductive healthcare.
While you were studying for an MA in Bioethics from the University of Pittsburgh, you were involved in an effort to organize a union of graduate workers. What was the result, and why do white-collar workers in an academic setting need union representation?
Well, if you’ve got a boss, you need a union. So we can start there. But that particular effort ended up failing by 30-some votes, in large part because of the union-busting efforts of the administration at the University of Pittsburgh. They were outright lying to students about what a union would mean for them.
So we lost that particular effort, but that has restarted, and there are more folks involved now. Because what has happened since is that the university has taken away healthcare benefits — a lot of them. Graduate workers realized, hey, if we had had a union, they would not have been able to unilaterally do that. That would have been something we would have been bargaining for.
Prior to your election in 2020, you were the director of development for the Pittsburgh Center for Autistic Advocacy, which you co-founded, and you’ve been vocal about living with the same disability. How has it impacted your relationships with colleagues in the state house?
I think there’s more barriers to the presence of folks with disabilities in politics — that’s something important to highlight and mention. In a lot of ways, I’ve had to overcome more than my colleagues to experience similar levels of success, but I think I’ve done a decent job at it. The governor signed one of my bills into law this year, which will level the playing field between smaller pharmacies and the big chains, and it was no small feat, I can tell you, to get a bill passed through a divided legislature and signed into law.
But I did it by building relationships, both on my own side of the aisle and also across the aisle, and then, of course, on the other side of the building, as well, in the Senate.
You are the first woman in the Pennsylvania legislature to identify as LGBTQ+. When did you come out as bisexual and how has that impacted your public and your private life?
I came out in a very limited way in college. You’re not really allowed to be out at Bethel University, which is a fact that I remind them of any time they call me to ask for alumni donations.
But, you know, I was out much more widely after that, in graduate school and in my work life. I still haven’t really had that conversation with my family. Obviously, it’s very publicly out there now in the press, so I know that they know, but it’s just never really talked about, and I’m still processing how I feel about that. Maybe we’ll talk about it someday, but for now, it’s one of those unspoken things.
Interesting fact: the Pennsylvania LGBT Equality Caucus was formed in 2011 without any out LGBTQ+ lawmakers because there weren’t any at the time; like the U.S. Congress now, the Pennsylvania Equality Caucus accepts all members. How many LGBTQ+ members are serving today?
There are now six of us, with a variety of different identities within the community. There’s something to be said for being supported by folks who have a deep understanding of what it is that you’re going through. And, you know, it’s nice to be not the last one in now. When I got elected, Brian Sims and Malcolm Kenyatta took me under their wings and were great, sort of big brothers to me.
You helped pass legislation through the Pennsylvania House to protect LGBTQ+ civil rights. What does the bill do, what’s the status, and what does it share with the Equality Act currently stalled in the U.S. Congress?
The Fairness Act does some incredible things, but it’s also representative of how much further we have to go. It protects folks from discrimination in education, employment, and housing on the basis of gender, sex, sexual identity, or orientation, and it adds disability, as well. It goes beyond the current protections that we have federally, which are pretty much limited.
It does some really, really good things, basic things, right? And that’s why I say it’s symbolic of how much further we have to go. To say that someone shouldn’t be discriminated against because of who they love or who they are is so basic, right? You would think that this would not be something that would be controversial, but it is, and that’s why it’s stalled in the State Senate, same as the Equality Act is stalled in the U.S. Senate.
I have cried a lot in the Capitol building, because you don’t think about what your first death threat’s gonna feel like, you know, until it happens, and it’s a brutal feeling. But when the Fairness Act passed on the House floor, it was the first time that I had cried for a good reason. And there’s this great picture out there of me and Malcolm, who led on the bill, holding each other and sobbing on the floor when the vote total was announced, and it just perfectly captures what that moment felt like.
Pittsburgh is the setting for the American version of the groundbreaking TV series Queer as Folk. Were you a fan of the show, and which version do you prefer? The British original or the American remake?
That’s a great question. I have never seen either! [Laughing] I don’t actually own a television.
Pittsburgh doesn’t have a single “gay village” like lots of other American cities; it’s got several smaller gay-friendly neighborhoods, and, according to Reddit, an abundance of “theyborhoods.” What is a “theyborhood,” and what does an LGBTQ+ community dispersed across the city rather than in one place say about Pittsburgh?
I have never heard the term “theyborhood” before! That’s a new one for me. I think I like it, right? It seems a little bit more potentially inclusive than gayborhood.
We have a number of centers of community for folks throughout the Pittsburgh region, and so while there’s no one, centralized gayborhood in the way that there might be in, say, Philly, for example, there are a lot of places, including but not just limited to bars, where folks come together and those are really valuable.
What we don’t have, really, in Pittsburgh proper, is one that caters to women from the community — we don’t really have a good lesbian bar, and so that’s something where there’s an opportunity.
You support a ban on gifts to elected officials. What are the details? Is that any gift of any amount, however small, and even if it’s reported?
I do support a gift ban to elected officials, but I think it’s really important to define what that looks like, right? If you do a strict gift ban, that means that if somebody hands me a bottle of water, I can’t take it. And that is overkill. I think in general we should be okay with folks accepting sort of de minimis gifts. There’s something to be said for a little bit of flexibility for the small stuff.
But it’s interesting, this is actually the first year where I will have any gifts that are reportable, because in Pennsylvania, gifts in the aggregate above $250 have to be reported. And the way that our gifts law is currently written, you have to report gifts from anyone who is not a member of your immediate family or a spouse.
Well, my partner is a registered lobbyist, and so according to the gifts law, I have to report every single thing that my partner gives me, because over the course of a year, I will receive more than $250 worth of stuff. [Laughing] So the list currently contains a number of different books, bouquets of flowers, a stuffed otter animal. It’s a little funny, right? If we were married, I wouldn’t have to report those things.
What can you tell us about your partner and where does the cat fit in?
[Laughs] Well, the cat is a big fan. But beyond that, I think I learned a lesson around keeping my personal life as private as I possibly can. There are very few things in this world that I get to keep low-key.
Would you support mandatory national service for young people in the military, or some other form of public service of their choosing, like Teach for America or the Peace Corps?
No, I don’t think that I would. I mean, I’ll be honest, I haven’t really given that a whole lot of in-depth thought. But, you know, my first gut reaction is to say no. I don’t think that when you force people to do public service they learn the same lessons that they would learn if they choose to do it of their own volition.
What’s the single most important thing the world should do to address the climate crisis?
Only one thing? Oh, killer. One thing, that is a really hard question.
I think we’re at this tipping point, right? This precipice that I feel like we’re gonna fall off of. I’ll keep doing everything that I can, obviously, but sometimes it feels — and I say this as a young person — like it’s too late, like the generations before me failed, and so it’s almost more about managing the climate crisis. Obviously, we need to take steps to prevent catastrophe, but we know that the climate crisis is going to hit inequitably. Folks who are living in poverty are going to be harder hit. Folks in the Global South are going to be harder hit, so we have work to do there.
But broadly, transitioning toward sources of renewable energy is probably the top thing.
In addressing climate change and infrastructure, you’ve said that you “brought together everyone’s voices, including workers and communities hit hardest by pollution, for difficult conversations about energy production and the environment.” Am I right to think you’re talking about fracking there, which is a controversial topic in Pennsylvania?
I’m talking about any number of things there, right? For example, we talk about hydrogen for heavy industry. There are a ton of different perspectives on what industries that’s appropriate for. It’s not just about fracking, it’s a much broader conversation than that.
I’ve been in some not-so-fun rooms that I’ve pulled together of folks who disagree intensely about the direction we should be moving, but it was important to me to arrange those conversations because when we silo perspectives, people end up talking past each other in public, and there’s no real desire to try to move forward together.
There is space for the workforce in the production of renewable energy. There is space for environmental concerns in the labor movement, and if we don’t facilitate those conversations, which sometimes — I mean, look, I was on one call in particular that I remember with people screaming at each other, but you know what? At least they were talking. That doesn’t happen often enough, and I’m sure that fracking was a part of those conversations.
Republicans are trying to make an issue of Vice President Harris’ position on fracking, which has changed. She called for a ban on the process in her first campaign for president and has since modified her position to include it among broader set of energy goals. Where do you come down on the issue?
I hear two concerns that folks raise to the top when I talk to them: the economy and reproductive rights. Those are the two things that I hear in conversations with folks. You know, regular people who aren’t hyper-involved in politics, those are the issues that I hear about from folks. I think that Vice President Harris is doing an excellent job of speaking to those concerns that voters have on the issue of energy production.
I mean, the Inflation Reduction Act, it’s mind-blowing to me that they have managed to get that done considering the hyper-partisan environment that is national politics — the biggest investment in our infrastructure and in climate justice, literally ever, and so that’s something that we should be talking about. Those things go hand in hand: investing in our infrastructure, investing in our workforce and investing in our environment don’t have to be at odds.
Your governor, Josh Shapiro, has navigated that issue with finesse. What advice do you think he’s given Harris on the subject, and what have you drawn from his example?
It’s a good question, and you’d have to ask him what advice he’s given to the vice president.
Predictions!
My prediction is that hope and joy will win in November. Our greatest defense against the rise of authoritarianism, against the rise of fascism, is our ability to feel hope and joy. If we want to address any number of the crises that we are facing as a country, as a world, whether we’re talking about economic inequality, whether we’re talking about reproductive justice, whether we’re talking about the environment, infrastructure, so on and so forth, if we want to make meaningful strides on any of those issues, our only options are hope and joy.
What is the best part of representing the constituents of Pennsylvania House District 46?
What I love about being a state rep, in particular, is that I can get from one end of my district to the other in 15 minutes. Now, I have a dense urban district, right? And so that means I can be just about everywhere if I am in town. And I love getting to go to community events, community meetings, really meeting folks where they are. That level of accessibility, I think, makes a meaningful difference in folks’ ability to feel like government is there and working for them. And for me, it just brings me a lot of that hope and that joy that I was talking about.
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