MAEBE A. GIRL TRAILBLAZES A PATH TO CONGRESS

2021 SPRING-SUMMER

THIS IDEA OF INCREMENTAL CHANGE IS GETTING US NOWHERE.

—MAEBE A. GIRL

Unconventional times may call for unconventional candidates, and Maebe A. Girl could be the sort of person that causes voters to rally in the 2022 midterm elections.

MAEBE A. GIRL

TRAILBLAZES PATH TO CONGRESS

BY MATTHEW RODRIGUEZ

PHOTO BY WHITNEY GIBSON

She holds the distinction of first drag queen ever elected to public office in America two years ago, and she won reelection to the Silver Lake Neighborhood Council in April where she serves as treasurer and Region 5 Representative.

Meet Maebe A. Girl – a 34-year-old trans non-binary – someone who does not identify as exclusively male or female.

She often wears a body conscious dress, topped with a tailored jacket and three-strand pearl necklace. She may opt for black platform boots or pumps with matching tights.

A photo of the neighborhood councilperson in a sleeveless green blouse exposes a series of wristto-shoulder tattoos. She alters her hair color from jet black with soft body waves, to platinum-blond tresses depending on her mood that day.

Meticulous. From the sweep of black eyeliner to a soft contrast of pinkish lipstick. Maebe is more than 6 feet tall. She prefers the pronouns she, her and they. And when work on behalf of her constituents is over, she “hosts, produces and performs in drag shows around Los Angeles,” according to her website.

“For decades, drag queens have been a vital part of the LGBTQ community and are often pillars of the community when things go wrong,” she says. “And, I carry that over into my political world. Whether or not drag is trying to be political, it’s an involuntary act against what our society says are how things should be.”

Voters swept Maebe and her progressive agenda into office with a slate of like-minded neighborhood public servants in 2019. A year later, she placed third with more than 20,000 votes in a bid to unseat Adam Schiff, the prominent democrat from the 28th Congressional District in California.

“L.A. is such a progressive city, or at least we think it is. But, if you look at our representation it

2021 SPRING-SUMMER

is very centrist,” Maebe says. “I don’t think that’s an accurate reflection of its people.”

So, she will make a second attempt to beat the incumbent, Congressman Adam Schiff in the midterms next year. In 2020, Maebe ran her first primary election campaign hoping to unseat Schiff for California’s 28th Congressional District seat where she placed third behind runner-up Eric Early. The margin was narrow: only 1,114 votes behind Early.

For Maebe, the result of the 2020 general election was anything but a defeat.

“Especially for an unconventional candidate, somebody who is a trans person, a drag queen, we weren’t really sure what to expect. And, we were so grateful for the outcome. We came closer than we ever thought imaginable,” she said.

If elected, Maebe would be not only the first transgender person ever elected to Congress, but she would join a growing faction of progressives within the Democratic Party who advocate for popular policies such as Medicare for All and the Green New Deal. Maebe seems bold and unafraid. She does not hide her stance as a progressive alternative to Schiff.

“I am technically running as a Democrat, but I am a leftist, a progressive,” she says.

The future of progressives within the Democratic Party is uncertain. Some proponents advocate pushing Democrats to the left, while others advocate the formation of a third party. Maebe says the answer to the million-dollar question for progressives lies somewhere in the middle.

“The future of progressives and leftists . . . I think it needs to be both,” she says. “Democrats know their vulnerabilities and progressives are their vulnerabilities. They are not actually in favor of a Green New Deal or Medicare for All and that is because of their corporate ties to the pharmaceutical, insurance, and fossil fuel industries. Unfortunately, money is power and that needs to change.”

Maebe says she will not accept corporate dollars. This places her at philosophical odds with the incumbent who accepted $958,089 in contributions from lawyers and lobbyists in 2020, according to The Center for Responsive Politics (CRP).

Schiff’s campaign committee and leadership PAC raised a total of $22.4 million in 2019-2020. This included contributions from the University of California, Stanford University, Disney, Davis Companies, Comcast, AT&T, retirees, Raytheon Technologies, Boeing, law firms and others.

Maebe says she is not running to smear Schiff, but says she is bothered by the idealization of today’s politicians. She says his voting record speaks for itself.

“I’m a firm believer that a politician is only as good as their voting record,” Maebe says. “If you take a look at Adam Schiff’s voting record, there’s a lot of iffy stuff in there. I wanted to run as somebody who THE FUTURE OF PROGRESSIVES AND LEFTISTS . . . I THINK IT NEEDS TO BE BOTH,” SHE SAYS. “DEMOCRATS KNOW THEIR VULNERABILITIES AND PROGRESSIVES ARE THEIR VULNERABILITIES. THEY ARE NOT ACTUALLY IN FAVOR OF A GREEN NEW DEAL OR MEDICARE FOR ALL AND THAT IS BECAUSE OF THEIR CORPORATE TIES TO THE PHARMACEUTICAL, INSURANCE, AND FOSSIL FUEL INDUSTRIES. UNFORTUNATELY, MONEY IS POWER AND THAT NEEDS TO CHANGE.

is more like the everyday person, someone working class, someone who has experienced oppression in their lives.”

A cursory glance at Schiff’s voting record reveals ties to the military industrial complex and corporate firms. Maebe unflinchingly lays out the facts.

“If you take a look at who his donors are, his donors are weapons manufacturers and defense contractors. Northrop, Grumman, and Lockheed Martin who have given hundreds of thousands of dollars to his campaign.”

CRP shows Northrop contributed $22,000 to Schiff’s leadership PAC and campaign finance in 2015-2016.

This unconventional politician is seizing the moment to cement a place for herself in the political arena and convince voters of the common interests and goals that cross party and identity lines.

She imagines a vast and influential coalition that has the power to drive change. Maebe says policies like Medicare for All, the Green New Deal, and abolishing ICE are common goals that voters can all rally around to create tangible policy.

What is most impressive about Maebe A. Girl is her recognition of the intersectionality of social issues that are widely treated as unrelated. She recognizes that advocacy for one cause will almost always mean advocacy for another.

“The thing is, we can actually focus on both at the same time, they are deeply related,” she says. “For example, medical justice is LBGTQ justice, you can’t have one without the other. This idea of incremental change is getting us nowhere.”

The issue of homelessness in Los Angeles County is particularly close to her heart and doubts anyone living in the city would deny that homelessness is the most pressing issue facing Los Angeles. This is a situation that Maebe says has been building for years, especially with the COVID-19 pandemic.

“How many people who were already housinginsecure have now been thrown over the edge? It’s gotten so much worse,” Maebe says. “And you can see it visually throughout the city.”

She places particular focus on the push by Los Angeles City Councilmember for the 13th District, Mitch O’Farrell to turn Echo Park Lake with its many encampments into an enforcement zone, which would allow LAPD to force unhoused people to vacate.

Maebe says that the root causes of homelessness are often housing instability, rising rents, and mental health issues on an individual level. “It’s a very complex question with no simple answer,” Maebe says. “But there is so much more that our federal, state and local governments can be doing. There’s just a lot of underlying issues where we are not taking care of our people.”

The niche that Maebe A. Girl has carved out for herself as a political drag queen began to attract attention in 2017. She performed political numbers that parodied Trump administration members like Kellyanne Conway, Sarah Sanders and Melania Trump at local drag brunches in Silver Lake.

The goal was to entertain and be funny, but also critical. Educate the audience and shed light on what unfolds at the highest levels of power.

“I vividly recall one of the first times I did a Melania Trump number and somebody coming up to me afterward asking who Melania Trump was,” Maebe says. “I was a little at a loss for words and came out of it thinking if they don’t know who these people are, then they probably don’t know the atrocities they are committing.”

Insofar as the intersection where politics meets drag performance art, the symbiosis has always been there. Drag seeks to transcend rigid concepts of gender expression, and it challenges conformity.

“They’re actually so much more connected than the average person would ever think,” Maebe says. “The act of going out in drag is a political statement.” ∫