Downingtown may be the first Pennsylvania community to elect an openly transgender mayor

When Erica Deuso goes door to door in Downingtown asking her neighbors to make her the first out transgender person to be elected mayor in Pennsylvania, her identity rarely comes up.

Instead, she said, her potential constituents talk to her about traffic problems and public safety.

A member of the Chester County Democratic Party’s executive committee and board member on several local and statewide LGBTQ advocacy groups, Deuso said she chose to run for mayor to serve her community, and maintain its “good neighbor spirit.”

But her campaign is historic and, as President Donald Trump’s administration pursues policies that target transgender and nonbinary Americans, Deuso knows her candidacy carries a strain of resistance.

“Trump’s rhetoric, the executive orders overall have made it harder for people like me to just live our lives. But I refuse to let that fear define that campaign,” Deuso said. “Some of the best pushback is just being visible.”

Deuso, originally from Vermont, became politically active when Sen. Bernie Sanders ran for president in 2016 on a platform promising Medicare for all. She works in management at a pharmaceutical company and emphasizes her ability to build consensus and cut costs.

If Deuso prevails in a competitive Democratic primary on May 20 and defeats a GOP opponent in November she would be the first transgender person elected mayor in the commonwealth, according to the Victory Fund, which works to elect LGBTQ individuals to public office.

Deuso doesn’t have a guaranteed path to victory. Her primary opponent, Barry Cassidy, gained respect from many in the borough’s business community leading the community’s main street program and advocating on flooding issues. But Deuso earned key endorsements from the local Democratic Party and outgoing mayor.

Kristen Cahoon, a Downingtown committeeperson who voted to endorse Deuso, said Deuso had a strong understanding of what it would take to be mayor, and had been preparing for years.

“I think you get into politics because of your heart but to be a good strong political leader you need to treat the work like a business, and Erica does that,” she said.

LGBTQ rights advocates in the community say Deuso’s candidacy marks a major step forward in representation, offering an example to gender nonconforming youth and helping to normalize the existence of transgender individuals for the general public.

“I don’t really have enough words to state how impactful that would be for the LGBTQ+ community and especially transgender and nonbinary youth,” said Carrie Stare, president of the LGBTQ Equality Alliance of Chester County, which plans the county’s annual pride festivities.

As of May 2024 there were fewer than 50 out transgender elected officials across the United States and just three in Pennsylvania (all at the local level), according to the Victory Fund’s research arm, the Victory Institute.

Stare said Deuso’s campaign lends essential visibility to transgender and other gender nonconforming Americans, a small but growing subset of the LGBTQ population whose identities have been belittled and vilified by political forces on the right.

Since Trump took office in January, his administration has sought to limit gender-affirming care for transgender youth, eliminated legal acknowledgment of nonbinary Americans, targeted transgender members of the U.S. military, and stripped funding from schools that allow transgender girls and women to participate in the sport aligning with their gender identity.

Often, trans youth are the individuals taking the brunt of political attacks as executive orders target specifically treatment of transgender children and teens. Sean Williams, vice president of the LGBTQ Equality Alliance of Chester County, said that for some of these youth who can’t vote and are dependent on their parents, “visibility is all you can really have.”

Deuso, who has been out for well over a decade, said she hopes that through her campaign she can serve as a role model to those youth to see a transgender person leading their own or a neighboring local community. To see a strong trans woman leading a community, she said, will send a strong message to trans kids about their opportunities.

“I didn’t have many role models growing up because no one looked like me, no one had my experience,” she said. “If a young person in Downingtown sees me and thinks ‘I can be myself and still be a professional, still have a good job, still have all this education,’ that means everything.”

Ultimately, Deuso said, her campaign isn’t about being transgender. It’s about being a good neighbor and leading the community she calls home. Her experience as a transgender woman, she said, will help her do a better job of ensuring city systems help everyone, especially those who may fall through the cracks.

“I want to be known as a good mayor, I want to be known as a good person. I want to be known as a person who gets things done. Not just a trans one. Not just a visible one,” she said.

In the primary, Deuso is running against Cassidy, a Democrat and longtime resident who has worked on Downingtown’s main street program and revitalization efforts for communities across the region.

The winner of the primary will face Republican Richard Bryant, a retired cybersecurity expert, in the general election in November. In recent years Democrats have held an advantage in the borough.

Bryant said his campaign would focus primarily on development, flooding and cybersecurity issues.

“I’ve had some experience all over the United States with local, state and federal government,” Bryant said.

Downingtown Borough’s mayor has relatively limited power. Most lawmaking authority goes to the borough council but the mayor oversees the police department, is a tiebreaking vote on council, and has various duties representing the borough.

Thus far, the contest for mayor has not focused on Deuso’s identity but rather the candidates’ approach to the office.

Cassidy has focused his campaign on projects mitigating flooding issues in the borough, something that was a major problem in Downingtown following Hurricane Ida in 2021. Following the hurricane, Cassidy formed the Downingtown Resilience Fund, which has focused on finding a solution to prevent future catastrophic floods.

In an interview with The Inquirer, Cassidy said he was seeking the mayor’s office so he could have greater control over flood-mitigation projects he’s already started pursuing.

“I feel that I would have more leverage in dealing with some of the decisions that are going to have to be made,” Cassidy said.

A longtime face in the borough, Cassidy has earned the support of some in the business community that have known him for a long time and respect his work.

Danny Castaldi, a former Democratic council member who runs a plumbing business in Downingtown, said he knew Cassidy well but hadn’t met Deuso yet. Cassidy, he said, had a good track record of delivering for local communities.

“When my kids were young we were the only ones pushing strollers; now there are young couples everywhere,” said Castaldi, who credited this change to a main street program led by Cassidy but stopped short of endorsing a candidate.

Cahoon, the Democratic committeeperson, said the party rejected Cassidy’s candidacy because he had positions that didn’t align with the Democratic Party and was too focused on a single issue.

She pointed to prior Facebook posts in which Cassidy said he couldn’t vote for former President Joe Biden while sharing an article about Robert F. Kennedy Jr.‘s bid for president and others posted before he entered the mayor’s race in which he was dismissive of the validity of transgender identities.

In an interview Cassidy said he still considered himself a Democrat but was frustrated with what he saw as suppression of ideas in the party. He compared transgender identities to individuals who claim to be a race they are not.

“I didn’t make those remarks about her. I made the remarks way before I was running because that’s the way I feel,” he said Friday.

Deuso, for her part, has made a broader pitch for her role in the office, basing her campaign on infrastructure issues like flooding as well as enhancing downtown Downingtown and working with the police department to emphasize mental health and wellness and reduce the spread of drugs.

“I’m not an expert on everything,” Deuso said. “I’m a nuts-and-bolts person; I listen, I get things done and I build consensus.”

Phil Dague, the current mayor, endorsed Deuso before Cassidy entered the race. He said her passion working on political campaigns and for causes she cares about would translate well to work in Downingtown.

“She’s somebody to be reckoned with,” he said.