Danica Roem

In 2020, Roem, a former journalist, co-sponsored a bill (HB 36) to protect freedom of the press. The bill would affirmatively protect the free-speech rights of student journalists at public schools and prohibit school administration from censoring their work unless it is defamatory, violates federal law, or is likely to spur unlawful acts of violence. The bill was co-sponsored in the House by Chris Hurst and has a companion bill in the Senate which was introduced by David Marsden. The bill was introduced in response to multiple instances of schools censoring journalism by students on campus, which is permitted under the 1988 Supreme Court ruling Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier. Similar bills have been introduced by Roem and other General Assembly members in three previous legislative sessions but have failed to advance.

In the 2019 cycle, Roem was challenged by Republican Kelly McGinn, a former human rights lawyer. Roem campaigned heavily on her vote to expand Virginia's Medicaid program and efforts to reduce traffic on the congested Route 28. On November 5, 2019, Roem defeated McGinn, becoming the first openly transgender state legislator to be re-elected.

In 2018, Roem earned the Gainesville Times / Prince William Times “Readers Choice Award” for “Best Local Politician” because of her focus on constituent service. Roem was awarded Victory Institute's “Tammy Baldwin Breakthrough Award” in 2018 for her dedicated work for the LGBTQ community.

In December 2018, the Gertrude Stein Democratic Club, the District of Columbia's largest local LGBT political group, honored Roem with its Justice Award.

Roem was recruited to run for the Virginia House of Delegates by her local Democratic Party and specifically Delegate Rip Sullivan, the recruiting chair for the Virginia House Democratic Caucus. She states that she had never considered running, but it did not take a lot of convincing. In 2017, a first-time candidate, Roem challenged Republican Bob Marshall, who was a 13-term incumbent representative. Marshall is a self-described "chief homophobe" and was a sponsor on Virginia's bill to end same-sex marriage and Virginia's bathroom bill.

Roem ran as a Democrat in the 2017 election for the 13th District of the Virginia House of Delegates against Republican incumbent Bob Marshall, who has held the office for the past 25 years. In January 2017, Marshall introduced the "Physical Privacy Act" (HB 1612), a bathroom bill which died in committee two weeks later in January. Marshall has referred to himself as Virginia's "chief homophobe".

Roem declared her candidacy in January 2017. She received endorsements from the Victory Fund and the Progressive Change Campaign Committee. Between April 1 and June 1, Roem received 1,064 donations of under $100, the highest of any delegate candidate in the state other than Chris Hurst. Roem's platform was based on economic and transportation issues, centered on a promise to fix Virginia State Route 28.

In July 2017, following President Donald Trump's announcement of a ban on transgender people serving in the U.S. military, Roem received a $50,000 donation from Milwaukee County Executive Chris Abele.

In August 2017, Roem received an endorsement from the Human Rights Campaign (HRC). In October 2017, she was endorsed by former Vice President Joe Biden.

In September 2017, Roem posted a web video entitled "Inspire", criticizing her opponent's refusal to debate her or to refer to her as a woman. In the video, she says "There are millions of transgender people in the country, and we all deserve representation in government."

In October 2017, Roem's campaign received reports that residents of her district were receiving anti-transgender robocalls. Roem said the calls were being made by the American Principles Project, which has circulated a petition to "Stop Transgender Medical Experimentation on Children". Also in October 2017, the Republican Party of Virginia mailed campaign fliers attacking comments Roem made during a September radio interview. Although the fliers, approved by Roem's opponent, used male pronouns to refer to Roem, the party's executive director dismissed the idea that they were attacking Roem's gender identity.

In 2012, Roem started her transition and on December 3, 2013 she began hormone replacement therapy. She described her friends and co-workers as very supportive during her transition, stating that "no one cared. It was great. I could just keep doing my job". In 2015, she changed her name to Danica. Growing up she often felt like she had no one to talk to about the way she was feeling about her gender and it wasn't until she left for college that she started to explore her identity. While at college, though, she described her struggle with gender dysphoria as "suffocating" and would often not leave her room for days. She won her university's gender buster award, and received negative responses due to it in her school's student newspaper. Due to this, she did not feel comfortable coming out during that time.

When Roem was a child, her grandfather would tell her, "the basis of my knowledge comes from reading the newspaper every day." This influenced her to become a journalist. She was a journalist for ten and a half years. Her first job out of college, in 2006, was at the Gainesville Times in Gainesville, Virginia. As Dan Roem, she was lead reporter for the Gainesville Times and Prince William Times. She then went to work as a news editor in August 2015 at the Montgomery County Sentinel in Rockville, Maryland, where she was employed until December 2016. She then decided to run for public office. She said her journalism career has given her a wide knowledge of policy issues. She won awards from the Virginia Press Association seven times.

Roem first became interested in politics in 2004 following President George W. Bush's proposal to add a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage. After that, she was interested in looking into how the government operates and how she could change it.

Danica Roem (/ˈ r oʊ m / ROHM ; born September 30, 1984) is an American journalist and politician of the Democratic Party. In the 2017 Virginia elections she was elected to the Virginia House of Delegates, winning the Democratic primary for the 13th district on June 13, and the general election on November 7. She is the first openly transgender person to be elected to the Virginia General Assembly, and in January 2018 became the first to both be elected and serve while openly transgender in any U.S. state legislature. In December 2017 The Advocate named her as a finalist for its "Person of the Year". In January 2018, Delegate Roem was included on the cover of Time Magazine in their "The Avengers" feature, highlighting new women candidates and elected officials from around the country.