“That’s supposed to make me pretentious but I’m not.
People care about constituent service [and] I’m good at it.
That’s all.”
One month after graduating college with a journalism degree, she landed a job at the Gainesville Times.
PerPeople, she was awarded honors from the Virginia Press Association seven times.
Though Roem is now the onemakingnews as an assemblywoman, she still very much relates to her earlier career.
“I’ll always be a reporter before I’m a politician,” she toldJezebel.
He later tried to passbills mandatingwhich bathrooms transgender people used.
Roem knew the race would likely get personal.
“I was well aware of what I was getting myself into.”
“It’s not my responsibility now,” Marshall told The Washington Post.
“People who are there have to best figure out what to do.”
After her win, Roem toldTimeshe wasn’t worried about facing discrimination from her colleagues or constituents.
“I’ve encountered it for [10] months,” she said.
“And I won anyway.”
Her obsession for local issues and infrastructure stems from personal frustrations, starting when she was just a kid.
For Roem, nerding out on local issues was a passion.
She toldJezebelthat she found inspiration fromMichelle Obama’s “when they go low, we go high” speech.
Roem knew her opponent well from covering him for nearly a decade as a journalist.
Roem is the frontwoman for the band Cab Ride Home, whichdescribes itselfas “Virginia-brewed drunken thrash metal.”
“Why would I have to change who I am to get to run for government?”
Along with the sound, it’s the community that makes metal music part of her identity.
“I have not lost a single friend during my gender transition.
Not one,” she told Vice.
and Life of Agony.
Danica Roem toldVicethat her group Cab Ride Home’s most well-known song was called “Drunk on Arrival.”
“I spent a lot of my 20s at the bottom of a bottle …
I used alcohol … to make friends.
How come I can’t live this way?'”
she explained to Vice.
“I know how to talk to reporters!”
On the flipside, her opponent refused to do most interviews, which didn’t exactly help his campaign.
“And I actually value the role that reporters play.
I know, what a concept!”
(This policy has sincebeen overturned duringthe Biden administration.)
Roem turned her frustrations into organizing energy.
She released a statement, outlining the hypocrisy of the new rule.
is the height of hypocrisy," said Roem, viaThe Washington Post.
“Transgender military members .
have done more to serve and protect their country than Donald Trump ever will.”
“There’s a lot more nice than there is hate here,” she said.
She also celebratedKamala Harris’historic vice presidency with her daughter and urged others to do the same.
“I wanted her to know this is open to biracial girls like her.
She can succeed because of who she is, not despite it,” shetweeted.
She has acalico named Melindaand a tuxedo cat namedBela.
She was joined byRachel Maddow,Don Lemon, and Lena Waithe in the list of 2017 honorees.
In March 2021, sheposted a phototo Twitter holding up long bunches of her hair tied up neatly.
She decided to enter the 2005 competition, wearing a pink skirt, stockings, and heels.
“I can’t even describe how free I felt just walking around campus that day.”
While the moment was powerful for Roem, her freedom was fleeting.
“I went online, and I was getting slammed.
