Transgendered Candidate Enters GOP Primary

by Paul Olsen & Barbara Dozetos

Kerin, addressing the crowds at the Pride rally in Burlington, urged voters to support Republicans who voted in support of the civil union law. photo by Paul Olsen

South Royalton, VT – Karen Ann Kerin, a transgendered Vermonter and political novice, has announced that she plans to seek the Republican nomination for Vermont’s lone seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. Kerin was the first Republican to announce plans to challenge incumbent Rep. Bernie Sanders (I).

Kerin, 56, was born Charles Kerin and had a sex-change operation after she was diagnosed with cancer and treated with female hormones. According to her campaign Web site, she is currently married and has five children by a previous marriage.

While Kerin has indicated that she does not want her gender identity to play a role in her congressional campaign, her candidacy has raised concerns with some members of Vermont’s Republican Party.

“This definitely goes to prove that the Republican Party has a very, very big tent,” said Peter Abbarno, the state party’s executive director. “I don’t think that anyone in their wildest imagination would have guessed that this would happen.”

“Karen Kerin does share many of our values in terms of government efficiency,” he said. Speaking when Kerin was the only Republican in the race, Abbarno said, “We’ll take the same policy we’ve taken in every situation, regardless of how unique this is, and that is that we stay out of all primaries.”

Lloyd Robinson, a transportation consultant from East Montpelier, announced his intention to challenge Kerin on June 21. “I looked at the field,” Robinson said, “There was Bernie and Karen and I said something is missing here.”

If Kerin were to win the Republican nomination, Abbarno wants the campaign to remain focused on issues. “I hope the situation about her transgender sex does not become an issue,” he said. “If she is the chosen candidate, I’m sure she’ll run a good campaign, and we’ll just allow Bernie Sanders to deal with that.”

Other Republicans were more pessimistic about Kerin’s candidacy. Mark Candon, the GOP’s losing congressional candidate in 1998, believes that the press in Vermont may not take Kerin’s candidacy seriously. “The media will focus not on the fact that this person is running with any sort of agenda, but on the fact that this person changed sex,” he said.

Kerin, a civil engineer with a Juris Doctor from Vermont Law School, opposes government control of health-care decisions, most favored nation trading status for China, gun control, and Vermont’s new civil union law, which she labels a “separate parallel to marriage.”

“I resent the implication that the amputation of my male parts has caused me to think like a female, which therefore unfits me for political office,” said Kerin responding to a recent news story in the Burlington Free Press that noted her “confusing sexual identity.” “Sex is between the legs, gender is between the ears,” she said. “There are a herd of law professors and other professionals that will tell anyone that I am not confused.”

About her newly announced opponent, Kerin said, “Is he a Democrat running as a Republican? If he is a good friend of Governor Dean, what will Republicans that support Ruth Dwyer think of him?”

Campaigning as “The People’s Voice in Washington,” Kerin favors increased privacy rights, restructuring of public assistance, tax simplification, campaign finance reform, and required studies in geography, history, and government in high schools. “I am an open person,” said Kerin. “Many may not like what I say, but they will get the truth nonetheless.”

Kerin’s political experience has been serving as a delegate to the Republican National Conventions in 1984 and 1992. In 1994, she lost a Republican primary in her attempt to represent Montpelier in Vermont’s House of Representatives.