Ron DeSantis gave Ashley Brundage, a trans Democrat, an award. Now she’s challenging GOP power.

Ashley Brundage, 44, a DEI educator, former bank executive, a devoted parent to two teenage boys, and a major booster for her hometown of Tampa, could move one step closer on Tuesday to becoming the first elected transgender lawmaker from Florida.

That’s when she competes in the Democratic primary to represent South Tampa in the Florida House. With endorsements from The Tampa Bay Times, La Gaceta, and Equality Florida, she’s the overwhelming favorite to win. Brundage is the first transgender candidate to be endorsed by pro-choice women’s advocacy group Ruth’s List.

If she does prevail, Brundage will face Republican incumbent Karen Gonzalez Pittman, a former teacher in the district who voted in favor of Don’t Say Gay legislation and book bans in school libraries. (Brundage is the award-winning author of Empowering Differences: Leveraging Your Differences to Impact Change.)

Her opponent has “only helped to scare away people from wanting to come to Florida” with the “draconian laws” she’s helped to pass, Brundage says.

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The candidate spoke a few days before the primary from her home in “the center of all things in my world,” Tampa.

LGBTQ Nation: Your full name is Ashley T Brundage. What does the T stand for?

Ashley Brundage: (Laughing) Trouble.

No, actually, T is just my middle name, just the letter, but on the ballot, I’ll just be Ashley Brundage to simplify things. In some ways, it’s a kind of homage to my deadname. I was actually Ashley at birth. My parents really loved the name Ashley and they had a furious debate about whether that’s my first name or middle name, and now it’s really just my name, so it’s fantastic.

Describe the moment you decided to run for office.

Oh my gosh. I have been kind of politically adjacent for about 15 years, not just as a proud, out woman of transgender experience, but also as a DEI educator. Both of those things have been greatly politicized, even though my lived identity really has no place in politics. I think that it’s kind of silly.

But I was really kind of fed up earlier this year, in February, when I was watching the Florida Channel, which showcases state legislators talking in their committees and stuff. One of the state elected officials, Webster Barnaby, was talking about people walking around the Capitol during Lobby Days, which is something I’ve participated in for quite some time. And he said that he felt like he was living in an X-Men movie, and there were mutants, demons, and imps walking around the Capitol building.

And I was like, are you kidding me? Like some kid is gonna be watching this and thinking that they don’t belong here and maybe move out of Florida. So I was thinking, oh my gosh, maybe I should leave Florida. I’m just so over this and then I was speaking with a lot of advocates, like Nadine Smith, who created Equality Florida, and she was like, “You know, Ashley, don’t run away. We need you. You should run.” And I was like, “Oh, you think?” And she said, “Answer your phone. A bunch of people are gonna start calling you because there’s definitely a spot for you on the ballot this year.” And I was like, “Oh.” And then I started getting phone calls.

In 2022, you received a Spirit of the Community award from the Florida Commission on the Status of Women for bringing tens of millions of dollars to the Tampa area with an international economic empowerment conference, and you got a letter of congratulations from Governor Ron DeSantis.

Yes.

Given the Florida governor’s on-the-record hostility to the LGBTQ+ community, do you think there’s a possibility he sent that letter not knowing that you were trans, and can you be proud of a commendation from someone like him, either way?

Yeah, this is pretty interesting stuff here, right? So he was contacted by over 150 news organizations, and every time it was no comment for about the last year and a half. He dodged everybody’s request for comment on it. No comment. No comment. No comment. I announced my candidacy, of course, and talked about the letter. And then he finally responded — to the Daily Mail in the U.K. And he told them that he would have never given me the award if he had known that I was a transgender woman.

Which is really, really ridiculous, considering that my accomplishments are not changed. They’re not. I still brought in a $12.5 million conference, selling out two entire hotels and a convention center for the city of Tampa. I still did that. I still created a scholarship foundation for youth, and I still mentored children and women in my community through financial literacy educational programs for free. So none of that has changed, but because he knows my political affiliation, all of a sudden, he wants to say that he wouldn’t have given me that award. And that’s exactly what’s wrong with our political world right now. Partisan politics get in the way of actually accomplishing things that are good for our economy.

And so, yeah, I’m not afraid of having a glowing letter of support from Ron DeSantis, because there are 38% Republicans in my district who should know that Ron DeSantis gave me an award, and that should be a reason why they should consider voting for me because of my work in the community. My opponent in the general election hasn’t done any economic empowerment work for our community and has only helped to scare away people from wanting to come to Florida with these draconian laws they’ve been passing. This is the stuff that does not help our economy long term and we haven’t even begun to feel the negative economic effects of some of these culture war topics.

So, yeah, I’m gonna use that letter. I’m gonna tell the voters what they need to know about me from Ron DeSantis in his own words: “Ashley was a shining, positive example and role model for our community.” He also told the Daily Mail that he is going to have me removed from their website as a winner of the award, and I hope that he comes to try to pry this letter from my cold, dead hands, because he’s going to have a lot of fun trying to do that.

Next week, Kamala Harris and Tim Walz go to Chicago to accept their nominations to represent Democrats in November, after a pretty remarkable eight weeks that have upended the presidential race and, by all appearances, have blown Donald Trump’s mind.

(Laughing)

Describe how you felt back at the end of June when Trump and Joe Biden debated.

Oh, I was regretting entering the race. Because when I said yes, I was basing that off of the Joe Biden I saw at the State of the Union address. He was yelling at people, and he was handling Marjorie Taylor Greene talking smack to him, and he was talking smack right back. And I was like, okay, this guy can do it for four more years. Let’s go! And then I was like, what the hell happened?

The follow-up is, what was your reaction three weeks later when Biden dropped out and endorsed Harris?

He did what he needed to do. We needed to have somebody that was going to be vibrant, to get people to want to register. It reminds me a little bit of the Barack Obama effect when he energized a whole ton of youth. I think the first week after Harris there was like a 700% increase in voter registration. That’s huge.

Whether Florida is in play, I don’t know. That might be a reach, but I think if we just keep giving Donald Trump a microphone he’s going to talk his way out of every community potentially voting for him long term.

You’re an advocate for reproductive rights. Florida Amendment 4 is on the ballot this fall and it protects a woman’s right to choose to end a pregnancy up to viability, or about six months. Do you think it goes too far in limiting a woman’s choices, or not far enough?

I think we need to focus on the center, finding that movable middle. This amendment, maybe it’s not perfect for all parties involved, but it’s definitely a step in the right direction in relation to the current six-week, draconian abortion ban that is in effect.

Kamala Harris has described reproductive rights and LGBTQ+ rights as among a group of fundamental freedoms that she’ll fight to protect as president. What do you see as the most egregious violations of LGBTQ+ rights in Florida?

Taking away people’s ability to have access to even having a conversation with a healthcare professional about gender-affirming care is really scary. Also not having the ability to follow the steps to gain access to documentation that reflects your identity, I think is really important.

It’s really awkward when you think about it from the standpoint of who has access to gender-affirming care. More cisgender people actually use it, and it’s really ironic when you look at it from that level, and you say, wait a minute, oh, older women take hormone replacement therapy. Men take hormone regimens. They also take blue pills to get excited — all of these are gender-affirming care. So why, all of a sudden, do we have a certain problem for half of 1% of the population taking gender-affirming care? It’s basically to shield us from the real issues. Does the state legislature want to focus on the issues that affect 21.9 million people in Florida, or 0.001 million people in Florida. Which one makes more sense?

How would you describe the effect of DeSantis’ Don’t Say Gay legislation on both LGBTQ+ students and straight students in Florida?

You know, Equality Florida got really catchy when they called it Don’t Say Gay, then I was thinking of the long-term effects, though, and it’s only hurting our economy. I jokingly was saying that we could have called it Don’t Say Straight and could have accomplished the same thing. Teachers, all of a sudden, wait a minute, they’re not supposed to say that they went to dinner with their husband or their wife, right? Like, all of a sudden they have to lie to the student about who they are. It’s just absolutely ridiculous.

But the ban on gender-affirming care was overturned in a class action lawsuit. Don’t Say Gay was narrowed in a lawsuit, as well, but none of those things get the kind of press coverage that a bill passing gets, and so then people don’t even know that Florida is becoming a safe state to go and visit. We’re hurting our tourism still, specifically because we’re having these kinds of discussions and not focusing on so many other issues.

Would you support mandatory national service for young people in the military or some other form of public service of their choosing?

I’m not 100% certain on that. I mean, I think that people should want to be involved in their democracy or their community, but it’s kind of hard to answer in such a broad sense without knowing specifics, right?

What’s the single most important thing the world should do to address the climate crisis?

(Laughing) Well, in Florida, that would be to at least admit that it exists since we’re blocking the ability for textbooks to say so. Maybe that might be the single most important step, to at least talk about it and maybe learn something.

Insurance rates in Florida are skyrocketing due to climate change. Between stronger hurricanes and sea level rise, it’s like a worst-case scenario for both insurance providers and the home and business owners they’re supposed to protect. Is the marketplace just weighing in on the risk of living and working in a vulnerable place like Florida, or are insurance companies and banks colluding to take advantage of a crisis?

I would add the Republican Party to that collusion. Look and see what companies are giving money to the politicians, political campaigns and their PACs, because all that is public record.

I’m actually authoring a bill called the Insurance Accountability Act, which is a three-pronged approach to solve a complicated problem. You can’t just go and say, “Oh, hey, we want to hold insurance companies accountable,” and then insurance companies are like, F-you, basically. I can tell you personally because I used to be an executive in a bank, right? I know how these big companies operate.

Yes, of course, for the everyday citizen in Florida that’s getting raked over the coals in relation to their insurance, yeah, you want your state legislators holding the insurance companies more accountable, and you want them fighting for you to offer more competitive pricing. You have to give the insurance companies a bone, too, though, and we can actually work with insurance companies to help lower and mitigate their risk.

And the third part is looping in the legal community to this discussion, as well. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out when the legal industry goes and says that they got $20 billion for their clients, the insurance companies just turn around and raise their rates to pay for that $20 billion. So this has to be a comprehensive approach to addressing a real crisis.

You and other trans individuals have a unique perspective that most cisgender people don’t. Depending on your situation, you’ve navigated the world, outwardly at least, as both a man and a woman. Describe what that’s been like for you and what you’ve gained or lost from living where you have on the gender spectrum.

It’s interesting. My first career, I worked in the restaurant industry, and it wasn’t necessarily that I was a man, it was that I really was just pretending to be male. I always kind of was female, as I was born with a female brain and female heart — female inside — so I didn’t really kind of understand what I was going through, because we didn’t have words for that stuff back in the 80s and even really the 90s. So that sent me on a path of really trying to figure out how to at least exist in this world.

And luckily for me, I was able to have kids when I was really young, and my two kids really saved my life, one hundred percent. Having them in my life really, really was the catalyst for me: having the confidence to fight for more, having the confidence to go against the grain in society, to live my life authentically.

I saw how I was treated in the workplace presenting male, and I would suggest something, and people would listen pretty quickly. And then, of course, I saw how I was treated differently in the workplace after transitioning. I’ve been told “no” by more than 40 employers, including having the cops called on me from a job interview and having a door slammed in my face from a job interview while interviewing as a proud, out woman of transgender lived experience. I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy.

I’ve gone out to restaurants and been denied service. I’ve been denied access to a hotel just because of existing in my world. To think that’s just something that would happen in Florida is bullshit. Like, I’ve been discriminated against in New York City. But in some more conservative places, I’ve been treated amazingly great.

I mean, you can’t necessarily judge a book by its cover, and that’s why it’s so important that people are informed, that they get to know someone, and then they can make a decision on whether they like that person or not. It’s a great opportunity that exists for anyone and everyone.

You identify as pansexual. How do you define that?

(Laughing) I’m kind of just exploring the world and trying to find my way in relation to who I’m attracted to. I was married to a woman, but I didn’t necessarily identify as a lesbian, per se. But I just never really got a chance as a youth to explore sexuality and what that looked like for me, so I’ve kind of been a little bit all over the place.

I use the term pansexual just because I think that I might one day consider entering into a relationship with potentially anyone. And I would want it to be somebody who has a lot of emotional intelligence and empathy and compassion. Those are the things that I look for, not necessarily looking at their gender or their gender identity or expression or their sexual orientation. I feel like that could potentially be limiting, but who knows, right?

I take it you’re not in a relationship.

I am single and it’s an interesting world out there. I was on the dating apps about a year ago, and oh, my God, it’s like a full-time job. I could write a whole blog about what it’s like to date in this world as someone like me, because it’s like, how many layers are there to that burrito? (Laughing) And being a mom is a whole other thing in that world, because not everybody has kids and it’s like, Hey, by the way, do you want to be third on my priority list? Right? Because Bryce and Blake are always going to be number one.

What’s been the reaction as you’ve been campaigning around Tampa?

It’s actually been overwhelmingly positive, which has been really exciting. I had a little bit of a following from the whole Ron DeSantis thing, and then publishing a best-selling, award-winning book, too. In fact, I knocked on someone’s door and they freaked out. They were like, “Oh my god, I read your book three years ago. It’s so great.” So she invited me in and I signed it for her. And then I was knocking on this door, and it was a gay couple, and they were like, “Oh, my God, we’re having a pool party. Come on in!” (Laughing) Like, as a candidate, right?

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