LGBTQ Georgians hopeful following Warnock, Ossoff Senate victories

For the first time in the state’s history, Georgia is sending two senators to Washington who have vowed to address federal protections for LGBTQ individuals.

When news organisations projected that Democrat Raphael Warnock had won one of Georgia’s two critical Senate runoffs on Tuesday, Ian Webb sat in his Atlanta apartment and cried.

Warnock and fellow Democrat Jon Ossoff, who won the other runoff, ran on a platform that explicitly backed pro-LGBTQ policies, including nondiscrimination protections at the federal level.

Jeff Graham, executive director of Georgia Equality, a statewide LGBTQ advocacy group, said the Ossoff and Warnock campaigns were “the first time anyone from Georgia running for federal office actively engaged the LGBT community” in his 12 years leading the group, NBC News reports.