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Julia Brim-Edwards, a current Multnomah County commissioner and candidate for chair, has lost the endorsement of a prominent Oregon civil rights group, which says it learned she made anti-trans statements a year ago as a member of the Portland Public Schools Board.
A statement from the political arm of Basic Rights Oregon describes allegations that Brim-Edwards raised concerns during Portland School Board executive sessions that trans athletes might hurt scholarship opportunities for other kids. (Brim-Edwards previously served three terms on the School Board.) BRO’s executive director says three School Board members alleged that Brim-Edwards encouraged PPS to consider stricter guidelines for trans athletes to participate in sports.
“After reviewing the new information and reconsidering the endorsement,” reads BRO’s statement. “The PAC Board unanimously determined that Brim-Edwards does not embody the values Basic Rights Oregon PAC expects of candidates who carry its endorsement.”
Brim-Edwards called the rescinded endorsement an insult.
“It’s an outrageous smear, pure and simple,” she tells WW. “The idea that I’m anti-trans in any way is an out-and-out lie. And it’s telling that despite my reaching out to the executive director, since Oct. 6, she refuses to return my calls and the story keeps changing.”
Basic Rights Oregon is a long-standing advocacy group for LGBTQ+ people, active in marriage equality debates in Oregon as far back as the 1990s. It has endorsed Brim-Edwards in the past. In this case, Brim-Edwards filled out a candidate questionnaire and was notified in August she had the group’s endorsement, according to her campaign.
BRO executive director Kyndall Mason tells WW that School Board members approached members of BRO’s political action committee to share their concerns after BRO issued its endorsement.
“They all shared the same sentiments about the email and verbal exchanges they had with her,” Mason wrote.
BRO did not respond to WW’s question about which School Board members it spoke with.
Brim-Edwards, 65, is locked in a tight three-way contest for chair with fellow Commissioner Shannon Singleton and former Commissioner Sharon Meieran. They’re running to succeed incumbent Jessica Vega Pederson, who opted not to make a bid for the seat again in December.
Brim-Edwards is the establishment favorite, having been endorsed by all six Multnomah County mayors and several powerful unions. She also leads her opponents in fundraising.
This is not the first time this election cycle that some of Brim-Edwards’ School Board colleagues have spoken out against her candidacy. In late July, seven current and former members of that body, who’d overlapped with Brim-Edwards, wrote an open letter to voters warning that she struggled to make difficult decisions on the board and had a hard time collaborating with them.
In her comments to WW, Brim-Edwards says the anonymous allegations run counter to her record—including support for PPS’ policy to protect trans athletes participating on sports teams.
“I am very proud of my strong, consistent, decadeslong support and advocacy for the LGBTQIA+ community,” she tells WW. “And as a school leader for making sure that our schools and playing fields are places where all students are included and welcome. My entire adult life has been about more kids being included in sport because I know how sport can transform lives, mine included.
“It is also very suspicious that something that purportedly occurred more than a year ago is being peddled just as ballots are being mailed to Multnomah County voters,” adds Brim-Edwards.
After BRO rescinded its endorsement and WW inquired with Brim-Edwards’ campaign about why, a number of people reached out to this newspaper to defend her record on LGBTQ+ rights.
Marshall Haskins, PPS’ director of athletics, said Brim-Edwards has supported trans athletes when it’s mattered most. Last year, after a transgender McDaniel High School student won a state track championship, the Trump administration launched a Title IX investigation into PPS and the Oregon State Athletic Association. Haskins says Brim-Edwards stood up against Trump, and later had Haskins’ back when he dismissed a Lake Oswego track coach who loudly objected to transgender students competing in girls athletics.
“(Brim-Edwards) was right in the middle of it, with the district in the national news,” Haskins says. “And she was highly supportive of trans athletes.”
Another vocal supporter is Roey Thorpe, BRO’s executive director from 2001 to 2006. Thorpe met Brim-Edwards during that time, and she says though the two know each other socially, they aren’t close friends. When Thorpe read BRO’s statement rescinding its endorsement, she said she was shocked and dismayed.
“Julia has always been a stalwart supporter,” Thorpe says. “She has put so much care and thoughtfulness into her support of LGBTQ people—from when she was at Nike all the way through her time on the school board. She was just always there—and I know she’s been there for trans athletes, which makes the current allegation so shocking to me. I just have a hard time believing it.”
This story has been updated.
