As a youngster, Arienne Childrey moved from Virginia to Ohio. She said she knew it was the right choice.
Kidrey said, “Ohio felt like home to me.” “I chose that place to be my first home.”
The woman from Virginia is the daughter, granddaughter, and great-granddaughter of coal miners. She is now married to a union worker and works for the people of St. Marys in Auglaize County. In the future, she wants to serve Ohioans in the Ohio Statehouse.
Childrey is one of only two transgender people in Ohio who are running for office, and she is the only one who is running for city council. The person who was leaving from the city council and who she replaced gave her permission to take the job.
Childrey’s new job on the St. Mary’s City Council means he has to deal with things like alleyway upkeep and pothole complaints that state officials don’t have to deal with every day. That’s the kind of thing Childrey wants to fix to make the city more appealing to companies and people, especially now that stores like K-Mart, Big Lots, and Rite Aid have closed.
The mayor told the Capital Journal, “I want you to be able to do your shopping in St. Marys and not have to go to Celina or somewhere else.”
As a trans woman, she said she wants to use her job to fight for locals’ right to live freely. But that shouldn’t affect whether or not she can do the job.
Kidrey said, “I don’t know of any trans way to fix potholes; I think it works the same way no matter what.”
Even though her job on the city council is to take care of small towns, she knows that laws passed at the statehouse can have a big effect on how her town works.
She tried to get rid of Republican state Rep. Angela King in the very red 84th House District in the last election because of this.
The child said, “I looked at my husband and said, ‘I think I’m about to do something really stupid.'” “I feel like I’m going to run against Angie.”
Childrey said it wasn’t the first time she had said something bad about her 84th District official. King proposed House Bill 245, which would ban “adult cabaret performances,” such as drag shows, in places other than private businesses. In Mercer County, Childrey organized a protest against the bill. The Ohio House Criminal Justice Committee looked at the bill some, but it never made it past the committee stage. This means that it would have to be presented in the new term of the General Assembly in order to be looked at again.
Childrey also talked about LGBTQ+ rights at DEM events in the area, which made her think about running against King.
Childrey said, “I just kind of saw our current representation. It was focused on culture war battles and, in my opinion, on who they could hurt instead of who they could help.” “I guess I’ll be your competitor if you’re going to make my community a target.”
She said the campaign was “aggressive,” with tables at county fairs in the area to reach people who didn’t usually go to political fundraisers or weren’t exactly her supporters. The campaign was run as if they were going to beat the current Republican.
But Childrey wasn’t a fool when it came to the political views (or full tilt) of the people in her home area. In the 2022 election, King beat her Democratic opponent with almost 83% of the vote, which is about the same percentage that her predecessor, Susan Manchester, had when she beat her Democratic opponent with 85% of the vote in 2020.
She said, “We came in ready to lose but fighting to win.”
In the general election of 2024, King beat Childrey with 83.8% of the vote.
Childrey thought the campaign would be “hostile,” and it was, but there were also some good times.
She said, “The amount of hate and bullying we faced was hard, but the amount of support we got was inspiring.”
It was all part of her plan to show Ohioans that she wanted the same things they did—to be heard and for good things to happen at the Statehouse instead of a lot of “negative bills” that don’t make Ohio better for most people, like anti-trans bills that would get rid of gender-affirming care for kids.
Childrey said, “You’ll never hear me talk about one of the bad bills that’s being talked about without talking about one of the good bills that’s being ignored.” He used housing reform and a solution to the nursing shortage as examples of bills that were pushed aside in favor of more controversial ones.
She also wanted to close the gap between Democrats and Republicans, even in very red areas, and get people all over the state excited about the idea of running for office.
“I’m sure that in 2026, every House seat will be up for election and have a Democratic opponent,” she said. “We need to start working on the edges even if we lose.” The GOP didn’t just sweep the rural areas; they worked hard for a long time.
Again, she wants to be a representative for her area, so she plans to be one of those candidates. The St. Marys City Council member wants to look to the future, both her own and theirs, and do what she can for her neighbors until then.
“People in our community always feel like they don’t get heard, and there are many reasons for this,” Childrey said. It’s to show that you care about what they have to say.
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