Nevada Assemblywoman says she's pansexual; talks to News 3

LAS VEGAS (KSNV) — Last Thursday it took three seconds for a two-term Nevada assemblywoman to make history.

“I rise in support of National LGBT Health Awareness Week,” said Assemblywoman Sarah Peters, D-Washoe County.

“Today as a pansexual-gendered woman I stand out for equity,” Peters said on the floor of the Assembly.

Assemblywoman Sarah Peters told the world she's pansexual.

“So a pansexual person doesn't define their attraction to a gender norm, so there's a variety of gender identities, right,” she explained to me Monday by Zoom from her office at the state capitol. “Pansexuality kind of encompasses the perspective of all these genders and sees them as people that are worth loving.”

Peters says it's not only an attraction to male and female, but also to those who are transgender, or gender-fluid.

“People are amazing. And to me, the person is the part that is wonderful, not necessarily what defines them in their anatomy,” she says.

Peters, a native Nevadan, was elected in 2018. A UNR graduate and an environmental engineer by training, she has a husband and three young children.

She told me a story of her own sexual realization that began as a teenager. She remembers one conversation with her grandmother. “And I remember looking at her -- it's gonna make me emotional, and saying, grandma, I'm bisexual, does that mean like, that our church wouldn't accept me also?” she recounted, tearing-up and sighing at the end of the sentence.

“That was the first time that I came out to a family member,” she said.

Thursday was one more moment in Peters' journey of self-awareness. She tells me she's received mostly praise -- and some criticism -- reflecting the spark sexuality and gender set off in America’s ongoing culture war.

“There have been uncomfortable emails and messages sent,” she told me.

For Andre Wade, the state director of Silver State Equality, a civil rights group, the reaction he wants is, “that people see that identify with being pansexual are not in the margins. That they are everyday people.” Wade says Peters has led by example.

“That people who identify as pansexual do not have to feel marginalized or less-than,” he says.

So, one small speech. One big impact.

“The other thing that's been really fascinating I had a bunch of friends text me saying thanks, Sarah, I've spent the day explaining pansexuality to everybody,” says the Assemblywoman.

Peters has also made history, joining only two other state lawmakers in the United States as an openly pansexual elected official.