On Christmas morning of 2011, Sally McBride's two sons opened their presents in their west Wilmington, Del. home.
Button-down shirts with ties, same as always. Polite thanks all around.
McBride's youngest, a politically active college student in Washington, D.C., quietly went upstairs. When he came back down, he told his mother he was rethinking returning to Delaware after graduation.
"I'm transgender," he said, dropping a bomb and a 21-year burden.
McBride, a former high school guidance counselor, cried. She screamed. "Are you positive?"
"I was devastated," she remembered. "I thought her life was over. I thought my life was over because you're only as happy as your child."
Her child, since renamed Sarah and now national press secretary for the Human Rights Campaign Foundation, was resolute. And Thursday, less than four years after Sarah McBride vowed that she was done wasting her life as someone she wasn't, she became the first transgender person to speak at a major party convention. Separated by only a few hours, Sarah and the first female presidential nominee in history will stand at the same podium in Philadelphia.
Somewhere in the audience, the McBride family beamed at their poised, resilient daughter, the same one they had feared would never land a job, never raise a family and never be able to walk down the street in peace.
"Today in America, LGBTQ people are targeted by hate that lives in both laws and hearts," Sarah told the audience. "Many will struggle just to get by. But I believe tomorrow can be different. Tomorrow, we can be respected and protected, especially if Hillary Clinton is our president."
Delaware Gov. Jack Markell met Sarah when she was a witty middle-schooler — back when she was known by her male name. (Sarah asked that her birth name not be included in this article, since she believes it never truly represented who she is).
Markell later enlisted Sarah to work on his first gubernatorial campaign, and credited his victory, in part, to her tenacity and ability to organize large groups at campaign events. When it came time to weigh the Gender Identity Nondiscrimination bill, Sarah put a human face on a problem usually seen in the abstract, the governor said.
"I think she will be one of the best examples ever of somebody when they are true to themselves they are able to achieve all of the dreams they set forth," he said this week.
Sarah came out to Markell in early 2012, shortly after coming out to her family. She needed his recommendation for a White House internship, minus the "he" pronoun.
The two chatted on the phone while Markell was on the train.
"Well, that is big news," Sarah recalled Markell saying. "You know that I am so proud of you and Carla and I love you very much."
Sarah said she received the same unqualified support from the late Attorney General Beau Biden and his family. She had worked on Beau Biden's campaigns and the two families were close.
"You are still a member of the Biden family," Biden told Sarah after hearing the news. "Hallie and I support you and love you."
"He was a class act," Sarah remembered.
Sarah had faced these conversations with trepidation. But time and again, Delaware had her back, from the political elite to the neighbor down the street.
"The great thing about Delaware being as small as it is," said her father, Dave, is that "friendship trumps ideology.
