'Empowering our people': How Arizona's only nonbinary legislator fights for all communities
Paula Soria
Sitting in their west Mesa office one June morning, Rep. Lorena Austin (D-Mesa) showed off their arm covered in a sleeve of tattoos.
From the faces of their great-grandmother and nana, both named Margarita, to their great-great-grandmother who fought in the Mexican Revolution and a logo of Cesar Chavez’s farmworkers movement, each is symbolic of ancestors and legacies who have guided Austin in their path in civil service.
Advocacy and community service in the Valley are a part of Austin's DNA. Their family has a history of community involvement — their mother was a social worker, their father a civil rights attorney and their grandfather, who raised his family in Mesa, was involved in many community organizations and boards.
Like their family, Austin, 35, was born and raised in Mesa. The fifth-generation Arizonan is the first openly nonbinary Latinx legislator in the U.S.
In the 2022 election, Austin flipped their district by a slight margin of about 2,000 votes. Since their arrival to the Legislature in 2023, Austin has advocated for issues on education, affordable housing, community resources, health care, climate change, water and, of course, LGBTQ+ rights.
“My whole life has been exemplified to me through the lens of service to the community and to empowering our people to have a voice,” Austin, who represents District 9 in the Arizona House of Representatives, told The Arizona Republic.
Authenticity at the heart of their path
Austin’s grandparents have always been their main source of inspiration.
Their mother's side of the family has roots in Guanajuato, Mexico City, Kansas and California, while their dad's side is what makes them a fifth-generation Arizonan. Austin recalls their father’s family arriving in the desert in the 1860s. They were originally based in Pinal County, but in the 1920s moved to Mesa, settling in the Washington/Escobedo neighborhood.
The family owned a grocery store called “Albert’s Market” in which, despite the predominant segregation experienced in the neighborhood, Austin’s grandparents served every community member. Austin’s grandparents became well-known figures in the Mesa community for always being so serviceable.
“It was really canvassing this past year when people remembered my nana and tata. They would tell me stories that I’ve never heard,” Austin said. “It’s just really nice to know that the legacy of my family has really been entrenched here.”
Growing up in the East Valley, Austin said they embodied an outgoing personality with leadership traits that would have them running for student office. Much of their youth, however, was spent in California with their mother following their parents' divorce.
After years of struggles and moving around, this chapter concluded in 2006 when Austin, their mother and older brother, graduated collectively — Austin graduated high school, their brother graduated college, and their mother obtained a social work degree. After finishing high school, the Sonoran desert was ready to give them a warm welcome home.
Austin pursued higher education at Mesa Community College, but failed several semesters as their struggles with math courses kept them from progressing. It was around this time that, despite the academic obstacles, Austin came out as a lesbian to their family, fully embracing their nonbinary identity around 2011.
At age 5, Austin said they knew who they were, but as a child growing up in a Latinx household, which leaned more conservative, they also believed that “it wasn’t OK.” The fear of publicly announcing that they were gay prevented them from showing their true colors through grade school.
“It was hard,” they said about coming out, but constant conversation was key to their family's acceptance.
“I am who you raised me to be. I am not any different. I respect people. I am a good person, and I am me still,” Austin said recalling the messages they would convey to their closest ones.
In 2011, Austin’s brother started a new job in St. Louis, Missouri. They decided to tag along and leave behind the academic stress that college had put them under. Austin began to work service industry jobs during this chapter of their life, which they recalled fondly.
In St. Louis not only did they find a true group of friends who shared their views, but Austin was able to, for the first time, be and accept who they were to a full extent after years of feeling uneasy with their sexual and personal identity.
“I found out who I was personally,” Austin said.
A look into advocacy leads them into civil service
In 2014, the killing of 18-year-old Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, by a police officer led to the biggest turning point in Austin’s life. The series of protests that followed in Ferguson and across the U.S. calling out racial discrimination within police agencies led Austin to start looking at the world through the lens of activism and service to the community.
Austin moved back to Mesa following the protests. Upon their arrival, they were invited to speak at their former college about the aftermath of Brown’s killing in Ferguson and their experience witnessing it firsthand. After their speech at the Mesa college, Dr. Kris Bliss, director of Student Life and Leadership at the time, approached them and offered them an open leadership position at MCC.
“She assumed that I had my bachelor's degree because that’s what it required and I said, ‘Oh no, I don’t have a degree,’” Austin said. “So that day, she literally dragged me to the enrollment center, made me take the placement test and then she gave me a job in Student Life and Leadership at MCC.”
Austin was back in school after having left a decade prior, and for the first time, they felt reassured with the path they were meant to follow. All it took was one sociology class. “It just clicked to me, that’s what I wanted to do. Understanding why people are the way they are through their communities and through their experience or lens,” Austin said.
They graduated in 2020 from Arizona State University with a degree in U.S. and Mexican Regional Immigration Policy. In 2022, Austin was ready to head into law school when they got a life-changing call.
One day in mid-February 2022, while Austin found themselves studying for law school, they received a phone call. It was an old friend from MCC. “I think you should run for office,” the friend said. They immediately brushed it off — running an election campaign wasn't part of their path, they thought.
At the time, no one from their Mesa community was running for representative of the brand-new Legislative District 9 in Arizona.
Austin soon accepted and spent April of that year knocking on doors and talking to district residents. To their surprise, people would recall many positive memories of their family who left a remarkable footprint in the Mesa community.
On Jan. 6, 2023, Austin took the oath of office as a member of Arizona’s House of Representatives.
“It really showed me that people are not looking for a status quo politician, a polished politician. You don’t have to be an attorney. They want someone who’s real, who understands what it is like to struggle and stretch a dollar, who’s been part of the community and actually worked in the community,” Austin said.
Advocating for their community and LGBTQ+ rights
Austin is the first openly nonbinary Latinx legislator nationwide, but they never set out to be the first of anything.
“I wanted to show people that that’s not my identity (being nonbinary). Yes, it is part of my identity, but not the reason why I’m here to do this job,” Austin said. “I’m here because I think that someone from our community, who looks like our community, who actually understands and knows it should be here.”
In 2023 they gained more visibility as a nonbinary legislator after a session when Senate Bill 1001, dubbed the Pronoun Bill, was on the floor. The bill, which did not make it past Gov. Katie Hobbs' desk, would have prevented school personnel from using students’ preferred pronouns if they did not match their assigned sex at birth.
“It was the first time that they were talking about someone who was actually sitting in that room with the same power and voice as everybody else,” Austin said.
Austin used their voice to advocate for students who identify with nontraditional pronouns speaking from their own experience. The vulnerability Austin displayed that day went viral. The legislator soon started to receive messages from parents, teachers and teenagers with a story to share.
“All of a sudden, I started to hear from families, people who had a child who is part of the LGBTQ+ community. Or someone who had shared a story about someone who committed suicide as a young person because they couldn’t cope with being rejected,” Austin said. “It was so validating to know that if I can help in any way, I will.”
Austin is running for re-election for their district along with Democratic incumbent Rep. Seth Blattman. Two Republican candidates, Mary Ann Mendoza, who ran against Austin and Blattman in 2022 but lost by a few thousand votes, and Kylie Barber, a former health care lobbyist in Washington, D.C., are also running.
Reach La Voz reporter Paula Soria at paula.soria@gannett.com.