Dollars, data support record number of transgender U.S. election candidates

Hawaii Lieutenant Governor candidate Kim Coco Iwamoto speaks with Haaheo Guanson and Maya Soetoro-Ng and at an event in Honolulu, Hawaii, January 25, 2018. Photo taken January 25, 2018. REUTERS/Hugh Gentry

(Reuters) - Alexandra Chandler was a U.S. Navy intelligence analyst when she came out as a transgender woman in 2006. She could have been fired, but instead she said the conservative Republicans in her chain of command promoted her to division chief.

A decade later, that kind of acceptance was overshadowed by what Chandler called the hate and divisive language of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump's 2016 campaign, prompting her to run for the U.S. House of Representatives.