Today we are continuing our profiles of our favorite Progressive candidates who are running to represent their communities at the state and federal levels, and move the country forward, to continue to ensure that all Americans are equally represented in government.

This week we are profiling Mauree Turner (they/them/theirs). Mauree is the first openly non-binary U.S. State lawmaker and first Muslim member of the Oklahoma legislature, serving in the Oklahoma House of Representatives. As a Black, millennial, non-binary Muslim, Turner has described the Oklahoma legislature as unwelcoming to them, but continues to work every day for criminal justice reimaginement and rebuilding, affordable and accessible healthcare, fully-funded public education, and living wages for Oklahomans.

Where are you based?
I live in Oklahoma City, and that is where the district I represent is located too.

What is your position/what position are you running for?
I’m currently the representative for Oklahoma’s 88th house district, and that is the position that I am running for again. Our term limit is 12 years, but our terms are two years, so I have to run for office every other year.

Why did you choose this seat?
I chose to run for this specific seat because back when I was working for the American Civil Liberties Union of Oklahoma, our task was reforming our criminal legal system (no pressure, with Oklahoma having one of the highest rates of incarceration in the world). Through our organizing and direct policy advocacy I realized that the folks making decisions about our everyday lives would never have to live on the other side of those decisions. So I started asking the folks I was organizing if they had ever thought about running for office (the ACLU didn’t do this – it was my side gig haha.) This led me to realize: there are so many other hurdles that come with running for office outside of just putting your name on a ballot. That’s when folks started to ask me about running for office. We had spent so much time together trying to meet basic needs: housing, community, jobs, clothes and more. We built trust to move beyond basic needs and moved to actions like storytelling and advocacy days. I had been doing all of this work long before I had ever thought about becoming a representative, but so much of community organizing is answering a call to action. The people of House District 88 asked me to run for office, they asked me to listen to them and work alongside them, they trusted me to take care of themselves and their families. That’s some of the most humbling work anybody could ever do, or even be asked to do. So, I took 88 as seriously as they were taking me, and together we made history.

How would you briefly summarize your platform?
My platform is community care. It’s reimagining every institution that comes in contact with the people of Oklahoma and thinking about it from a community standpoint. It’s talking with students and families who interact with our public education system to see how it could work better for them. What are some of the solutions that communities have created to survive our institutions, can we amplify those and make it work for Oklahoma as a whole? Because communities know how to fix themselves, they’ve been doing it long before government was established. When we take humanity out of community resources, we are stripping away how different communities interact with resources. My platform is to organize to make sure Oklahoma has access to health care, especially in rural areas where it seems as though it’s vanishing. My platform relies on no new crimes, no new fines, and no new access — we’ve got plenty of laws on the books to lock our communities up, but do we have creative solutions to provide the resources our community needs before they come into contact with our legal system? My platform is to make sure that our 2SLGBTQ+ community feels safe and welcome to exist inside of Oklahoma and beyond. My platform is to create an Oklahoma where we all thrive, not just survive. The important part to note is that all of these things are woven into every piece of policy we could ever create. We understand that we help our most vulnerable Oklahomans so that that every life here changes for the better.

What inspired you to run?
I think I might say who and what inspired me to run. It’s a combination of the people who live in House District 88 and our needs. In Oklahoma we are battling our government for bodily autonomy, the ability to make health care decisions with our physicians and family only, and so much more. I have never been one to shy away from a fight, especially if it isn’t centered on me — but I also understand that when all Oklahomans live a more accessible and flourishing life, I do too. Because being a Black, Queer, Non-binary, Muslim from Oklahoma of all places, it wasn’t exactly the easiest life — but my mother created a home environment where I felt empowered to stand in my identity, so much that I knew that I wanted to create that for my neighbors, everybody in Oklahoma, and especially my mother and the folks in House District 88.

What change are you hoping to bring to your district, state, and country?
Ultimately, I want to create an Oklahoma that is accessible, and welcoming. The concrete part of that looks like dismantling a prison system built on revenge rather than community resources. Making sure we are creating infrastructure that allows folks to get the help they need before encountering law enforcement. It means equitably funding our public education system, so students learn, have their needs met, and folks engaging in public education aren’t left feeling like their only choice at an adequate public education is going broke trying to attain private education (if the institution allows you in). Also, working with our city council to also figure out what affordable housing measures we need to take as a city and as a state because being an elected official is not about staying in your silo, it’s about organizing our way out of this mess.

How long have you been in office? What do you consider to be your major accomplishments so far?
I was first elected in 2020 so I have been in office for about a year and eight months. I could tell you that my major accomplishments are whenever we stop any number of bad bills, and that would be true. However, I think our most amazing feat was that primary win in June of 2020. This was a time where we didn’t just show folks in the district, but we showed Oklahoma that we can be our own representation, that you do not have to be a cisgender heterosexual white man already plugged into politics in order to run and win. That your shared lived experience is just as important as anything anybody will learn in a classroom. Because magic happens when we get involved in a civic engagement way, magic happens when we show up, full stop. We got to bring people back to politics who had been checked out for long periods of time, we got to bring some people to politics who had never been checked in. And that doesn’t happen by running a dynamic campaign that happens by allowing folks to see themselves in politics in a way they never have before- myself included. I never in a million years thought that I would be here doing this interview with you let alone being a representative of 39,000 of the most dedicated constituents and neighbors.

What do you feel are the most important issues right now, why, and how do you plan to tackle them?
In Oklahoma, those important issues look like protecting our 2SLGBTQ+ students, by battling harmful legislation that directly attacks them in their public education institutions. And also creating community infrastructures so they don’t have to handle however they are feeling on their own. That’s why I am forever grateful to be a part of the Freedom Oklahoma board that does community meet-ups to process and learn together, we also provide name and gender marker change clinics to folks that aren’t sure where to start. Through this work I’ve also been able to join the national GLSEN Board that does phenomenal work around educating students K through 12 about not only the battles that we might face, but also the joy on the other side of making it through such a possible tumultuous and formative time in our lives. I get to sit at these tables virtual or otherwise with some of the best people in state and across the nation to help further the actions that we take to make a better world. Because it’s not just about the words that we say but it’s also about the actions that we take. Housing in the midst of a national heat wave caused by climate change is so important. So this year we have done an interim study specifically on affordable and accessible housing this is specific to transitional housing after folks leave the carceral system.

America is extremely divided these days. How would you hope to bridge that divide with your constituents to better unite Americans?
Community organizing teaches us the importance of both intentional conversation and action. Thinking about how we care for others and how we show up in the world around us. The world is extremely contentious right now, but we also understand that the people that will be able to change the hearts and minds of folks who are actively oppressing others would most likely be the people that are their friends, their family members, their community leaders. So we encourage continuously having those difficult conversations with friends and use our positions of power to influence good in the world. It’s so easy to shy away from having the difficult conversations with the folks in our immediate circles, but that’s where the work gets done too. Not just in lectures or the federal government but around our dinner tables, when we grab coffee with friends on the weekends. Difficult dialogues especially when we have the power to address so much hurt are a part of the work. We have these typical conversations in so many different formats in the district, from community conversations about alternatives to calling the police and communities, community listening sessions about where our city and our state should our taxpayer dollars when it comes to new resources that we are missing by continuing to fund our prison industrial complex. And even in having conversation material for folks who are wanting to have those conversations at home with friends.

How would you foresee your unique identity and background to be an asset to you in office?
Like I mentioned earlier, I grew up black, queer, Muslim and non binary in Oklahoma of all places. I was the product of a continuously underfunded public education system, a product of our prison-industrial complex due to having an incarcerated parent. My mother worked two or three jobs to make sure she provided for my siblings and myself. It’s not a journey I would want for anybody else, but it is also a privilege to be able to have this many lenses, this many vantage points to understanding the intersectionality with our prison-industrial complex, with religious freedom, with 2SLGBTQ+ needs, with public education and more. However, these lenses aren’t the only thing that allowed me to do my job. It’s also the skills of community organizing, of being curious about how you help the people around you. Being a good representative is about being a good listener, being able to hear accountability through hurt, and acting with our communities and not for them. So, yes, my intersectionality absolutely helps me with my job as a representative, but the skills I learned from my mother and everyone else I’ve met along the way, the skills of listening and acting intentionally are my greatest asset.

What is your motto in life?
My motto in life is actually “Nothing About Us Without Us” - heard it from Kristie Puckett Williams, I believe, back when I worked at the ACLU of Oklahoma. We were a group of organizers from around the country and talking about the vast shared-lived experiences we had and how that helps us organize. We talked about how being close to the problems help us better reimagine a solution with all of us in mind, better to receive and extend compassion. It reminds me why we organize, that’s why I made it a key part of my grassroots movement for office. It has been a part of organizing movements for a while because we understand the folks closest to the issues are closest to the solutions and should be in positions to influence the change we need.

Where can we find out more about you?
My campaign social media accounts are MaureeTurnerOK across Facebook, Instagram and Twitter - and my representative accounts are RepMaureeTurner across Facebook Instagram and Twitter! My campaign website is www.maureeturner.com

Our Favorite Progressive Candidates in 2022 - Mauree Turner, Oklahoma House of Representatives District 88