Gilbert Garcia: Tone-deaf comments about LGBTQ people drove her into political exile — now Elisa Chan is back

As election results came in Tuesday night for the Texas primary, a realization struck me pretty quickly: I underestimated the Texas House campaign of former North Side Councilwoman Elisa Chan. I did so for several reasons. Chan hadn’t run for office in eight years; and when she last did so, she was handily defeated by Donna Campbell in a GOP primary for Texas Senate. That humbling defeat happened only a few months after Chan endured the public embarrassment of a leaked audio recording, first written about by Express-News reporter Brian Chasnoff, that captured Chan discussing LGBTQ issues with her staff. The conversation was in anticipation of a 2013 council vote on a proposed nondiscrimination ordinance, and it revealed Chan to be thoroughly ignorant on matters of sexual orientation and gender identity.

When one of her aides suggested it was possible to identify gay men by looking at their faces, Chan said that “hormone shots” were the cause. She said that when gay and lesbian couples adopted children, they created an environment that was “suggestive for the kids to be corrupt.” Chan said straight people were born with their sexual orientation, but she couldn’t accept the idea that anyone was born with a same-sex orientation. Chan’s long exile from electoral politics — and the bad taste of her final days as an elected official — made me question how viable her candidacy would be in the race to fill the District 122 Texas House seat being vacated by Republican Lyle Larson. I was also swayed by the emergence of Adam Blanchard, a trucking industry executive who had Larson’s endorsement and the backing of key players in the business community.