"I'm going to stand firmly and stand on business for the LGBTQ community and trans rights, but we're going to be talking about the agenda for working people and the poor," Scott said in an interview this week. "I think it will be challenging to resist from whatever direction the tokenizing of me as a trans woman and trans elected, but I'm doggedly committed to this agenda for working people."

Scott, 49, leads the Black trans advocacy organization the Lavender Rights Project and will be one of two members of the Democratic Socialists of America in the Legislature. She campaigned on tax reform, housing policy, and criminal justice reform, and she sees her overwhelming victory in a district covering Beacon Hill, Rainier Valley, Columbia City, and the Central District as a mandate for bold action.

She will join a Democratic caucus with a supermajority for the first time in decades, a shift she believes creates both opportunity and obligation. "We'll have no excuses if in the end we are passing down an austerity budget with serious cuts that threaten the social safety net for communities," Scott said. "I think the supermajority is a mandate not to do business as usual."

Among her priorities is reversing recent cuts to childcare funding. She also hopes the expanded majority will help the Legislature deliver on housing and criminal justice reforms.

Scott is part of a wave of new representation in the 37th District. Rep. Chipalo Street is moving to the Senate to replace Sen. Rebecca Saldaña, who won election to the Metropolitan King County Council. Educator Kelabe Tewolde, a progressive Democrat, defeated Rep. Sharon Tomiko Santos, the House's longest-serving active member, and will serve alongside Scott in the House. Tewolde said he "couldn't be luckier to have a seatmate like Jaelynn."

Scott is one of six transgender and nonbinary legislators elected across the country this month who will make history as their state's firsts. Vanessa Clifford of the Working Families Party said Scott's victory carries significance beyond Washington. "It is very important and powerful that we have a representative in Jaelynn Scott," Clifford said. "And not only is that great for Washington, but I think that's important to show to the rest of the country."

Election night was emotional for Scott, not only because of her trailblazing win but also because of the success of a conservative-backed ballot measure, Initiative 638, that bars transgender girls from competing in girls' school sports. Scott believes many voters who supported her also backed the measure, which she describes as bringing about "legalized segregation." The initiative faces a legal challenge filed this week by parents and advocacy groups seeking to stop it from taking effect.

Scott hopes the lawsuit succeeds. She is reminded of the role the legal system played during the civil rights movement; she is originally from the South. "I'm very hopeful that at least the law will find balance and give us time and room to actually have a cultural conversation about what type of Washington we want to live in," she said.

"Do we want a commonwealth where all of our children feel welcome and loved, and can just have fun with their friends, or do we want to build a society where we use the law to bully a handful of kids out of playing sports?" she continued.

Scott said she has experienced "slightly" less harassment and fewer death threats than other transgender candidates, in part because she does not read social media comments. After the August primary, she felt being the first was a "heavy burden." Now, she said, that feeling has shifted.

"It's a privilege that is not afforded to a lot of people like me," Scott said. "It's not feeling heavy. I'm feeling very well supported, and I'm excited about the opportunity of bringing the entire community's needs forward, and the power of having Black women in office, and trans women in office, and representation in office that understands the urgency of this moment and the critical crises that our communities are in."