Interview- Tennessee- Lena Chipman Discusses Her Plans for Memphis

Lena Chipman is running for County Commission in Memphis, Tennessee as a democratic socialist.  She spoke to The Needle about her plans for the city, and her work in making life bearable for trans people there.

The original interview has been edited down for time and clarity.

Jane: Would you like to start by telling me about yourself? 

Lena: Sure, absolutely. So my name is Lena Chipman. I'm a professional problem. More specifically what that means is that I'm an activist and an advocate. I ran a community dinner series here in Memphis for trans and gender non-conforming people.

Also, I'm a candidate for the Democratic nomination for Shelby County Commission District 13 here in Tennessee. 

Jane: Tell me about the district you'll be running in. 

Lena: So for people who aren't in the Memphis area, Shelby County consists of Memphis and the various municipalities. You may have heard of Germantown, Collierville, etc. 

If you're politically tuned in, you know it’s where a particularly nasty senator who's quite transphobic happens to live. 

And inside of Shelby County, District 13 is right in the middle of Memphis. It covers Islet, which has Central Gardens. It's a federally certified arboretum. 

We cover most of Cooper Young anyway, which is one of the largest neighborhoods. It has one of the highest per-capita concentrations of same sex households in the United States. 

And then we have some universities. We have Christian Brothers University. We also have one of the Southwest Tennessee Community College campuses. So that is one of our key colleges that we have for making sure that people who are of lower income have access to education.

In Tennessee, in past administrations, we have had scholarship programs created to allow anyone in the state of Tennessee to get two years of community college for free. So Southwest is the means by which we provide that. 

There are also some very key immigrant areas that have been disinvested in. Right now they're under the gun. We have the federal occupation going on in Memphis, the state task force that Bill Lee and Donald Trump decided to bring into the city, and a lot of what they're doing is focused on that area because it has a significant immigrant population. So they're harassing people in my district. So obviously I'm quite irritated with the behavior of ICE there. 

The seat is going to be an open seat. And there's a lot of people who don't have their voices heard. A lot of the focus in this district from the county Democrats has been on the higher income areas that are viewed as having higher propensity voters.

So we have an opportunity to represent a significant, diverse slice of Shelby County in District 13, if we get the right person elected for it. 

Jane: Would you like to tell me why you think you're the person to do all that? 

Lena: So my background is that I have a master's degree in cognitive psychology from the University of Memphis. I've lived all of Shelby County, and I choose to make my home in the middle of Memphis. As a technology consultant, I have the opportunity to move wherever I would like. I choose to live here because I love Memphis. I love district 13. I love the middle of the city. I've been here for basically my entire life. I choose to stay here. 

I'm really interested in listening to people, hearing what they have to say, and then solving their problems. I'm running to transform power into progress. So what does that mean? That means using the power of the County Commission and the County Government, which manages a billion dollar plus budget, to actually solve real problems. People can't get to their jobs if they can't use the mass traffic system. Let's re-imagine how this transforms that into a regional traffic system. That can start by proving value expressed buses. 

Jane: One thing I do want to do with all my interviews is talk about the trans migration out of the South and Midwest and into the coasts. Has this been a factor in your area?