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Charlotte, N.C. • Jane Campbell and her wife were crushed when North Carolina passed a law that rolled back rights for gay, lesbian and transgender people. Then Campbell, a retired Navy captain, took a dramatic step: She decided to run against one of the bill's supporters.

"HB2 was really the thing that spurred my interest," Campbell said, referring to what the law was called in the legislature.

Campbell and others gathered at a Charlotte hotel here last weekend to participate in a four-day training for aspiring gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender politicians and political operatives. The training, put on by the Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund, which works to elect LGBT people to office, has been going on for years.

But its leaders and many attendees said their mission has taken on a more urgent quality. In the wake of last year's Supreme Court ruling legalizing same-sex marriage nationwide, hundreds of pieces of anti-gay legislation were introduced in statehouses nationwide. The LGBT community has also been galvanized by the terrorist shooting attack two weeks ago in Orlando targeting a gay nightclub, killing 49.

Here in North Carolina, the HB2 law rolled back local antidiscrimination provisions and, required transgender people to use public bathrooms corresponding with their birth gender. In Mississippi, a law allowing businesses to refuse service to same-sex couples goes into effect on Friday, although part of it was struck down this week.

"It's like someone took a barrel of ice water and doused us with it, and people are feeling that shock," said Victory Fund president Aisha C. Moodie-Mills, referring to setbacks in the year since the marriage ruling.

Mills said the decision to come to Charlotte underscores one of the group's major goals: to try to get gay people elected in places where there is little representation. The South has only a small handful of gay elected officials; here in North Carolina, the only gay legislator was appointed, not elected. Nationwide there are 470 LGBT people in elected or appointed office, according to the group. Recent training sessions have been held in Indiana after the state passed a religious liberty law, and in Salt Lake City.

This week, two transgender women won Democratic congressional primaries in the West. Misty K. Snow, a 30-year-old Democrat who works at a grocery store, will face incumbent Sen. Mike Lee in Utah's Senate race. Misty Plowright, a 33-year-old IT consultant, will challenge Rep. Doug Lamborn in Colorado for a seat in the House district near Colorado Springs.

In an interview, Snow said she decided to run because she doesn't think the working class and poor are adequately represented in Washington. She did not go through the Victory Fund's training.

"I decided that there's not enough working-class people in government," said Snow, who plans to keep working throughout the campaign. "I just happen to be trans. It's not why I'm running."

Plowright also said she plans to make fighting for the working class a big part of her platform, along with shoring up the nation's aging infrastructure and pushing to get high-speed broadband installed nationwide.

"I'm not a one-trick pony and I don't want to be a token candidate," she said. But talking with a friend who opened a non-profit that does transgender activism in Seattle and attending the Colorado Democratic convention earlier this year led her to take the leap and run.

"As a trans woman I've been content for a long time to just kind of hide in the shadows, blend in, not make waves, not get noticed. It's just safer that way," she said. "The more of us that get out there and the more of us that fight and the more visible we are the better things are going to get."

Here in North Carolina, opposition to the transgender law, which also contains provisions on minimum wage and suing for discrimination, has galvanized Campbell and others who want to try to fight it politically.

The epicenter of the fight is in Charlotte, where the city council passed a non-discrimination ordinance in February extending new protections to gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people. The following month, Gov. Pat McCrory, R, signed HB2, now widely known as the "bathroom law."

Some fighting to repeal the law say having more LGBT people in politics will help.

"Stop marching and holding hands and get your butt out and vote," Charlotte City Councilor LaWana Mayfield, who is a lesbian, said at the training session. "Unless we get angry enough to stop talking about it and do something about it, nothing's going to change."

Kawana Davis, 31, was on the receiving end of an email from Mayfield and others seeking gay, lesbian and transgender people to attend the training.

"There was no way I couldn't get involved" after the bathroom law passed, she said.

Davis describes herself as a "behind the scenes girl" and could see herself as a campaign manager or strategist. "To help LGBT folks have a successful campaign, that's a need," she said.

Davis and about 20 others, most from the South and the Eastern Seaboard, spent the weekend holed up inside a hotel here, where they sketched out an entire campaign for a fake candidate. Some came in direct response to HB2. Others have long harbored political ambitions. Some are total novices.

Joe Fuld, a Democratic strategist who led the weekend session, broke down the nuts and bolts of campaigning. A Republican strategist also leads workshops.

"What's a bad motivation to run?" Fuld asked.

"Money," someone shouted. "Power," said another. "Fame," a man said.

Fuld suggested the candidates do a personal assessment too: Is your family on board? Are you ready to run?

Fundraising, he told them, is crucial but takes up a lot of time and energy. He said to talk about filling potholes, changing the educational system or other issues that voters care about.

"Those are things that you are going to do as opposed to being the LGBT candidate or the gay guy or the trans person," he said.

Campbell and her wife spent most of the spring going door-to-door in Davidson, N.C., where they live, gathering signatures for Campbell to get on the ballot as an unaffiliated candidate challenging Rep. John R. Bradford III, R. She said the effort was a good opportunity to hear potential constituents talk about the issues most important to them, including education and regional infrastructure.

Tanner Glenn, 20, a student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, is taking next semester off to manage the campaign of a former high school history teacher running for state legislature.

Glenn came to the training to learn more about the nuts and bolts of campaigns and understand what the playing field looks like for gays and lesbians who are candidates or behind the scenes. The fight here over HB2, he said, makes it more crucial than ever to have more gay people involved in politics.

"It's certainly been a motivating factor," Glenn said. "It shows there is a lot of work to do."