'I’m not a politician. I just care about people'

The New York Times, MSNBC, FOX News, and many other media outlets have stories about Ari Faber’s trailblazing campaign as a transgender candidate for Ohio State Senate District 30.

Athens’ award-winning weekly newspaper decided to learn more about Faber and did so at Donkey Coffee one sunny afternoon. Faber’s red hair, genuine personality and strong desire to help others made it a captivating interview, a breath of fresh air.

“I’m not a politician. I just care about people,” Faber said. “I have my whole life felt like I am here on this planet to help people to make a difference. And my whole life has been in dedication to helping people. You know, remember when you’re a kid — little kids they always say, ‘I want to help. Let me help. How can I help?’ I never got outgrew that. I constantly just want to help people. I want people to be able to reach their full potential and live their best lives.”

Before attending Ohio University and earning a degree in psychology in 2019, Faber grew up in Perry County where he was active in 4-H at New Lexington High School, Class of 2013. These days, Faber, 29, serves as the outreach director for United Campus Ministries, a nonprofit focused on spiritual growth and progressive social action. UCM’s ministry offers a variety of programming, events and opportunities for spiritual growth, community service and social justice, according to the organization’s website.

Most people may be familiar with the free lunches that are served on Wednesdays and dinners that are served on Thursdays in the nonprofit’s building at 18 N. College St., Athens.

“I run the meals program,” Faber said. “That is absolutely my baby. When I first started, we were serving 15 to 20 folks per meal. That was it. Now we’re at like 85 to 100. It’s really good food too. I grew up in the kitchen with my mom and grandma all the time. And so I have always really loved cooking and baking.”

Faber identifies as a trans man, which triggers some folks across the internet.

“The worst that I’ve gotten is the New York Times article or something is posted on Twitter or someone doesn’t interview me but writes an article about what’s happened,” Faber said of coverage of the state senate race. “People will leave some kind of nasty comments. FOX News wrote an article about everything that happened without interviewing any of us. They just took quotes from like other media sources and like the comments on that have been pretty awful including some very clearly white supremacist Nazi rhetoric being exposed — those comments aren’t getting deleted, they’re being left. But that’s been about the only blowback. Most people have been incredibly supportive.”

Faber said he is not scared to run for office but instead has a mission to serve others.

“I’m not scared actually. I want this with every fiber of my being, but I know I have a steep hill to climb. If I don’t win this election, that OK but it won’t be my last campaign for state legislature. I truly believe the best and most effective way I can help people is through policy. I’ve known my whole life that my purpose is to help and serve others.”

A local activist, Faber was a key leader in persuading Athens City Council to adopt a seeking to make Athens a sanctuary city for reproductive health in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court ruling Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.

“As elected officials, you have a responsibility to ensure that your limited resources, backed by the Athens County residential taxpayer, are focused on efforts to prevent and address serious crimes rather than enforce abortion bans that divide our community, create untenable choices for patients and healthcare providers, and erode trust in the justice system,” Faber said in a speech to City Council in August of 2022.

Faber has been a strong supporter of Trans rights, often attending local rallies and speaking out.

“Seeing so much community support was so uplifting and everyone walked away feeling encouraged and supported by the Athens community. I heard several folks talking about how Athens is such a little gem as they walked away. It was an amazing show of support and solidarity from the community that really filled my cup and so many others too,” Faber said at a Athenians for Bodily Autonomy (ABA) organized a protest against anti-transgender signage on the door and windows of Artifacts Gallery in April of 2023.

Based in the Ohio Valley, Ohio’s 30th senatorial district consists of large swaths of eastern and southeastern Ohio and includes the counties of Carroll, Jefferson, Harrison, Belmont, Noble, Monroe, Washington, and Meigs, as well as portions of Athens and Vinton counties.

“Yeah, I am absolutely giving it my all. And I hope I win. I would have tears of joy if I do,” Faber said. “I am not a person that believes in like half-assing something. If I’m going do it, I’m committed to it and I’m going to do it with everything I’ve got.”

Let’s not ignore the elephant in the room — the district leans heavily to the Republican side of the ballot with Athens County favoring Democrats.

Faber ran unopposed in the Democratic Primary. Faber’s Republican opponent is Brian Chavez, a Marietta resident and former Washington County Commissioner. Chavez was appointed to represent the 30th Senate District in December 2023 after the retirement of Frank Hoagland, R-Mingo Junction.

“It came up that nobody was going to gun as a Democrat in this election for the Senate district,” Faber said. “And if not me, then who? You know who else is going do it? Other people had been asked and said no because it is a tall order. The expectation is a 35-65 split, and I do think I can do better than 35% of the vote. Am I going to get the 51%? We’ll see. I hope I do. I’m giving it my all and trying my best.”

Since the electorate is pretty polarized these days, Faber plans to on run issues that might appeal to all voters no matter what party they support.

“I am running on food insecurity, housing insecurity and the cost of health care,” Faber said. “There are things that I have a lot of personal experience with as well as like the issues that are most important to me. You know, everybody is talking about the cost of living crisis. I just saw an article basically saying how people deal with inflation and not being able to afford groceries — that you should just eat less. Yeah. That approach is literally shows a lack of compassion and care for your fellow human beings.”

Faber continued, “People literally just can’t afford to survive anymore. There was always a group of people who weren’t making ends meet, but we were seeing that expand itself more and more and more. And within the district, seven out of 10 counties in the district are part of the bottom third. When you’re looking at poverty rate, they have the highest poverty rates in the state. Seven of the 10 counties are in that third and then the other three are just barely in the middle.”

An issue that hits close to home with many voters is how rent prices keep increasing while wages remain stagnant.

“I’ve got friends that lived in Athens for a long time,” Faber said. “They live in West Virginia now because they can’t afford rent around here. And that’s happening more and more frequently. And it used to be a thing about how people moved out into the country rather than in town because rent was cheaper out there, but that’s not even the case anymore.”

Candidates are frequently asked if elected, what their top priority would be within the first 100 days.

“So when it comes to like food insecurity, I am really wanting to look at some of the things Michigan has done recently.” Faber said. “So you know how here in Athens, at the farmers market, there’s the program where if you’re on SNAP benefits, you can spend some of those and then they match up to $20 in produce tokens. Michigan instituted something very similar but it’s a statewide program and it’s been wildly successful for them. A program like that helps people to stretch their SNAP benefits. It’s good for your local farmers who are selling and it’s good food — expands access to healthy, nutritious, good food.”

Faber would like to expand access to affordable housing.

“Taking old office buildings and turning them into apartments. Increasing subsidies and grants and stuff like that for ADUs, accessory dwelling units. So if someone owns their house, they have a nice backyard and they build a tiny house in their backyard, they can then rent that out. That increases the available housing. You work with them, make sure it’s also affordable housing. And then again helping with subsidizing and grant funding and things for that.”

Faber said it’s important not only in government but society for people to listen and try to understand another person’s point of view.

“I think that’s something we’ve really lost in politics is the ability to listen to someone else’s perspective about an issue. When it comes to issues of human rights — I understand that but when it comes to is this the best policy? Should we vote for this version of the budget or should we scrap it and redo the budget? You know, those are the kinds of conversations that I feel like what we are missing from politics now and that people just have kind of stopped having and they’re conversations that I really enjoy.”

Faber continued, “For example, my parents think Trump is one of the best presidents we’ve ever had and are very excited to vote for him again. But I can still have conversations about politics with my parents. Are we going to talk about like trans rights? No, but can we talk about things like the fiscal budget? We can have that conversation and that dialogue without anybody getting upset. And I think that at the end of the day, is either of us likely to change each other’s minds? No, but I think it can help you to see where maybe you are, you don’t have as strong of an argument as you would like and things like that. It can help you to define what you believe. Maybe they point out something that you haven’t considered before that you need to go do some research on and kind of form an opinion around that thing that was like a blind spot for you. We’re all human, we all have biases and so just like being aware of that and trying to kind of disown what is something that yes you actually believe and where are things where, oh I should probably do a little more research on this before forming an opinion.”

As to party labels, “I don’t give a crap what your party is, it doesn’t matter. I want hear from you. I want to hear what your needs are. I want to help, I want to be known for like constituency services for being able to open doors for people where doors were previously closed.”

Faber said this campaign is about ideas, bringing people together, and helping others.

“I have so many people that I haven’t heard from in years reach out to me because they’ve heard about the campaign and they’re so excited because they want to be able to support me — people on both ends extremes of the political spectrum. I was visiting my parents for my mom’s birthday. We started talking about my campaign. I told them the issues I’m running on the things I want to do and at the end of it my dad told me that he likes my platform and that he’s proud of me. I love my dad. We have a great relationship now and everything. It wasn’t always the case, but him saying he’s proud isn’t a super common (occurrence). It’s like that was a really big deal and the first time I told somebody about that I was tearing up at the thought of it and stuff. So that is the one thing that I’m grateful for with my campaign is that it really isn’t partisan, and if I can just get people to listen to me, I think I have a shot.”