This is a complicated question and this is the only way I could think of to phrase it without getting all long-winded. Basically, does this stuff matter to you when deciding who to vote (or not to vote) for?

Seems to me there's a lot more emphasis on things like that than on, y'know, boring stuff like policies and plans for the future. Not a fan. Between that and the "my opponent once said THIS or was once spotted with THIS person, so vote for ME!" everything political is just completely useless. I totally get why people just vote for the party with no regard to the candidate. If you want any actual information, you have to go dig for it yourself.

The Image chosen for this Option sums it up quite well for me !!!!

I'd never vote for someone because they're black, female, gay, etc. None of these things will even sway my vote towards you.

But we can't just ignore them completely - we can't just be "colourblind", coz society itself is most definitely not colourblind. These things provide context around a candidate, for example:

- A successful female politician has had to overcome (and still must overcome) challenges that are unique to being a female in politics. See link
- A successful black politician has had to overcome both systematic disadvantage and overt racism to get where they are.
Compare this to someone like Trump: a WASP born with a silver spoon in his mouth, who could throw around his money and fame (which he got mostly by virtue of belonging to the right family) to win the Presidency of the United States.

So yeah it doesn't "matter" in terms of where I place my vote. But it does sometimes provides important context about a candidate: what challenges they've overcome, the challenges they still face, their understanding of the challenges that other people face.