List of first openly LGBT politicians in the United States
This is a list of the first openly LGBT people to have held political office in the United States. No openly LGBT person has served as president or vice president of the United States or as a justice on the Supreme Court of the United States. However, all 50 states have elected openly LGBT people to political office in some capacity, and 48 states have elected openly LGBT people to either or both chambers of the state legislature.
A total of eight states and one territory have elected a total of twelve openly LGBT people to statewide or territorywide elected offices: Jared Polis (Governor of Colorado), Maura Healey (Governor of Massachusetts and former Attorney General of Massachusetts), Tina Kotek (Governor of Oregon), Kate Brown (former Governor of Oregon and former Secretary of State of Oregon), Tammy Baldwin (United States Senator from Wisconsin), Kyrsten Sinema (United States Senator from Arizona), Dana Nessel (Attorney General of Michigan), Kris Mayes (Attorney General of Arizona), Ricardo Lara (Insurance Commissioner of California), Kevin Lembo (Comptroller of Connecticut), Josh Tenorio (Lieutenant Governor of Guam), and Benjamin Cruz (Public Auditor of Guam).
A total of three of the ten most populous cities in the United States have elected a total of three openly LGBT people as mayor: Lori Lightfoot (former Mayor of Chicago), Todd Gloria (Mayor of San Diego), and Annise Parker (former Mayor of Houston).
The first openly gay judge in the United States was Stephen M. Lachs, appointed by Governor Jerry Brown to the Los Angeles County Superior Court in 1979.[132] Before leaving office in 1981, Brown appointed three more gay and lesbian judges to the California courts, including the nation's first openly lesbian judge, Mary Morgan, who served on the San Francisco municipal court.[132]
In 1994, Thomas R. Chiola became the first openly gay judge in Illinois (and the first openly gay elected official in Illinois) when voters elected him to the Circuit Court of Cook County.[133][134]
Deborah Batts was the nation's first openly LGBT federal judge. She was appointed by President Bill Clinton to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York and confirmed by the Senate in a voice vote in 1994.[135] (Judge Vaughn Walker of the Northern District of California served from 1989 to February 2011 but did not come out until April 2011, after his retirement.)[136]
Batts was the sole openly LGBT judge on the federal bench for seventeen years, until Barack Obama appointed a series of gay and lesbian judges to the district courts: J. Paul Oetken (Southern District of New York, 2011); Alison J. Nathan (Southern District of New York, 2011); Michael W. Fitzgerald (Central District of California, 2012); Nitza I. Quiñones Alejandro (Eastern District of Pennsylvania, 2013); Pamela K. Chen (Eastern District of New York, 2013); Michael J. McShane (District of Oregon, 2013); Darrin P. Gayles (Southern District of Florida, 2014); Staci Michelle Yandle (Southern District of Illinois, 2014), and Judith Ellen Levy (Eastern District of Michigan, 2014).[136][137]
Obama also appointed the first openly LGBT judge of a federal court of appeals, Todd M. Hughes of the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.[136][138]
The first openly LGBT justice of a state supreme court was Rives Kistler, appointed to the Oregon Supreme Court in 2003, and retained by voters the following year.[139] The next gay or lesbian state supreme court justices were Virginia Linder (Oregon Supreme Court, 2006); Monica Márquez (Colorado Supreme Court, 2010); Barbara Lenk (Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, 2011); Sabrina McKenna (Supreme Court of Hawaii, 2011); Beth Robinson (Vermont Supreme Court, 2011).[139] In 2017, Paul Feinman became the first openly gay judge to sit on the New York Court of Appeals.
Benjamin Cruz of Guam was the first openly gay judge of a territorial supreme court; he came out in 1995 and was appointed to the Supreme Court of Guam in 1997.[140] Cruz served as associate justice from 1997 to 1999 and as chief justice from 1999 until his retirement in 2001.[141]
The first openly bisexual judge in the United States is Mike Jacobs, a state court judge in DeKalb County, Georgia, who came out publicly in 2018.[142]