Andrea Jenkins (born May 10, 1961) is an American politician, writer, performance artist, poet, and
transgender
A transgender (often abbreviated as trans) person is someone whose gender identity or gender expression does not correspond with their sex assigned at birth. Many transgender people experience dysphoria, which they seek to alleviate through tr ...
activist. She is known for being the first black openly transgender woman elected to public office in the United States, serving since January 2018 on the
Minneapolis City Council
The Minneapolis City Council is the lawmaking body of Minneapolis. It consists of 13 members, elected from separate wards to four-year terms, via a ranked-choice method. The council structure has been in place since the 1950s. In recent elections ...
, and as the council's president, since January 2022.
Jenkins moved to Minnesota to attend the
University of Minnesota
The University of Minnesota, formally the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, (UMN Twin Cities, the U of M, or Minnesota) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul, Tw ...
in 1979 and was hired by the
Hennepin County government, where she worked for a decade. Jenkins worked as a staff member on the Minneapolis City Council for 12 years before beginning work as curator of the Transgender Oral History Project at the University of Minnesota's
.
Early life and education
Born in 1961, Andrea Jenkins was raised in
North Lawndale, Chicago
North Lawndale is one of the 77 community areas of the city of Chicago, Illinois, located on its West Side. The area contains the K-Town Historic District, the Foundation for Homan Square, the Homan Square interrogation facility, and the great ...
.
She has said she grew up in "a low-income, working-class community" and "lived in some pretty rough places." She was raised by a single mother, Shirley Green, who was "very loving and very much concerned that we get a good education."
When she was young and still presenting as male, she participated in the
Cub Scout
Cub Scouts, Cubs or Wolf Cubs are programs associated with Scouting for young children usually between 7 and 12, depending on the organization to which they belong. A participant in the program is called a Cub. A group of Cubs is called a 'P ...
s and played football at
Robert Lindblom Math & Science Academy
Robert Lindblom Math & Science Academy High School (LMSA) (formerly known as Lindblom Technical High School) is a public 4–year selective enrollment high school and middle school located in the West Englewood neighborhood on the south side of ...
before moving to
Minneapolis
Minneapolis () is the largest city in Minnesota, United States, and the county seat of Hennepin County. The city is abundant in water, with thirteen lakes, wetlands, the Mississippi River, creeks and waterfalls. Minneapolis has its origins ...
in 1979 to attend the
University of Minnesota
The University of Minnesota, formally the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, (UMN Twin Cities, the U of M, or Minnesota) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul, Tw ...
.
In her 20s, Jenkins
came out
Coming out of the closet, often shortened to coming out, is a metaphor used to describe LGBT people's self-disclosure of their sexual orientation, romantic orientation, or gender identity.
Framed and debated as a privacy issue, coming out of ...
as gay, married a woman, became a parent, and divorced.
At 30, she began to outwardly present as female and returned to college to finish her bachelor's degree from
Metropolitan State University
Metropolitan State University (Metro State) is a public university in the Minneapolis–St. Paul, Minnesota metropolitan area. It is a member of the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities system. , which she followed by earning two master's degrees–an
MFA in creative writing from
Hamline University
Hamline University is a private liberal arts college in Saint Paul, Minnesota. Founded in 1854, Hamline is known for its emphasis on experiential learning, service, and social justice. The university is named after Bishop Leonidas Lent Hamline o ...
and an
MS in
community economic development Community economic development (CED) is a field of study that actively elicits community involvement when working with government, and private sectors to build strong communities, industries, and markets. It includes collaborative and participatory ...
from
Southern New Hampshire University
Southern New Hampshire University (SNHU) is a private university between Manchester and Hooksett, New Hampshire. The university is accredited by the New England Commission of Higher Education, along with national accreditation for some hospitali ...
.
During which, Jenkins worked as a vocational counselor for the
Hennepin County government.
In 2018, Jenkins completed Harvard University's
John F. Kennedy School of Government
The Harvard Kennedy School (HKS), officially the John F. Kennedy School of Government, is the school of public policy and government of Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The school offers master's degrees in public policy, public ...
program for Senior Executives in State and Local Government as a
David Bohnett
David C. Bohnett (born April 2, 1956) is an American philanthropist and technology entrepreneur. He is the founder and chairman of the David Bohnett Foundation, a non-profit, grant-making organization devoted to improving society through social ...
LGBTQ Victory Institute Leadership fellow.
Career
Local government
Jenkins worked for a decade as a vocational counselor with Hennepin County.
In 2001,
Robert Lilligren
Robert Lilligren (born July 2, 1960) is an American politician and member of the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party. He was an elected member of the Minneapolis City Council. He was first elected in 2001, to represent the 8th Ward of the ...
, who was running for a seat on the
Minneapolis City Council
The Minneapolis City Council is the lawmaking body of Minneapolis. It consists of 13 members, elected from separate wards to four-year terms, via a ranked-choice method. The council structure has been in place since the 1950s. In recent elections ...
, asked Jenkins to be a part of his campaign.
After his election, Jenkins joined Lilligren's staff where she worked as an aide for four years.
In 2005,
Elizabeth Glidden
Elizabeth Glidden is a lawyer, public policy professional, adjunct faculty at Humphrey School of Public Affairs in Minnesota, and former member of the Minneapolis City Council. She is the Director of Public Policy and Strategic Initiatives for th ...
was elected to the City Council and hired Jenkins as an aide, in part for Jenkins's extensive network that she had built up during her time in Lilligren's office. While on Glidden's staff, Jenkins earned a fellowship dedicated to
transgender
A transgender (often abbreviated as trans) person is someone whose gender identity or gender expression does not correspond with their sex assigned at birth. Many transgender people experience dysphoria, which they seek to alleviate through tr ...
issues and helped to establish the Transgender Issues Work Group in 2014.
That year, she organized a City Council summit on transgender equity intended to highlight the issues trans people in Minnesota face.
In 2015, after 12 years as a policy aide with the Minneapolis City Council, Jenkins began work at the University of Minnesota's
where she curates the Transgender Oral History Project (TOHP).
Lisa Vecoli, curator of the Tretter Collection, noted that the materials within the collection tend to be gay white male-focused. In her role as curator of the TOHP, Jenkins will seek to expand the trans narratives archived in the collection by recording
oral histories
Oral history is the collection and study of historical information about individuals, families, important events, or everyday life using audiotapes, videotapes, or transcriptions of planned interviews. These interviews are conducted with people wh ...
from up to 300 individuals, totaling as many as 400 hours of interviews.
Minneapolis city council
Jenkins announced in December 2016 that she would run to represent Minneapolis's 8th Ward on the City Council. Glidden, who held the seat, announced that she would not run for reelection.
Jenkins’ campaign slogan was "Leadership. Access. Equity."
With
Hayden Mora, Jenkins founded Trans United Fund, a
political action committee (PAC) to aid transgender candidates. On November 7, 2017, Jenkins won the election with more than 70% of the vote. The Minneapolis City Council has only had six other Black members. During the 2017 election, three Black council members won their races.
She was elected vice president of City Council by her fellow councilors shortly after her election. Since then, she has also served as chair of the new Race Equity Subcommittee and helped create a Racial Equity Community Advisory Committee consisting of city residents.
The 8th Ward that Jenkins represents includes the
38th Street and Chicago Avenue intersection where
George Floyd
George Perry Floyd Jr. (October 14, 1973 – May 25, 2020) was an African-American man who was murdered by a police officer in Minneapolis, Minnesota, during an arrest made after a store clerk suspected Floyd may have used a counterfeit twe ...
was murdered by a Minneapolis police officer on May 25, 2020. Despite initially supporting
abolishment of the Minneapolis Police Department following the
murder of George Floyd
On , George Floyd, a 46-year-old black man, was murdered in the U.S. city of Minneapolis by Derek Chauvin, a 44-year-old white police officer. Floyd had been arrested on suspicion of using a counterfeit $20 bill. Chauvin knelt on Floyd's n ...
, Jenkins later decided, following a recent wave of shooting, that the police should and keep doing their work in the city. But she also said Minneapolis "should focus on creating more schools, housing and other services that prevent people from pursuing crime or turning to violence".
Jenkins was
reelected to the Minneapolis City Council in November 2021, and was named City Council President on January 10, 2022, in a unanimous vote.
Vehicle blocking incident
On June 27, 2021, Jenkins, the vice president of the Minneapolis City Council, was involved in a confrontation with racial justice activists at a
Pride
Pride is defined by Merriam-Webster as "reasonable self-esteem" or "confidence and satisfaction in oneself". A healthy amount of pride is good, however, pride sometimes is used interchangeably with "conceit" or "arrogance" (among other words) wh ...
event in downtown Minneapolis. A group that included Donald Hooker Jr, a leader with Twin Cities Coalition for Justice 4 Jamar (referring to
Jamar Clark), blocked the car Jenkins was a passenger in for several hours and presented a list of six demands that Jenkins was asked to sign her agreement to. The demands including dropping charges against protesters in recent demonstrations, calling for the immediate resignation of Minneapolis Mayor
Jacob Frey
Jacob Lawrence Frey ( ; born July 23, 1981) is an American politician and attorney who has served as the mayor of Minneapolis, Minnesota since 2018. A member of the Minnesota Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party, he served on the Minneapolis City C ...
, continuing the closure of George Floyd Square, and providing more information about investigations of recent police killings. After Jenkins signed the agreement, activists moved out of the way to allow the vehicle to drive away.
Hooker posted a 23-minute video of part of the encounter to
Facebook
Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin M ...
. In a statement about the incident, Jenkins said she was treated inhumanely and held against her will by the demonstrators. The editorial board of the ''
Star Tribune
The ''Star Tribune'' is the largest newspaper in Minnesota. It originated as the ''Minneapolis Tribune'' in 1867 and the competing ''Minneapolis Daily Star'' in 1920. During the 1930s and 1940s, Minneapolis's competing newspapers were consolida ...
'' newspaper criticized what is described as attempted intimidation of Jenkins and compared aspects of the blocking incident to the
2021 United States Capitol attack
On January 6, 2021, following the defeat of then-U.S. President Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential election, a mob of his supporters attacked the United States Capitol Building in Washington, D.C. The mob was seeking to keep Trump in pow ...
.
Media recognition
In 2010, Jenkins won the Naked Stages grant from the Jerome Foundation and Pillsbury House Theater. She created "Body Parts: Reflections on Reflections".
Jenkins was one of several dozen women featured on the January 29, 2018,
''Time'' cover. The article was about the many women who ran for office in 2017 and 2018. Five of the women featured were lesbian and transgender candidates, all recipients of money from the
LGBTQ Victory Fund
The LGBTQ Victory Fund (formerly the Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund), commonly shortened to Victory Fund, is an American political action committee dedicated to increasing the number of openly LGBTQ public officials in the United States. Victory F ...
.
In June 2020, in honor of the 50th anniversary of the first LGBTQ
pride parade
A pride parade (also known as pride march, pride event, or pride festival) is an outdoor event celebrating lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer culture, queer (LGBTQ) social and self-acceptance, achievements, LGBT rights by country o ...
, ''
Queerty
''Queerty'' is an online magazine and newspaper covering gay-oriented lifestyle and news, founded in 2005 by David Hauslaib. As of June 2015, the site had more than five million monthly unique visitors.
History
''Queerty'' was founded by David ...
'' named her among the fifty heroes "leading the nation toward equality, acceptance, and dignity for all people". She was included in the 2022 Fast Company Queer 50 list.
Personal life
Jenkins is a performance artist, poet, and writer who identifies as
bisexual
Bisexuality is a romantic or sexual attraction or behavior toward both males and females, or to more than one gender. It may also be defined to include romantic or sexual attraction to people regardless of their sex or gender identity, whi ...
and queer.
She is a grandmother. Her own mother now lives in Ward 8. She has a partner of eight years. Jenkins was diagnosed with
multiple sclerosis
Multiple (cerebral) sclerosis (MS), also known as encephalomyelitis disseminata or disseminated sclerosis, is the most common demyelinating disease, in which the insulating covers of nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord are damaged. This d ...
in 2018.
She has participated in the Trans Lives Matter movement and chaired the board of
Intermedia Arts.
In 2015, Jenkins was
grand marshal
Grand marshal is a ceremonial, military rank, military, or political office of very high rank. The term has its origins with the word "marshal" with the first usage of the term "grand marshal" as a ceremonial title for certain religious orders. ...
of the
Twin Cities Pride
Twin Cities Pride, also known as Twin Cities GLBT Pride, is a nonprofit organization which runs an annual celebration in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota every June focusing on the LGBT community.
The celebration feature ...
Parade.
Jenkins has cited
Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Obama was the first African-American president of the U ...
,
Harold Washington
Harold Lee Washington (April 15, 1922 – November 25, 1987) was an American lawyer and politician who was the 51st Mayor of Chicago. Washington became the first African American to be elected as the city's mayor in April 1983. He served as ma ...
, the
Black Panther Party
The Black Panther Party (BPP), originally the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, was a Marxist-Leninist and black power political organization founded by college students Bobby Seale and Huey P. Newton in October 1966 in Oakland, Califo ...
,
Jeremiah Wright
Jeremiah Alvesta Wright Jr. (born September 22, 1941) is a pastor emeritus of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, a congregation he led for 36 years, during which its membership grew to over 8,000 parishioners. Following retirement, his be ...
, and
Jesse Jackson
Jesse Louis Jackson (né Burns; born October 8, 1941) is an American political activist, Baptist minister, and politician. He was a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1984 and 1988 and served as a shadow U.S. senator ...
as having influenced her to be involved with politics.
Bibliography
*
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*
See also
*
2020–2021 Minneapolis–Saint Paul racial unrest
*
Police abolition movement in Minneapolis
The police abolition movement gained momentum in the U.S. city of Minneapolis during protests of the murder of George Floyd in 2020 and culminated in the failed Question 2 ballot measure in 2021 to replace the city’s police department with a pub ...
References
External links
*
Andrea Jenkinson Intermedia Arts' website
Andrea Jenkinson the ''Places Journal'' website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Jenkins, Andrea
1961 births
Living people
African-American city council members in Minnesota
American curators
American women curators
Hamline University alumni
LGBT African Americans
American LGBT city council members
LGBT people from Illinois
LGBT people from Minnesota
Metropolitan State University alumni
Minneapolis City Council members
Minnesota Democrats
Poets from Minnesota
Southern New Hampshire University alumni
Transgender artists
Transgender politicians
Transgender women
Transgender writers
University of Minnesota alumni
Writers from Chicago
Writers from Minneapolis
Bisexual women
Bisexual politicians
Bisexual rights activists
Bisexual writers
21st-century American poets
Artists from Minneapolis
Politicians from Chicago
Women city councillors in Minnesota
21st-century American politicians
21st-century American women politicians
21st-century African-American women
21st-century African-American writers
20th-century African-American people
21st-century LGBT people
20th-century African-American women
Robert Lindblom Math & Science Academy alumni