{{Infobox officeholder , honorific-prefix = , name = Kathy Kozachenko , native_name = , native_name_lang = , honorific-suffix = , image = , imagesize = , smallimage = , alt = , caption = , office = Ann Arbor City Council, Second Ward (Michigan) , term_start = 1974 , term_end = 1976 , alongside = , constituency = , predecessor =

Nancy Wechsler Nancy Wechsler is an activist, writer, and former member of the Ann Arbor, Michigan#Law and government, Ann Arbor City Council, where she came out as a lesbian while serving her term. Elected to the City Council alongside fellow Human Rights Part ...

(HR) , successor = Earl W. Greene (D) , prior_term = , birth_date = , birth_place = Alexandra Virginia , death_date = , death_place = , restingplace = , restingplacecoordinates = , birthname = , citizenship = , nationality = , party = Human Rights Party , otherparty = , spouse = , partner = , relations = , children = , parents = , residence = , alma_mater =

University of Michigan , mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth" , former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821) , budget = $10.3 billion (2021) , endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...

, occupation = , profession = , cabinet = , committees = , portfolio = , religion = , signature = , signature_alt = , website = Kathy Kozachenko (born 1953) is an American politician who was the first openly

lesbian A lesbian is a Homosexuality, homosexual woman.Zimmerman, p. 453. The word is also used for women in relation to their sexual identity or sexual behavior, regardless of sexual orientation, or as an adjective to characterize or associate n ...

gay ''Gay'' is a term that primarily refers to a homosexual person or the trait of being homosexual. The term originally meant 'carefree', 'cheerful', or 'bright and showy'. While scant usage referring to male homosexuality dates to the late 1 ...

candidate to run successfully for political office in the United States.{{cite news, last1=Friess, first1=Steve, title=The First Openly Gay Person to Win an Election in America Was Not Harvey Milk, url=https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2015-12-11/the-first-openly-gay-person-to-win-an-election-in-america-was-not-harvey-milk, work=

Bloomberg News Bloomberg News (originally Bloomberg Business News) is an international news agency headquartered in New York City and a division of Bloomberg L.P. Content produced by Bloomberg News is disseminated through Bloomberg Terminals, Bloomberg Televi ...

, date=December 11, 2015, accessdate=3 April 2020 Kozachenko ran on the ticket of the Human Rights Party (HRP), the local, left-wing

third party Third party may refer to: Business * Third-party source, a supplier company not owned by the buyer or seller * Third-party beneficiary, a person who could sue on a contract, despite not being an active party * Third-party insurance, such as a V ...

, which had already succeeded in winning two

Ann Arbor, Michigan Ann Arbor is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan and the county seat of Washtenaw County, Michigan, Washtenaw County. The 2020 United States census, 2020 census recorded its population to be 123,851. It is the principal city of the Ann Arbor ...

, council seats in 1972.{{cite news, last1=Compton, first1=Julie, title=Meet the lesbian who made political history years before Harvey Milk, url=https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/meet-lesbian-who-made-political-history-years-harvey-milk-n1174941, work=

NBC News NBC News is the news division of the American broadcast television network NBC. The division operates under NBCUniversal Television and Streaming, a division of NBCUniversal, which is, in turn, a subsidiary of Comcast. The news division's var ...

, date=April 2, 2020, accessdate=3 April 2020

Biography

Born in

Alexandria, Virginia Alexandria is an independent city (United States), independent city in the northern region of the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Virginia, United States. It lies on the western bank of the Potomac River approximately south of Downto ...

, Kozachenko moved around during her youth. From Toledo, Ohio, she would eventually make it to Plymouth, Michigan. She joined the Human Rights Party (HRP) in the early 1970s. Kozachenko is of Ukrainian descent. Kozachenko was an out student at the

,{{Cite book, last1=Faderman, first1=Lillian, title=The Gay Revolution: The Story of the Struggle, year=2015, edition=1st, pages=393–394, publisher=

Simon & Schuster Simon & Schuster () is an American publishing company and a subsidiary of Paramount Global. It was founded in New York City on January 2, 1924 by Richard L. Simon and M. Lincoln Schuster. As of 2016, Simon & Schuster was the third largest publ ...

, location=New York, isbn=978-1451694116 where she received support for her progressive agenda, which included a fine of no more than five dollars for possession of small amounts of marijuana. Another part of her platform included "a ceiling on the amount of profit a landlord could make from rents on a building". Running solely against a liberal Democrat, the 21-year-old Kozachenko was elected to the Ann Arbor City Council on April 2, 1974. She won the seat "representing the city's second ward by fifty-two votes".{{cite book, editor1-last=Campbell, editor1-first=Jane, editor2-last=Carilli, editor2-first=Theresa, title=Queer Media Images: LGBT Perspectives, date=2013, page=123, chapter=11. First But (Nearly) Forgotten: Why You Know Milk But Not Kozachenko, by Bruce E. Drushel, publisher=

Lexington Books Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group is an independent publishing house founded in 1949. Under several imprints, the company offers scholarly books for the academic market, as well as trade books. The company also owns the book distributing compa ...

, location=Plymouth, United Kingdom, isbn=978-0739180280 Kozachenko's HRP predecessors on the city council,

and

Jerry DeGrieck Gerald (Jerry) C. DeGrieck is a public health manager and policy advisor in Seattle, Washington. He and Nancy Wechsler served together on the Ann Arbor City Council, 1972–1974, while they were graduate students at the University of Michigan. I ...

, had come out as a lesbian and gay man during their first and only terms on the city council, thus becoming the first openly

LGBT ' is an initialism that stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender. In use since the 1990s, the initialism, as well as some of its common variants, functions as an umbrella term for sexuality and gender identity. The LGBT term is a ...

public-office holders in the United States; however, Wechsler and DeGrieck did not run for office as an open lesbian and gay individual.

References

{{Reflist {{DEFAULTSORT:Kozachenko, Kathy Living people 20th-century American politicians 20th-century American women politicians Lesbian politicians American LGBT city council members American LGBT rights activists Women city councillors in Michigan LGBT people from Michigan LGBT people from Virginia Politicians from Ann Arbor, Michigan Michigan city council members Human Rights Party (United States) politicians American people of Ukrainian descent University of Michigan alumni 21st-century American women 1953 births