Stu Rasmussen (September 9, 1948 – November 17, 2021) was an American politician. He became the nation's first openly

transgender A transgender (often shortened to trans) person has a gender identity different from that typically associated with the sex they were sex assignment, assigned at birth. The opposite of ''transgender'' is ''cisgender'', which describes perso ...

mayor when he was elected as the mayor of Silverton, Oregon in November 2008. He had previously been elected twice in the 1990s as mayor of Silverton before coming out as transgender. He was also three times a member of the city council. Stu described herself as a "gender anarchist", and used both he/him and she/her pronouns. He sometimes went by the name Carla Fong. Rasmussen unsuccessfully ran for a seat in the

Oregon House of Representatives The Oregon House of Representatives is the lower house of the Oregon Legislative Assembly, the upper house being the Oregon State Senate. There are 60 members of the House, representing 60 districts across the state, each with a population of ...

in 1994 as an independent, and a seat in the

Oregon State Senate The Oregon State Senate is the upper house of the State legislature (United States), statewide legislature for the US state of Oregon. Along with the lower chamber Oregon House of Representatives it makes up the Oregon Legislative Assembly. Ther ...

in 1996 as a Democrat. He ran for the House again in 1998 as a Democrat, losing with 41% of the vote. In 2013 a musical about Rasmussen, ''Stu for Silverton'', premiered at

Seattle Seattle ( ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Washington and in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. With a population of 780,995 in 2024, it is the 18th-most populous city in the United States. The city is the cou ...

's Intiman Theatre. Rasmussen, a self-described fiscal conservative and

social liberal Social liberalism is a political philosophy and variety of liberalism that endorses social justice, social services, a mixed economy, and the expansion of civil and political rights, as opposed to classical liberalism which favors limited g ...

, served as city councilor until January 2009. He co-owned Silverton's 1936 Palace Theater, which shows first-run movies, since 1974. Rasmussen died from prostate cancer on November 17, 2021, at the age of 73.America's first openly transgender mayor, Silverton's Stewart 'Stu' Rasmussen dies
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References

External links

Stu Rasmussen for Mayor
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WNYC Radiolab segment on Stu Rasmussen

Interview with Stu Rasmussen About Being a Transgender Politician
1948 births 2021 deaths Mayors of places in Oregon Transgender politicians American transgender people American transgender politicians LGBTQ mayors of places in the United States LGBTQ people from Oregon People from Silverton, Oregon Oregon city council members Oregon Democrats Oregon independents Male-to-female cross-dressers 20th-century mayors of places in Oregon 21st-century mayors of places in Oregon Deaths from cancer in Oregon Deaths from prostate cancer in the United States {{Oregon-mayor-stub

See also

References

External links