Palm Springs Makes History Electing An All-LGBTQ City Council

By: Paul Goldberg, Staff Writer

PALM SPRINGS, CA — While everyone knows that Palm Springs has been one of the top LGBTQ friendly cities nationwide, five days ago they finally out did themselves in equality as the citizens of Palm Springs chose to elect an all-LGBTQ city council this time around.

While the mainstream media and cable news stations have chosen to ignore LGBTQ history making stories, we want to make sure that you are aware of the accomplishments our community and those who support equality are doing in our great nation.

The city is ranked first in the state and third in the nation among cities with the most same-sex couples per 1,000 households, according to the United States census data by the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law.

While the city council already made up a majority of LGBTQ representatives, the two new big wins that featured members of the LGBTQ community, bring the city council to an entire LGBTQ city council, the first of its kind any where in the world.

Lisa Middleton, a transgender woman, and Christy Holstege, a woman who identifies as bisexual, each won about 30% of the citywide vote to beat four other candidates and fill two vacant seats on the council. They will join three gay men on the five-person council.

The Los Angeles Times was honorable enough to report on this historic occasion:
“It is a historic feat — decades in the making — for the town of 47,000 in the Coachella Valley that has slowly shed its conservative political identity that developed in the Rat Pack era and continued in the 1990s. Ron Oden became the first gay person elected to the council in 1995. He made international headlines eight years later when he became the city’s first gay mayor and ushered in the council’s first gay majority. Middleton is also the first transgender person elected to a nonjudicial office in California, according to the group Equality California.”

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