Kathy Kozachenko

Kathy Kozachenko (born 1953) is an American politician who was the first openly LGBT candidate to successfully run for political office in the United States. Kozachenko ran on the ticket of the Human Rights Party (HRP), the local, left-wing third party, which had already succeeded in winning two Ann Arbor, Michigan, council seats in 1972.

Biography

Born in Alexandria, Virginia, 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 University of Michigan, 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".

Kozachenko's HRP predecessors on the city council, Nancy Wechsler and Jerry DeGrieck, had both come out during their first and only terms on the city council, thus becoming the first openly LGBT public-office holders in the United States; however, neither Wechsler nor DeGrieck ran for office as an openly lesbian/gay individual.