Voters in Alameda County have elected the first transgender trial judge in the United States to the superior court bench.
With 100% of precincts reporting from the Nov. 2 election, the Alameda County Registrar of Voters reports that Victoria Kolakowski has captured Office #9 of the Alameda County Superior Court, winning 50.46% of the vote. Kolakowski campaigned on the platform that electing a transgender judge would be “transformative.”
Kolakowski “campaigned on a platform of being the first transgender judge in the state and bringing change to a bench that, she argued, was too overloaded with white males,” reported the Oakland Tribune.
Kolakowski, an administrative law judge with the California Public Utilities Commission since 2007, defeated Deputy District Attorney John Creighton, a prosecutor with more than 25 years of experience. Creighton won 48.54% of the vote.
Alameda County includes the cities of Alameda, Albany, Berkeley, Dublin, Emeryville, Fremont, Hayward, Livermore, Newark, Piedmont, Pleasanton
San Leandro, Union City, and Oakland, the county seat.
“If I am elected, I would be the first transgender trial court judge in the United States,” Kolakowski said on the Kolakowski for Alameda Superior Court Judge campaign website. “Electing a transgender person to the superior court would be transformative.”
Kolakowski, 48, has practiced both corporate and private law. Kolakowski began working for the Public Utilities Commission in 1999 and was named an administrative law judge for the agency in 2007. Kolakowski is also a founding member of the pro-homosexual lobbying group Equality California, and became a member of the San Francisco-based Transgender Law Center board in 2006.
“Most members of my community have some interaction with the legal system,” said Kolakowski on the campaign website. “Transitioning sexes creates a wide range of family and legal issues, such as divorces, custody disputes, birth certificate changes, etc. Unemployment and underemployment are major problems for the transgender community, and many are sex workers.
“This is why I am proud to serve as co-chair of the board of directors of the Transgender Law Center, an organization dedicated to addressing these problems... For these reasons, many judges, attorneys, police officers and prosecutors have little positive interaction with the transgender community… I believe that interacting with a transgender judge would help the other judges, court staff, police, district attorneys and the private bench to see people like me as respectable professionals and even colleagues, and not as ‘freaks.’”
Kolakowski won endorsements from the Sierra Club, the California Nurses Association, the Alameda Labor Council, the National Women's Political Caucus, Sen. Ellen Corbett, D-San Leandro, Sen. Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, D-San Francisco, Assemblywoman Nancy Skinner, D-Oakland, Assemblyman Sandré Swanson, D-Alameda; and Oakland City Attorney John Russo, among others.
Kolakowski graduated from the Louisiana State University School of Law, but encountered difficulty being admitted to the bar there after applying to take the Louisiana bar exam in the late 1980s. State bar officials rejected Kolakowski’s application on the grounds a transgender person “was not of sound mind.” The Louisiana Supreme Court later reversed the state bar’s finding and allowed Kolakowski to practice law.
“Victoria moved to Berkeley in 1990 along with her ex-spouse, Leslie,” says the Kolakowski campaign website. “She quickly got involved in community and professional leadership activities throughout the Bay Area… She presently resides in Oakland with her spouse Cynthia.”
According to the website, Kolakowski also holds a Masters of Divinity degree from the Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley and has served as a chaplain at the UCSF Medical Center. Kolakowski, says the website, “is an ordained minister in the Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches (a denomination with a special ministry to the LGBT community)”, and currently serves as “volunteer clergy at New Spirit Community Church in Berkeley.”
