As groundbreaking trans politician Andrea Jenkins retires, a look at her life...

[Jessica_Rose ✅]

As groundbreaking trans politician Andrea Jenkins retires, a look at her life and career

https://www.advocate.com/politics/transgender-groundbreaker-andrea-jenkins-retiring#rebelltitem2 🔗

Trudy Ring (31 Dec 2025)

Andrea Jenkins has been a history-making figure at a historic time. In 2017, she was elected to the Minneapolis City Council, becoming the first out transgender African American elected to public office in the U.S. She went on to be vice president and then president of the council, the latter making her the first out trans person to be a city council president in the U.S. Now Jenkins is retiring.

Jenkins was born in 1961 in Chicago. She grew up in the impoverished neighborhood of North Lawndale; her mother was an office administrator, while her father, who was addicted to heroin, spent much time in prison. She spent weekends with her grandparents in the middle-class neighborhood of Chatham... She moved to Minneapolis in 1979 to attend the University of Minnesota, a largely white school, where she experienced much racism and anti-LGBTQ+ hostility, even though she wasn't out as trans at the time...

In her 20s, she married a woman and had a daughter. At age 30, she ended the marriage and came out as a trans woman. "I just really realized that I [couldn't] go on anymore, hiding the truth from myself," Jenkins once said of this period. "Hiding the truth from those who I love. If I am going to thrive in life, I have to come to grips with who I am, and I have to accept it." She returned to Minnesota, working as a vocational counselor for Hennepin County, which includes Minneapolis, and also returned to college, eventually earning a bachelor's degree and two master's degrees.