Victoria Kolakowski is a lawyer, a judge and a wife.She has a master's degree in biomedical engineering and one in divinity, alongside her law degree. If elected as judge of the Superior Court of Alameda County, Ca.,today, she will not only be one ofrelatively few women appointed to these courtsbut thefirst ever transgender trial court judge in the United States– but that's not why she's running.
"The trans thing isn't the first thing I talk about," Kolakowski told the Daily. "I talk about my experience, things I've done as a lawyer, things I want to do as a judge, and when there's time, I say something about being transgender. It's not what I lead with, and a lot of people don't know. I'm not hiding it, but it's one of the things that is difficult when you're running a race; how do you address this issue? You don't want to be hiding something about who you are, if you're out, but you also don't want to say, ‘Vote for me. I'm wearing a rainbow flag.'"
Kolakowski was born male in 1961 in Queens, N.Y., but she moved to Berkeley, Ca., which is part of Alameda County, in 1990, after she had already transitioned. As soon as she moved to the area, she threw herself into giving back to her adopted community, one she's since served in many fashions.
Kolakowski has worked for a number of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) organizations in the area, as well as legal commissions on public works, budgets and other local issues. She currently serves on the California Council of Churches and works as a volunteer clergy at the New Spirit Community Church in Berkeley.
"I've spent the last two decades doing a lot of work in the community as a whole," she said. "I strongly believe in giving back, in public service, [and running for Superior Court judge] seemed like a natural step for me to take."
While Kolakowski highlighted her accomplishments and her years of legal experience before her transgender status, she is excited about bringing her specific perspective and life experience into her decisions.
"I feel like I could bring something to the table, to the bench actually, in terms of my experience as a member of the transgender community and an LGBT person," she said. "There are very few attorneys who are open about being transgender who have the experience to be able to [run for Superior Court judge]. I feel very fortunate that I've been able to make it as far in my own career as I have, and I want to give something back of the good fortune and blessing that I've had in my own life. But that's one of the things that motivates me personally, not what I say when I go around telling people to vote for me."
Due to the relatively small size of the transgender community not just in government, but in public life in general,Kolakowski is especially conscious of the position she will be in if elected and that a lot of it will be tied up with educating the public on what it means to be a transgender person.
In simple terms,transgender people feel they have been born the wrong biological sex, with the wrong body, and many go through gender reassignment surgery to rectify their situation,she explained.
"Coming out, before I transitioned, it was so hard to explain to someone, to go ‘I'm a woman,' and they go ‘No, you're not,' and I say ‘I feel like this,' and they say ‘You have a problem,'" she said. "A lot of people come from this perspective that we're out of touch with reality, so we become unreliable or undependable. Usually, people who have problems with gays and lesbians see it as more of a moral issue – that it's immoral, not that they think they're crazy. With trans people, there is this perception that, not what we're doing is immoral, but the fundamental perspective is that we're out of touch with reality."
While she is running for judge in the San Francisco Bay Area, considered by many one of America's most progressive enclaves, Kolakowski knows that there's a lot of work to be done. She mentionedGwen Araujo, a transgender woman who was brutally murdered in Alameda County in 2002 because of her gender identity.
"The circle of people who did this, they were right here in my county," she said. "Gwen's murder is one of the better known trans hate crimes. They made a Lifetime movie about it, and this is the same county that has Berkeley and Oakland and very, very progressive people in it."
Although Kolakowski has not experienced hate crimes outwardly, she knows that there's a difference between what people say explicitly and what they wait to say anonymously on the Internet.Kolakowski was part of a group of transgender candidates across the nation that was recently profiled in the New York Times, and she cited some of the online comments on the article as indicative of a culture of homophobia and transphobia that still exists in the United States in many forms.
"Nobody says it to my face," she said. "I've been very fortunate. But also the difference between the real world and the digital world, people don't say the things that they say to you online to your face."
The challenge for this last leg of the race, she said, is to portray herself fairly and accurately and to balance the importance of her experience as a lawyer with the importance of her personal experiences.
"How do you be out about who you are in a way that people can be inspired by but not seem like you're trying to make a big deal about something that ‘doesn't matter anymore?'" she said. "We're still a long way from not making a big deal about this. We still haven't had a woman president in this country. Liberals say, ‘I'm not interested in identity politics,' but if it doesn't matter, then why has it never happened before?"
Kolakowki believes such issues are still exceedingly relevant in United States politics. "Race, sex, gender, class, sexual identity – they matter at some point because of the fact that so many people are making history or breaking some barrier. There's an educational component of my campaign that gives me an opportunity to raise issues," she said. "If I weren't running, people wouldn't necessarily be talking about these issues, and we all should."
