New Hope, Texas, Mayor Comes Out As Transgender

She was once referred to as "Jeff," but the mayor of New Hope, a town about 40 miles north of Dallas, kindly requests that you call her "Jess" from now on.

"As your mayor I must tell you about something that has been with me since my earliest memories,” Herbst wrote in an announcement that appeared on the official site of the New Hope website this week. “I am Transgender. Two years ago, with the support of my wife, daughters and son-in-law, I began hormone replacement therapy (HRT)."

Herbst, who has been mayor of New Hope since May of 2016, is the first openly transgender elected official in Texas.

In her announcement, Herbst, 58, noted that she had lived in New Hope with her wife and two daughters since 1999. In addition to holding the office of mayor, she had served as alderman, mayor-pro-tem and road commissioner in New Hope, which is a suburb of McKinney and considered a conservative stronghold.

Residents of the town, however, seemed unfazed at the mayor's announcement, which was made a few days before New Hope's most recent public town meeting.

“It was phenomenally positive; everyone was supportive,” Herbst told the New York Times about Tuesday's meeting. “We had a fairly packed crowd for a tiny town — there were 15 or 20 people there. I explained to the people who had not just had a chance to see the website, and everybody said, ‘O.K.,' and we went on and had a meeting.”

Gay and lesbian individuals have held office in Texas for decades now, but Herbst made history, according to The Texas Observer, which also noted that Phyllis Frye, of Houston, holds the distinction of having been the nation's first transgender judge — she was appointed in 2010 by then-Mayor Annise Parker. Another Houston politician, Jenifer Poole, was the first transgender candidate to win a primary in Texas; she was defeated in her general election in 2016.

Image courtesy Jess Herbst