Talk:Lesbian erasure

Requested move 15 November 2025

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: not moved. (closed by non-admin page mover) – LuniZunie ツ_(talk) 04:29, 28 November 2025 (UTC)

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Lesbian erasure → Lesbian invisibilityLesbian invisibility – WP:COMMONNAME, see below (t · c) buidhe 03:58, 15 November 2025 (UTC) — Relisting. TarnishedPath^talk 12:40, 22 November 2025 (UTC)

Prompted by Katzrockso's comment above, the term "Lesbian invisibility" seems to be much more common, with 5x as many results on Google Scholar for example, and much more on Google books as well (t · c) buidhe 03:58, 15 November 2025 (UTC)

Comment I think the sense of invisibility used in academic literature is a fairly strong sense that may encompasses/be equivalent to erasure (i.e. lesbians are made invisible by diffusion, misclassification, suppression, etc). Still thinking about this RM though. Katzrockso (talk) 04:12, 15 November 2025 (UTC)

I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing if the article scope is broadened slightly.

In several of the examples in the article, the sources don't verify whether there is intentional erasure, so they would need to be removed if the page isn't moved. (t · c) buidhe 05:52, 15 November 2025 (UTC)

I agree it isn't a bad thing if the article's scope is broadened. Most of the times the best title for an article, in my opinion, is the broader scope. Katzrockso (talk) 07:05, 15 November 2025 (UTC)

Comment As it stands, much of this article reads as a WP:COATRACK for a particular radfem vision of Lesbianism Under Attack from the Newfangled TQ+ Agenda, which I would uncharitably describe as a FRINGE viewpoint based primarily on nostalgia, twitter beef, and tired transphobic tropes. I've made some copy edits which I think fix the most egregious balance issues, however I'm not sure to what extent this article can be improved beyond Start Class. Most of the content on this topic I would expect to see here exists instead at Queer erasure and Straightwashing; much of the body is instead dedicated to petty grievances and exceedingly stupid ideas about trans people. Should we merge with Queer erasure, and (ideally) ditch the trans stuff? –RoxySaunders 🏳️‍⚧️ (talk • stalk) 09:48, 15 November 2025 (UTC)

Strongly oppose a merge. I linked some research above from various academics and feminists that would be a great start towards orienting this article away from weird undertone to this article (I agree the FRINGE viewpoint that trans women are contributing to this erasure receives WP:UNDUE attention in this article). Legal, social and cultural invisibilization of lesbians in particular has been subject to significant analysis and needs an article of its own to catalogue this. I cited some very interesting legal history above about how lesbian sexuality has been made invisible in law while gay male sexuality is criminalized, which appears a paradox to many people today. Katzrockso (talk) 10:16, 15 November 2025 (UTC)

While I agree that a lot of the article needs TNT, I do believe that there are enough sources on Google Scholar (>1,000 results for "lesbian invisibility") to rewrite at a high quality standard. (t · c) buidhe 16:40, 15 November 2025 (UTC)

• Oppose merge with "Queer erasure". "Queer" (as well as the generic "gay") is a term used by many lesbophobes to control the language and dialog about lesbian identification. (And anyone can identify as queer -- even heterosexuals.) Pyxis Solitary (yak). ⚢ 07:35, 16 November 2025 (UTC)

Support after further research and thought, I think "lesbian invisibility" is the best title for this article as explained in the nomination. It's definitely the most common term used in academic literature and the specific term "lesbian erasure" seems to largely be pushed by fringe anti-trans activists, rather than serious academic research, as a part of an almost conspiracy theory. There are serious concerns about how lesbians in particular are represented/included in LGBTQ movements and it's a perfectly legitimate topic separate from others, and I think "lesbian invisibility" is the title that best reflects this literature. Katzrockso (talk) 04:44, 16 November 2025 (UTC)

• Support move to "Lesbian invisibility". I see no inconsistency between erasure and invisibility. Pyxis Solitary (yak). ⚢ 07:44, 16 November 2025 (UTC)
• Oppose move to "Lesbian invisibility". After further consideration, the present title should remain. Why? Because the lesbian subculture involves identity, history, customs, ideas, and lifestyle. Cultural erasure entails suppression, denial, concealment, disregard, and alteration of a culture — which is the precise meaning of lesbian erasure. Pyxis Solitary (yak). ⚢ 03:30, 25 November 2025 (UTC)
• Object to no redirect - Erasure certainly has validity as academic jargon, and we have Queer erasure, Bisexual erasure, Lesbian erasure, and we could easily have Erasure of Women, Black erasure, Asian-American erasure as topics... but Social erasure does redirect to Social invisibility. And New York Times Magazine says "Erasure refers to the practice of collective indifference that renders certain people and groups invisible". so it makes sense as a less-jargony term if that's become the norm, I found plenty of hits looking at "LGBT Invisibility" describing the topic in the same was as Erasure. I'd say whichever name ends up being used, there should be a redirect with the other name and both terms listed in the lead to confirm that it's all the same topic, similar to the bisexual page that currently says "Bisexual erasure (or bi erasure), also called bisexual invisibility..." because it is a bit of jargon that people will come across, want a better explanation of, and search for, and it has a ton of use in academia. Might also need to look at the disambiguation page Erasure when it's said and done. I don't have a strong POV on which name to use, just that both should be included in the article so the scope and meaning of the article is clear to future editors. Denaar (talk) 01:44, 19 November 2025 (UTC)

  The term bisexual invisibility is widely discussed as well. See scholar:"bisexual,invisibility". --MikutoH ^talk! 20:49, 23 November 2025 (UTC)

Comment -- It has already been mentioned in another thread that an expansion of this article might be the best route forward, to which I agree, but I think the best route for expansion is an edit to the definition of "discrimination against lesbians" to include "the cultural erasure of lesbians and their contributions", and put all info from Lesbian erasure into Discrimination against lesbians. Seven77seas (talk) 02:48, 20 November 2025 (UTC)

Note: WikiProject Sexology and sexuality, WikiProject Feminism, WikiProject Women's History, WikiProject Discrimination, and WikiProject LGBTQ+ studies have been notified of this discussion. TarnishedPath^talk 12:43, 22 November 2025 (UTC)

• Oppose This would appear to be a drastic change in scope beyond the purview of the move request, moving it from a deliberate act to remove and falsify things, to simply ignoring things. I have no opposition to a separate lesbian invisibility page being created, and it's possible this may even be merged into it, but it should remain under its current title to avoid confusing things. ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ (ᴛ) 11:46, 24 November 2025 (UTC)

  "moving it from a deliberate act to remove and falsify things, to simply ignoring things" How so? Invisibility is the precise result of the removal/falsification of lesbians from history and the current scope, if anything, is so narrow to lack decent academic grounds. Academic theorists don't use "lesbian invisibility" to refer to "simply ignoring things", so I don't know why we would do that either. Katzrockso (talk) 12:00, 24 November 2025 (UTC)

  As noted by several editors above, the topic in general has gotten very little attention pretty much anywhere, to the point where this article not being WP:SYNTH is unclear. I don't think you can definitively say that erasure and invisibility are undoubtedly the exact same thing even if some people used them to mean the same thing. And I am noting that one seems to have a different implication than the other simply from their wording. I also think a move is improper before it is ensured this page is a fully notable topic. ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ (ᴛ) 17:48, 24 November 2025 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Kathy Kozachenko described as a "gay politician"?

In 1974, Kathy Kozachenko became the first openly gay politician (...), the article states, but using the word "gay" seems off - it usually describes homosexual men - especially in an article explicitly argueing that doing so contributes to lesbian erasure. If the idea is contrasting her with Harvey Milk, who was wrongly credited with being the first openly "gay" politician to win an election, we might use "homosexual", which is more generic and is correct for both Milk and Kozachenko. Like this:

In 1974, Kathy Kozachenko became the first openly homosexual politician to win an election in the United States. Her achievement is often incorrectly ascribed to Harvey Milk, the first homosexual man to do so in 1977. Poiutredsaa (talk) 19:30, 16 December 2025 (UTC)

Hmm, I'm not sure that this "contributes to lesbian erasure". Indeed, one might argue that abandoning the term gay for women in and of itself is lesbian erasure - by erasing the fact that lesbian women are gay, one reproduces the hegemonic understanding of "gay" as male-dominated. We might understand the use of "gay" here as semantic reoccupation, which is a very common strategy in feminist politics. Katzrockso (talk) 22:07, 16 December 2025 (UTC)

Kozachenko is a perfect example of how lesbians have been historically ignored even within the LGBT grouping. Those who don't know about her still refer to Milk as the first openly gay politician. "Gay" being the generic description used for everything that's not heterosexual. As for using the word "homosexual" to identify Kozachenko, the decade was the 1970s and "homosexual" was used to refer to gay men and lesbians. In the 1970s, lesbians were also not yet publicly and widely recognized as an identification and community separate from the one-size-fits-all "Gay community". I have no hangup about using the term homosexual. Although if we use "homosexual" to describe Kozachenko and Milk, there will be those who will howl about it. The term "homosexual" is uncomfortable for many editors and readers who don't want to accept that there are humans that are, sexually and romantically, exclusively attracted to other humans of the same sex. Pyxis Solitary (yak). ⚢ 07:48, 17 December 2025 (UTC)

@Katzrockso one of the current sources for Kozachenko here uses "gay", the other uses "lesbian", so in the end it's an editorial decision on our part. However I'm not sure this small paragraph is using the feminist strategy of semantic reoccupation, it looks more like a casual use of the first source. [addition] I'm more of the opinion that using the word "gay" instead of "lesbian" contributes to lesbian erasure, partly because (like the article says) "lesbian" is seen as "dirtier" word in camparison to "gay", and partly because in many languages "gay" only indicates homosexual men, and it's never used for women. Even though this is English wiki, many people who use English as a second language read it (it's usually more detailed). Kozachenko's page uses "gay/lesbian politician", maybe to avoid any controversy, at most we could opt for that.

@Pyxis Solitary I'm not sure I get your meaning, homo-sexual refers to sexual attraction (like homo-romantic refers to romantic attraction) to people of one's same gender or sex ("sex or gender" is also in wikipedia's own definition). Because the split-attraction model is not widely used, "homosexual", "homophobia" etc. tend to indicate both romantic and sexual attraction. I know that the concepts of sex and gender are at center of the "gender critical" debate, but the term "homosexual" has no bearing in that, because the "sexual" part refers to attraction (wanting to have sex with someone). Poiutredsaa (talk) 09:31, 17 December 2025 (UTC)

Okay. Re "I'm not sure I get your meaning". Homosexuality is separate from gender dujour factoids. Homo sapiens are human males and females with their genetic material contained in the form of chromosomes. The XX chromosome pair represents genetic females, the XY chromosomes represent genetic males. Chromosomes determine sex, not the social role of gender. It's not merely "wanting to have sex with someone." Homosexual humans are sexually or romantically attracted to their own XX or XY sex. (And as difficult as this may be for some people to accept, same-sex preference includes XX / XY genitalia.)
A lot of the content in Wikipedia that deals with social movements has to be taken with a grain of salt, because Wikipedia has no dearth of activist editors whose single-minded intention is to shape Wikipedia content into information that supports their beliefs. Wikipedia is the sought after means of dissemination for whatever becomes approved thought in a collective. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Pyxis Solitary (talk • contribs) 01:33, 18 December 2025 (UTC)

@Pyxis Solitary: Must every word of every sentence be a ripe battleground for the fallen empire of the trans-exclusionary lesbian? It is possible, nay encouraged, to discuss coverage of lesbianism on Wikipedia, and indeed disagree about it, without constantly sniping at nebulous bloodthirsty Others who will inevitably undermine with your proposed changes on ideological grounds. On cue, here we are:

Homosexual was supplanted as an identity label (and is inappropriate here) due to its negative, clinical history, not because you perceive it as carrying some value judgement regarding sexual attraction to transgender people. That's ridiculous.

If you wished to avoid such a cacophonous gnashing and howling as the above, you could simply omit the proposal entirely, WP:AGF, and move toward the likely consensus version: first LGBTQ politician. –RoxySaunders 🏳️‍⚧️ (talk • stalk) 16:37, 17 December 2025 (UTC)

In reviewing search results for ["first openly" Kozachenko], I'm seeing primarily "gay", followed by a smattering of "gay or lesbian", "LGBTQ", and "homosexual". Unlike Poiutredsaa, I'm seeing that both currently cited sources use the "first openly gay" formulation. I'm satisfied that retaining the status quo language is reasonable. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 02:54, 18 December 2025 (UTC)

@Firefangledfeathers well, the second source is titled Meet the lesbian who made political history years before Harvey Milk, it states "out lesbian Kathy Kozachenko was elected"... although it also uses the "first openly gay" formulation when comparing Harvey Milk to Kozachenko. However, my issue with the paragraph is not how it uses its sources (see above), I maintain I'm not satisfied with the "gay" formulation.

@RoxySaunders I agree that "homosexual" is not an appropriate identity label, my idea would be using it to indicate Kozachenko's and Milk's sexual orientation because it's what they have in common and the reason why these two politcians are being compared. "First LGBTQ politician", however, serves a similar purpose and is fine by me. Poiutredsaa (talk) 14:18, 18 December 2025 (UTC)

ps: @Firefangledfeathers out of curiosity I also tried that same search (I use a non-tracking search engine) and the first results are:

first openly LGBT candidate (Wikipedia)

first openly gay person elected to public office in the U.S. (NBC News)

first openly LGBTQ person elected (NLC)

first openly lesbian candidate (Pride Source)

first openly LGBT candidate (qburgh)

first openly gay candidate (LGBTQ+ Victory Institute) Poiutredsaa (talk) 14:35, 18 December 2025 (UTC)

"gay" is a term that women also used at the time (and beyond; I remember women self-describing as gay when I was at university in the mid-1990s).

But "LGBTQ" seems like the least contentious label for gaining consensus, given that's what we use for article titles like LGBTQ rights in the United Kingdom and so on — OwenBlacker (he/him; Talk) 11:36, 19 December 2025 (UTC)

All right, I will edit it into the article, Poiutredsaa (talk) 15:11, 20 December 2025 (UTC)

@Poiutredsaa. Now the current text makes no sense: In 1974, Kathy Kozachenko became the first openly lesbian politician to win an election in the United States. This achievement is often incorrectly ascribed to Harvey Milk, the first gay man to do so in 1977 Unless I'm missing something, nobody has ever ascribed to Harvey Milk the claim that he was the first openly lesbian person to win an election in the USA. Indeed, this is precisely why the term "gay" is useful here, because people erroneously claimed Milk was the first openly gay person to have won an election, when this feat belongs to Kozachenko. Katzrockso (talk) 10:13, 21 December 2025 (UTC)

Agreed: I've reworded "first opnely lesbian" to "first openly LGBTQ" and added a comment to explain why. — OwenBlacker (he/him; Talk) 12:45, 21 December 2025 (UTC)

@Katzrockso I agree, and I'm not the one who edited "lesbian" into that paragraph (see page's history). I agreed to use "LGBTQ politician" and I've been meaning to edit it into the article with a proper source but I didn't have time yesterday. @OwenBlacker thanks for fixing the paragraph, Poiutredsaa (talk) 14:45, 21 December 2025 (UTC)

Sorry, I must have misread the edit history! Katzrockso (talk) 16:54, 21 December 2025 (UTC)

No problem :) Poiutredsaa (talk) 17:38, 21 December 2025 (UTC)

Congratulations. You proved how easily and quickly a lesbian fact can be erased from the record by deleting the lesbian identification of an individual who self-identifies as lesbian. The subject of this article is not "LGBTQ erasure". You could have rewritten the Harvey Milk sentence, but god forbid if you were to conceal Harvey Milk's identification as a gay man. Pyxis Solitary (yak). ⚢ 05:01, 22 December 2025 (UTC)

I still believe "gay" is the proper term here, as it specifically contrasts the incorrect claim about Milk (that he was the first openly gay person to win office, not LGBT) with the facts from the historical record. Otherwise, I think this 'fact' of lesbian erasure is targeting nothing, as I can hardly find anything claiming Milk was the first openly LGBT person to be elected to office.

The fact that Kathy Kozachenko is a gay politician is why the common adages about Harvey Milk are wrong. Katzrockso (talk) 05:22, 22 December 2025 (UTC)

Given that we are describing Kathy's achievement specifically in contrast to Milk, we should WP:STICKTOTHESOURCES that are discussing this contrast (i.e. correcting the record vis a vis Milk). NBC News states:

The accolade of “first elected openly gay official” is often misattributed to Harvey Milk, the boisterous gay icon who was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 1977

While Bloomberg states:

So they did. On April 2, 1974, when the Human Rights Party candidate bested a Democrat to become the first openly gay person to win elected office in the United States (and most likely worldwide as well) the response was equally nonchalant

While the headline is The First Openly Gay Person to Win an Election in America Was Not Harvey Milk

Washington Post (one of the sources that first brought Kozachenko to the forefront of public consciousness) states For the record, Kathy Kozachenko became the first openly gay person elected to public office in the United States in January 1974 when correcting the record about Harvey Milk.

This book chapter (which adding would remove the WP:SYNTH issues of claiming that the reason the feat is attributed to Milk is because of lesbian erasure, rather than other factors listed in the NBC News article Kozachenko speculated that there are a few reasons she’s been overlooked by history) titled "First But (Nearly) Forgotten: Why You Know Milk But Not Kozachenko" states "In early 1974, Kathy Kozachenko was elected to the city council in Ann Arbor, Michigan, making her the first openly gay elected official in the United States". Katzrockso (talk) 05:35, 22 December 2025 (UTC)

As I stated above (in my reply to another editor): You could have rewritten the Harvey Milk sentence....
You can go ahead and reply to yourself 'till kingdom come and create a wall of text in this talk page, but the only explanation for why it cannot be rewritten is either a lack of grammatical skills, or refusal to do so. English is my third language, but even if my language skills were poor, this is easy to do:

In 1974, Kathy Kozachenko became the first openly lesbian[17] politician to win an election in the United States. The achievement of first openly LGBTQ politician to be elected to office is often incorrectly ascribed to Harvey Milk, the first gay man to do so in 1977.[18][19].

Pyxis Solitary (yak). ⚢ 09:27, 22 December 2025 (UTC)

Firstly, it's not lesbian erasure to alter the wording on this page about Kathy Kozachenko. It would be lesbian erasure if we altered her article. Again, it would useful to assume good faith and consider that rather than lack of grammatical skills, or refusal to do so, perhaps it's as simple as everyone also being busy with other tasks and having overlooked the elegant simplicity of your suggested wording when spending a few minutes to address a broadly combative discussion we repeatedly received subscription pings on. Please try to remember that, rather than people being deliberately hostile towards lesbian inclusion in Wikipedia, it is much more likely that people are preoccupied in our busy lives and merely overlook an approach that is obvious in hindsight.

Secondly, thank you for the proposed wording, which should hopefully solve everyone's concerns in all directions. I have amended the article to use the wording you have suggested here. — OwenBlacker (he/him; Talk) 10:02, 22 December 2025 (UTC)

The current wording is fine by me. I also was thinking of some way to include the word lesbian in the sentence to maximize Kozachenko's visibility as a lesbian here. But I don't believe "LGBTQ politician" constituted lesbian erasure, the "L" stands for lesbian, and being LGBTQ is something Kozachenko and Milk have in common and why they're being compared. The formulation that included only "lesbian" and "gay" was semantically incorrect - being "the first elected lesbian" was never attributed to Milk - and was removed because of that, not because of some ill intent, I too suggest assuming good faith. If we want to make the paragraph even more flowing, it could be "In 1974, lesbian politician Kathy Kozachenko became the first openly LGBTQ candidate to win an election in the United States. This achievement is often incorrectly ascribed to Harvey Milk, the first gay man to do so in 1977." Poiutredsaa (talk) 12:31, 22 December 2025 (UTC)

@RoxySaunders: I saw you reverted the edit I made; would the wording suggested by @Poiutredsaa work for you? — OwenBlacker (he/him; Talk) 13:01, 22 December 2025 (UTC)

Yeah, acceptable. –RoxySaunders 🏳️‍⚧️ (talk • stalk) 20:11, 22 December 2025 (UTC)

I still disagree with this, as Harvey Milk is not most commonly erroneously ascribed the achievement of being the first openly LGBTQ person elected to office, but the first gay person elected to office. This is the reason all the sources about this contrast use the term gay and I see no compelling reason (or any reason whatsoever) to deviate from the sources we are using for the claim.

I would suggest:

In 1974, lesbian politician Kathy Kozachenko became the first openly gay candidate to win an election in the United States. This achievement is often incorrectly ascribed to Harvey Milk, the first openly gay man in California to do so in 1977

The other version is factually erroneous, given that there were other gay men who were elected to office before Harvey Milk. Allan Spear was elected before Harvey Milk while not out, came out in 1974 and was reelected in 1976 as an out gay man. Jim Yeadon is another openly gay man elected official prior to Harvey Milk.

We are only continuing to perpetuate errors, which is precisely why we need to WP:STICKTOTHESOURCES by respected academics rather than the pop media analyses. Katzrockso (talk) 20:54, 22 December 2025 (UTC)

Umh, it's not like the original version

"In 1974, Kathy Kozachenko became the first openly gay politician to win an election in the United States. This achievement is often incorrectly ascribed to Harvey Milk, the first gay man to do so in 1977"

was taking Allan Spear and Jim Yeadon into account. One way to take them into account is indeed adding "in California" because these two gay men were not elected in California.

However, this has nothing to do with the use of "gay" or "LGBTQ" to compare Kozachenko and Milk (unless I'm missing something).

I still prefer LGBTQ (for the comparison) but if the "lesbian + gay + gay man" formulation is more likely to gain consensus, I'm fine with it (my main issue is that gay should't be the (only) term used to describe Kozachenko, as I explained at the beginning of this discussion). Poiutredsaa (talk) 23:36, 22 December 2025 (UTC)

The original version was incorrect too.

The term LGBTQ is strange for the comparison, as it is retrospectively being applied to a discourse ('first gay politician') for which most of the components of the acronym aren't applicable. For better or worse, the first people elected to this public offices weren't transgender, bisexual, or otherwise queer, they were gay men or lesbian women. The contemporary discussion used "gay" (see the newspaper articles here ) and the sources that are correcting the myth about Harvey Milk use "gay". "LGBTQ" as the described achievement makes no sense given any of the sources.

This is completely off-topic, but I was researching to see if there were any earlier elected officials, and it seems Gaëtan Duval was openly (?) bisexual and was first elected to public office in January 1960. Katzrockso (talk) 03:10, 23 December 2025 (UTC)

Are there any scholarly sources on this? Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 13:34, 23 December 2025 (UTC)

Yes, I linked the book chapter here , last paragraph. It's from the book Queer Media Images and the chapter is about why media has produced the image of Harvey Milk as the first gay (elected) politician when he wasn't even in the first 5. It also specifically mentions the fact that Kozachenko being a lesbian contributed to this elision, which was hitherto unsupported by either of the sources (and consequently the inclusion of this entire claim was SYNTH!). Katzrockso (talk) 14:30, 23 December 2025 (UTC)

I'm glad we're getting a more accurate paragraph out of this. @Katzrockso Gaëtan Duval wasn't elected in the U.S. so that's not relevant here. However, after LGBTQ was suggested, I did check for openly bisexual or trans politicians (queer hadn't been reclaimed yet) elected before Kozachenko in the US, because I too didn't want to put inaccurate info on Wikipedia, and didn't find any (see List_of_first_openly_LGBTQ_politicians_in_the_United_States). It isn't surprising as the movement was only gay and lesbian at the time, "the other letters" started getting recognition later. So if we used LGBTQ for the comparison, it wouln't be factually wrong.

BUT now we have a bigger problem because lesbian erasure isn't the only reason why she was replaced by Milk in History books. I can't get a preview of Queer Media Images, can you? However, the NBC article does mention that one of the reasons is her being a woman, with other reasons being Milk's fame as an activist and his assination. Poiutredsaa (talk) 15:50, 23 December 2025 (UTC)

Relevant quotes from the first accessible page.

In early 1974, Kathy Kozachenko was elected to the city council in Ann Arbor, Michigan, making her the first openly gay elected official in the United States..... Between the elections of Kozachenko and Milk, no fewer than three other openly gay candidates were elected to office. Even so, a number of otherwise credible sources, including the redoubtable Washington Post, have inaccurately identified Milk as the nation’s first openly gay elected official, and Kozachenko was able to rate no better than one among eight runners-up in the respected lesbian magazine Curve’s 2010 awards for trailblazing lesbian politician, political pioneer, and political newcomer.

Later: In attempting to unravel the mystery behind this example of collective historical amnesia, the author has proposed ... four distinct ... factors: the overshadowing effects of Milk’s tragic assassination by a fellow city supervisor less than a year into his term; Milk’s talent for self-promotion; the status of San Francisco as a major media market and, therefore, its ready access to national exposure; and the more generalized phenomenon of lesbian invisibility

The NBC article also mentioned a few relevant aspects (): Kozachenko speculated that there are a few reasons she’s been overlooked by history. Aside from being a woman, she never made her sexuality central to her campaign — a decision that sets her apart from many of her more well-known successors. and There’s another reason few have heard of Kozachenko: She is a fiercely private person

Milk had been making national headlines for years, as San Francisco had a much more visible gay culture (there was national discourse on the fact that 10-20% of San Francisco was gay, there were innumerable gay bars, an entire gay district/area of the city). Even a decade before Milk, there was José Sarria who ran specifically on a pro-gay platform (some activists in the SF area have made comments like "Jose Sarria is our Rosa Parks" ). The increased salience of gay rights in San Francisco, where there was an incredible amount of persecution of gays, increased Milk's national reach, especially among gay rights activists. Historians and the popular media has been studying San Francisco for decades as a center of gay culture.

I can send you a copy of the full chapter if you are interested. Unfortunately, the commentary on lesbian invisibility is much more general and gives no precise explanation of how it applies to Kozachenko other than the quote above.

As for history books, I don't really think there are history books that make this error. It's more in newspaper articles about/biopics of Harvey Milk that make the error; On November 26, 2008, Washington Post reporter Ann Hornaday (2008) became the latest in a line of good journalists to get an important piece of queer history wrong. In her review in the paper’s Style section, she praised the just-released Gus Van Sant film Milk for its poignancy in telling the story of the first openly gay elected official in the United States, Harvey Milk. Milk may have been poignant, but Milk was not the first. Other sources, too, have made the same error, including the Associated Press, San Francisco Weekly, and The Portland Mercury (Grant 2009) (from the aforementioned Queer Media Images). As a matter of fact, Washington Post got the fact wrong on at least 3 separate occasions.

As for Duval, you are correct that he's not relevant here. Sorry if I gave the impression otherwise, it was off-topic but I found it very interesting (though WP:OR). One more correction, this book chapter is saying Milk was the fifth openly gay elected official. The ordering is: 1) Kozachenko 2) Elaine Noble 3) Allan Spear 4) Jim Yeadon 5) Harvey Milk. Katzrockso (talk) 21:50, 23 December 2025 (UTC)

@Katzrockso Thank you! Here is another source, can you see this preview? The book is "Dying to be normal: Gay martyrs and the transformation of American sexual politics". It expands on both Kozachenko 's and Noble's erasure (adding Noble to the article might be a good call). It explains how Noble's sexuality was a very contentious aspect of her campaign (unlike Kozachenko's; like Milk's), that Milk actively contributed to their erasure, and also offers some more reasoning on Milk's meteoric rise, cut short by his assination, and the political careers of these two women, which gradually faded. Poiutredsaa (talk) 23:21, 23 December 2025 (UTC)

This is a great source, thanks for identifying it. "Actively contributed" is a strong characterization of the text, Krutzsch states "Milk, himself, might also be partially responsible for the erasure of Noble's and Kozachenko's historic elections from public memory".

We should definitely add something about Elaine Noble here, she was a visible gay rights activist. This article also mentions her vis a vis Milk. Katzrockso (talk) 09:30, 24 December 2025 (UTC)

Sidenote: I found this interesting piece about Harvey Milk while searching for more information on the comparison between Milk and Noble. Katzrockso (talk) 09:44, 24 December 2025 (UTC)

I attempted a rewrite that features both of them, what do you think?

In 1974, lesbian politician Kathy Kozachenko was elected to the city council of Ann Arbor, Michigan, making her the first openly LGBTQ[17] candidate to win an election in the United States. This achievement is sometimes incorrectly ascribed to Harvey Milk, whose 1977 election to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors made him the first gay man to do so in California (in fact, four other openly gay policians, two women and two men, were elected before Milk elsewhere in the U.S.)[LGBTQ nation source]. Kozachenko being replaced by Milk in public memory was related to lesbian invisibility in general, but also to the fact that, unlike Milk's, her sexualtity wasn't a central part of her campaign - Kozachenko stated she's a "fiercely private person" - with Milk's broader, national exposure carrying some weight as well, together with his assassination.[NBC and Queer Media Images]

In 1974, another lesbian politician, Elaine Noble, was elected to the Massachusetts House of Representatives; unlike Kozachenko's, her sexuality was a very contentious aspect of her campaign [Dying to be normal: Gay martyrs and the transformation of American sexual politics]. In that same year she also appeared in the first nationally televised debate on marriage equality. Her career inspired politician Allan Spear to come out as gay, before he was elected to the Minnesota State Senate in 1976 (making him the first openly gay man elected in the US). [LGBTQ nation]

Kozachenko's and Noble's elision may also partially be Milk's resposability. When running for a seat in the California State Assembly, Milk specifically criticized Noble for not endorsing him, a gay man, and endorsing a straigh man instead, characterizing her as either manipulative or incompetent as a gay rights advocate; Milk didn't usually work or cooperate with lesbians, and this incident reinforced some concerns that he disliked them. More in general, he used to frame his election as a gay person as a turning point in US History, failing to mention his predecessors. [Dying to be normal: Gay martyrs and the transformation of American sexual politics] Poiutredsaa (talk) 16:07, 24 December 2025 (UTC)

I think it's too long. I can work on a trim myself, but it'll be a while. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 16:49, 24 December 2025 (UTC)

@Firefangledfeathers you mean it's too detailed, or just not concise? I actually feared it was too short; the page being about lesbian erasure, it would be important to explain how exactly it came to be in this case, since we have enough detailed sources to do so; it could be made more concise without loosing relevant information. @Katzrockso what do you think? Sidenote: that Jacobin article about Milk is very interesting indeed, maybe Milk's page's curators could use it! Poiutredsaa (talk) 12:30, 26 December 2025 (UTC)

That sort of detail would be fit for their biographies or a page on lesbians in politics, but not an overview page on lesbian exclusion which covers so much ground that including very specific details about these two incidents is missing the forest for the trees. Katzrockso (talk) 13:19, 26 December 2025 (UTC)

I meant too detailed. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 04:29, 27 December 2025 (UTC)

Ok, I'll leave the trimming to you as I wouldn't know what to eliminate. Maybe I'll really add this information to their biographies, could be a good idea. Poiutredsaa (talk) 13:11, 27 December 2025 (UTC)

Excellent find, and agreed on the value of avoiding synth. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 18:21, 23 December 2025 (UTC)

Move to "queer erasure"

I don't see a reason for this article to be separate, rather than just a part of the larger "queer erasure" article. ~2026-32997-33 (talk) 01:00, 3 June 2026 (UTC)