Althea Garrison

Althea Garrison (born October 7, 1940) is an American politician from Boston, Massachusetts who served a single term in the Massachusetts House of Representatives (1993–1995) and a partial term as an at-large councilor on the Boston City Council (2019–2020). She is considered the earliest transgender person known to have been elected to a state legislature in the United States. She was outed against her will by the Boston Herald while a member of the state legislature. While from then on it was public knowledge that Garrison is transgender, she did not publicly confirm this herself until 2023, long opting instead to refer to herself as a woman without any further elaboration.

Garrison is a perennial candidate, having been an unsuccessful candidate for political office at least 45 times. In her only successful campaign, she won election as a Republican to the Massachusetts House of Representatives from the 5th Suffolk district in 1992. She served one term from 1993 to 1995, losing her bid for reelection in 1994. Both before and after this, she has run for office many other times. Her campaigns have seen her run under different party affiliations, varyingly running as Republican, a Democrat, and an independent. Garrison, in the 2010s, described her political ideology as "independent conservative".

Garrison served as an at-large member of the Boston City Council from January 2019 to January 2020 due to a vacancy left by Ayanna Pressley's election to the United States House of Representatives. Because Garrison was the next-place finisher in the 2017 Boston City Council election, the rules of the Boston City Charter gave Garrison the right of first refusal to assume the seat vacated by Pressley. Garrison lost her bid for re-election in November 2019.

Background Born in Hahira, Georgia Garrison was the youngest of seven children. She attended Hahira High School.

Per her later recounting, Garrison began medically transitioning to affirm her gender identity as a woman during the 1960s. The petition stated that the name Althea Garrison "is consistent with petitioner's appearance and medical condition and is the name by which he will be known in the future."

Besides her one term in the Massachusetts House, Garrison has worked as a clerk in human resources for the Massachusetts state comptroller's office, where she used her vacation time to run for office. She ran unsuccessfully for Boston City Council in 1983, 1985, 1987, 1989, and 1991. During the 1991 campaign, the Boston Herald noted that she had run for office nine times, although Garrison herself later described the race as her 10th or 11th bid for office. In the 1991 race, Garrison finished in third place in the District 7 preliminary election.

Massachusetts House (1993–1995) In 1992, Garrison ran successfully for the 5th Suffolk district in the Massachusetts House, representing the Dorchester and Roxbury areas of Boston. Garrison's 1992 election to the legislature was made possible in part by the fact that she challenged some of the signatures that the then-incumbent representative, Nelson Merced, had submitted to qualify for the Democratic primary ballot. Her challenge was successful and meant that Garrison did not have to run against an incumbent in the general election.

The fact that Garrison had been born male was not widely publicized until shortly after she was elected to the legislature. The newspaper publicly outed her against her will. and eight unions.

Unsuccessful bids for office Garrison has run for office at least 46 times, only once winning election.

In 2019, former Boston City Councilor Lawrence DiCara noted that Garrison's many runs for office had afforded her a notable degree of name recognition among Bostonians, commenting "Althea has run for office many times and knows a lot of people." 2001: 2001 Boston mayoral election 2002: special election for the 1st Suffolk district in the Massachusetts Senate as a Republican 2002: 1st Suffolk district in the Massachusetts Senate as a Republican candidate, losing in the primary 68.9% to 31.0% to Walter R. Campbell. 2005: at-large seat in the 2005 Boston City Council election 2006: 5th Suffolk district in Massachusetts House as a Republican candidate 2008: 1st Suffolk district in the Massachusetts Senate as an independent candidate, losing 79.0% to 25.0% to Jack Hart. 2011: special election to fill a vacancy on the Boston City Council, District 7, eliminated in February preliminary election 2011: District 7 seat in the 2011 Boston City Council election 2012: 5th Suffolk district in the Massachusetts House as an independent candidate, losing 77.6% to 21.7% to Carlos Henriquez. 2019: at-large seat in the 2019 Boston City Council election (seventh place, top four elected) 2020: Register of Probate for Suffolk County, Massachusetts (third place) 2021: at-large seat in the 2021 Boston City Council election 2022: 5th Suffolk district in the Massachusetts House as a Democratic candidate (third place) 2023: District 7 seat in the 2023 Boston City Council election

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Boston City Council tenure (2019) Garrison took the at-large seat of former councillor Ayanna Pressley on the Boston City Council, as Pressley left the City Council following her November 2018 election to Congress from Massachusetts's 7th congressional district. City rules require that vacancies for the at-large council seats are filled by the next-placed candidate in the previous election, which was Garrison in November 2017. Garrison was sworn in on January 9, 2019. Thus, Pressley's election gave Garrison the right of first refusal to assume Pressley's seat. Garrison claimed that she had, despite ideological differences, supported Pressley's campaign for the House of Representatives with the knowledge that, if Pressley were elected, Garrison would have the opportunity to be Pressley's City Council successor by virtue of her own finish in the previous city council election. Around the time she joined the Boston City Council, Garrison described herself as an "independent conservative". She once explained, "I'm basically a conservative, but I also have some liberal ideas," and also explained, "I am a conservative, I am independent also," calling herself "a Black conservative." In a separate instance, she described herself and her voter base as being "moderate to conservative". She described her views as more closely aligned with the Republican Party than the Democratic Party.

As a city councilor, Garrison supported reviving rent control in the city. In April 2019, she introduced a home rule petition for the city to seek state permission to reinstate rent control in the city. The petition was heavily criticized by many fellow city council members. She also voiced support for eviction control and price controls related to development. The ordinance was not voted on, with two councilors objecting to holding an immediate vote on it. Council President Michelle Wu, who offered her personal praise of the city's police, objected on the grounds that the resolution should first go through the council's committee hearing process. Councilor Lydia Edwards objected to the resolution on the grounds that she believed Garrison's intent in introducing it had not been to offer support the city's police (who Edwards praised as "amazing superheroes"), but rather to "support a political agenda". In late-February 2019, Garrison proposed a measure to hold a hearing on the possibility of withholding city payments to the MBTA over the state of its service. At the time, the MBTA was proposing divisive fare increases. The measure was signed-onto by a majority of councilors. Council President Wu had introduced a similar measure the year prior.

Boston City Councilors can invite local religious leaders to deliver the City Council's convocation. In her first turn to select the convocation, Garrison invited pastor and right-wing perennial candidate Roy Owens. Owens is vocally anti-LGBT.

Garrison was a candidate for re-election in the November 2019 election, but finished seventh in the general election field of eight candidates. In that election, she had urged voters to unseat the three other sitting at-large city councilors (Michael F. Flaherty, Annissa Essaibi George, and Michelle Wu), and urged voters to "bullet vote" by casting a vote only for her in the at-large councilor column instead of voting for multiple (up to four) candidates.

Personal life Garrison is a transgender woman. After being outed by the Boston Herald in 1992, Garrison did not publicly discuss details of her gender identity until 2023, when she shared that she identifies as trans and had begun the process of socially and medically transitioning in the 1960s. Before 2023, despite it being public knowledge that she was transgender, Garrison avoided publicly discussing the topic of being a transgender individual, and had not publicly identified herself as being transgender; merely identifying herself as a woman, without any further elaboration. remarking in 2018, "I don't do computers, I don't do technology."

Massachusetts Senate

Boston mayor 2001 Boston mayoral electionCandidatesPreliminary Election General Election General election Votes%Votes% Raymond Flynn (incumbent) 31,898 7.77 53,136 9.54 Christopher A. Iannella (incumbent) 25,462 6.20 44,621 8.01 Dapper O'Neil (incumbent) 24,240 5.91 40,474 7.27 Frederick C. Langone (incumbent) 23,000 5.60 39,780 7.14 Joseph M. Tierney (incumbent) 17,649 4.30 35,185 6.32 Michael J. McCormack 14,178 3.45 33,861 6.08 Terence P. McDermott 11,981 2.92 31,707 5.69 Maura Hennigan 14,325 3.49 31,637 5.68 Bruce Bolling 15,273 3.72 30,672 5.51 James M. Kelly 14,941 3.64 30,079 5.40 Patrick F. McDonough (incumbent) 17,165 4.18 29,591 5.31 Edmund McNamara 12,007 2.93 29,301 5.26 David Scondras 11,616 2.83 28,571 5.13 Charles Yancey 12,378 3.02 27,007 4.85 Francis X. Coppinger 11,034 2.69 21,675 3.89 Craig Lankhorst 10,301 2.51 20,769 3.73 Pamela J. Gilman 10,070 2.45 14,776 2.65 Gerard P. McHale 10,407 2.54 14,173 2.54 Joseph W. Casper 9,906 2.41 Frederick T. Scopa 9,444 2.30 John F. Melia 8,788 2.14 Stephen G. Michaels 8,325 2.03 Brian Hickey 8,222 2.00 John P. Grady 7,855 1.91 Richard B. Hogan 7,794 1.90 Edward M. McCormack 7,610 1.85 William G. Broderick 7,134 1.74 Joseph E. Maher 6,269 1.53 Maureen Craven Slade 5,759 1.40 Althea Garrison 5,442 1.33 Joseph T. Fitzpatrick 3,947 0.96 David F. Burnes 3,784 0.92 David Alan Mittell Jr. 3,660 0.89 Francis X. Goode 3,227 0.79 Thomas P. Casserly 3,005 0.73 Warren I. Brown 3,001 0.73 John S. MacDonald 2,881 0.70 Edward J. DeSantis 2,688 0.65 John B’Smith III 1,936 0.47 John K. Rees 1,791 0.44

1983 Boston City Council at-large electionCandidates Preliminary Election General Election Votes%Votes% Michael J. McCormack (incumbent) 52,315 12.3% 87,143 Christopher A. Iannella (incumbent) 66,647 15.6% 85,204 Joseph M. Tierney (incumbent) 62,850 14.7% 82,600 Dapper O'Neil (incumbent) 64,410 15.1% 79,086 Terence P. McDermott (incumbent) 61,436 14.4% 77,096 Jean Sullivan McKeigue 48,265 11.3% 73,064 Willie Mae Allen 21,369 5.0% 32,556 Althea Garrison 19,908 4.7% 26,564 Joseph Mirisola 14,914 3.5% Leslie F. Payne 14,199 3.3%

1985 Boston City Council at-large electionCandidates Preliminary Election General Election Votes%Votes% Dapper O'Neil (incumbent) 22,792 36,686 Joseph M. Tierney (incumbent) 17,014 34,427 Christopher A. Iannella (incumbent) 19,183 33,883 Michael J. McCormack (incumbent) 17,329 27,976 Frederick C. Langone 16,900 26,365 Michael W. Kane 10,018 17,175 Willie Mae Allen 6268 12,533 Althea Garrison 3565 6402 Kenneth C. Davis 2130 John P. Scialdone 1588 Richard A. Black 972 Little L. Pittman 808 Edward P. Malik 723

1987 Boston City Council at-large electionCandidates Preliminary Election General Election Votes%Votes% Dapper O'Neil (incumbent) 29,052 47,817 Christopher A. Iannella (incumbent) 23,906 45,472 Rosaria Salerno 19,346 39,089 Michael J. McCormack (incumbent) 16,793 36,326 Joseph W. Casper 15,694 32,548 Frederick C. Langone 19,521 30,447 Michael W. Kane 13,678 27,573 Stephen J. Murphy 13,309 22,744 Kevin A. McCluskey 11,431 Althea Garrison 6669 Edward T. Kelley 5123 David J. McKay 4198

1989 Boston City Council at-large electionCandidates Preliminary Election General Election Votes%Votes% Dapper O'Neil (incumbent) 21,764 40,106 Christopher A. Iannella (incumbent) 20,142 38,357 Rosaria Salerno (incumbent) 19,478 35,654 Michael J. McCormack (incumbent) 19,073 31,170 John A. Nucci 14,646 30,466 John N. Flanagan 13,676 22,359 Joseph W. Casper 10,103 18,069 Althea Garrison 5042 11,281 Glenn Fiscus 2365

1991 Boston City Council district 7 electionCandidates Preliminary Election General Election Votes%Votes% Anthony Crayton 836 3129 Roy A. Owens 974 2314 Althea Garrison 703 Ben Haith 691 James A. West 666 Hattie Dudley 395 Natalie E. Carithers 211

1995 Boston City Council district 7 electionCandidates Preliminary Election General Election Votes%Votes% Gareth R. Saunders (incumbent) 1262 2361 Althea Garrison 553 1441 Roy A. Owens 254 Moses E. Wilson Jr. 209

1997 Boston City Council district 7 electionCandidates Preliminary Election General Election Votes%Votes% Gareth R. Saunders (incumbent) 851 2278 Althea Garrison 360 1430 Roy A. Owens 349 Anthony Crayton 341 Robert L. Terrell 200

1999 Boston City Council district 7 electionCandidates Preliminary Election General Election Votes%Votes% Chuck Turner 1153 2419 Tracy Litthcut 590 1726 Julio Henriquez 339 Roy A. Owens 314 Althea Garrison 282 Anthony Crayton 255 Hassan Ali Williams 122 Richard Masterson 115 Scotland Willis 70 Kenneth Yarbrough 65 Roger Garvin 51 Thelma Barros 47

2003 Boston City Council at-large electionCandidates Preliminary Election General Election Votes%Votes% Michael F. Flaherty (incumbent) 20,307 18.21 36,387 18.33 Felix D. Arroyo (incumbent) 14,379 12.89 34,685 17.48 Maura Hennigan (incumbent) 15,916 14.27 33,596 16.93 Stephen J. Murphy (incumbent) 17,597 15.78 30,510 15.37 Patricia H. White 16,439 14.74 29,649 14.94 Matt O'Malley 7,025 6.30 12,929 6.51 Althea Garrison 5,050 4.53 10,524 5.30 Roy Owens 4,356 3.91 10,204 5.14 Jacquelyne Payne-Thompson 2,723 2.44 Phyllis Yetman Igoe 1,940 1.74 Edward Puglielli 1,705 1.53 Laura Garza 1,604 1.44 Arthur "Lucky" Craffey 1,594 1.43 Joseph Anthony Ureneck 907 0.81

2005 Boston City Council at-large electionCandidatesPreliminary Election General Election Votes%Votes% Michael F. Flaherty (incumbent) 17,828 13.90 49,220 17.58 Felix D. Arroyo (incumbent) 15,690 12.23 43,533 15.55 Sam Yoon 13,165 10.27 41,891 14.96 Stephen J. Murphy (incumbent) 14,094 10.99 35,553 12.70 John R. Connolly 14,287 11.14 31,629 11.30 Matt O'Malley 12,070 9.41 28,318 10.12 Patricia H. White 12,895 10.05 26,999 9.64 Edward M. Flynn 11,092 8.65 21,778 7.78 Althea Garrison 4824 3.76 Kevin R. McCrea 3661 2.85 Roy Owens 3622 2.82 Laura Garza 1807 1.41 Gregory Joseph O'Connell 1174 0.92 Martin J. Hogan 1031 0.80 Joseph Ready 675 0.53 Joseph Ureneck 17 0.01 133 0.05 Gibran Rivera 17 0.01 all others 297 0.23 874 0.31 write-in votes

2009 Boston City Council district 7 electionCandidatesPreliminary Election General Election Votes%Votes% Chuck Turner (incumbent) 3,648 52.57 5,521 59.83 Carlos Henriquez 1,659 23.91 3,644 39.49 Althea Garrison 995 14.34 Roy Owens 610 8.79

2011 Boston City Council district 7 electionCandidatesPreliminary Election General Election Votes%Votes% Tito Jackson (incumbent) 1,876 76.07 4,818 84.35 Sheneal Parker 273 11.07 799 13.99 Althea Garrison 216 8.76 47 0.82 Roy Owens 85 3.45 all others 16 0.65 48 0.84 Total 2,466 100 5,712 100 write-in votes

2013 Boston City Council at-large electionCandidatesPreliminary Election General Election Votes%Votes% Ayanna Pressley (incumbent) 42,915 16.71 60,799 18.30 Michelle Wu 29,384 11.44 59,741 17.98 Michael F. Flaherty 39,904 15.54 55,104 16.59 Stephen J. Murphy (incumbent) 31,728 12.35 44,993 13.54 Annissa Essaibi George 12,244 4.77 30,538 9.19 Jeffrey Michael Ross 13,939 5.43 28,879 8.69 Martin J. Keogh 15,743 6.13 26,500 7.98 Jack F. Kelly III 11,909 4.64 23,967 7.22 Catherine M. O'Neill 10,952 4.26 Althea Garrison 10,268 4.00 Ramon Soto 9928 3.87 Philip Arthur Frattaroli 5832 2.27 Gareth R. Saunders 5363 2.09 Christopher J. Conroy 3433 1.34 Seamus M. Whelan 3118 1.21 Francisco L. White 2745 1.07 Douglas D. Wohn 2382 0.93 Frank John Addivinola Jr. 2240 0.87 Keith B. Kenyon 1950 0.76 Jamarhl Crawford 21 0.01 all others 832 0.32 1658 0.50 write-in votes

2015 Boston City Council district 7 electionCandidatesPreliminary Election General Election Votes%Votes% Tito Jackson (incumbent) 1409 66.40 2983 66.64 Charles L. Clemons Jr. 381 17.95 1444 32.26 Haywood Fennell Sr. 104 4.90 Althea Garrison 98 4.62 16 0.36 Roy Owens 74 3.49 Kevin A. Dwire 34 1.60 all others 22 1.04 33 0.74 write-in votes

2019 Boston at-large City Council electionCandidatePrimary election General election Votes%Votes% Michelle Wu (incumbent) 26,622 19.41 41,664 20.73 Annissa Essaibi George (incumbent) 18,993 13.85 34,109 16.97 Michael F. Flaherty (incumbent) 18,766 13.68 33,284 16.56 Julia Mejia 10,799 7.87 22,492 11.19 Alejandra Nicole St. Guillen 11,910 8.68 22,491 11.19 Erin J. Murphy 9,385 6.84 16,867 8.39 Althea Garrison (incumbent) 9,720 7.09 16,189 8.05 David Halbert 6,354 4.76 13,214 6.57 Martin Keogh 6,246 4.55 Jeffrey Michael Ross 5,078 3.70 Priscilla E. Flint-Banks 4,094 2.98 Domingos DaRosa 2,840 2.07 Michel Denis 2,108 1.54 William A. King 1,809 1.32 Herb Alexander Lozano 1,510 1.10 all others 766 0.56 704 0.35

2021 Boston City Council at-large electionCandidatePrimary election General election Votes%Votes% Michael F. Flaherty (incumbent) 41,509 15.00 62,602 17.42 Julia Mejia (incumbent) 38,919 14.07 62,058 17.27 Ruthzee Louijeune 33,546 12.12 54,898 15.28 Erin J. Murphy 22,938 8.29 43,076 11.99 David Halbert 17,012 6.15 42,765 11.90 Carla B. Monteiro 18,911 6.83 39,876 11.10 Bridget M. Nee-Walsh 15,191 5.49 27,591 7.68 Althea Garrison 16,906 6.11 25,078 6.98 Kelly F. Bates 12787 4.62 Alexander J. Gray 11,320 4.09 Jon M. Spillane 11,217 4.05 Said A. Abdikarim 7,767 2.81 Domingos DaRosa 7,011 2.53 Donnie Dionico Palmer Jr. 6,861 2.48 Roy A. Owens Sr. 5,265 1.90 James Rignald Colimon 4,693 1.70 Nick Vance 3,968 1.43 Write-ins 873 0.32 1,350 0.38

Suffolk County Register of Probate

Republican State Committee Woman