Victoria Kolakowski


Victoria Kolakowski is an American lawyer, and, since January 2011, judge of the Alameda County Superior Court. Kolakowski is the first openly transgender person to serve as a trial court judge of general jurisdiction in the United States, the first elected to a judgeship, and the first to serve as any type of judge in California..

Early life and education

Kolakowski is the daughter of Martin and June Kolakowski of Staten Island, New York. She is a graduate of Stuyvesant High School in New York City and the first person in her family to attend college. Kolakowski graduated from New College of Florida in Sarasota, Florida with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Natural Sciences in 1982.
She earned a Master of Science degree in Biomedical Engineering from Tulane University in 1987 and a Master of Science degree in Electrical Engineering from University of New Orleans in 1990.
Kolakowski graduated from the Paul M. Hebert Law Center in Baton Rouge, Louisiana with a juris doctor in 1989. She began her transition during her last semester of law school. Kolakowski underwent sex reassignment surgery in 1992. Kolakowski had to sue to
take the bar exam in Louisiana after coming out as transgender.
In 1997, Kolakowski received a Master of Divinity degree from the Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley, California.

Career

Before she was elected with 51% of the vote to her opponent's 48% on November 2, 2010, Kolakowski served as an administrative law judge with the California Public Utilities Commission for four years.
She was co-chair of the Bay Area Transgender Law Association from 1996 to 2000. She has been a member of the National Association of Women Judges since 2006.
Kolakowski was president of the International Association of LGBT Judges from 2015-2017, and the first transgender person to serve as president of the organization.
Kolakowski is a Christian and a retired ordained minister in the Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches, a Protestant Christian denomination.

Honors and awards

Kolakowski married Cynthia Laird, news editor of the Bay Area Reporter, on June 16, 2008. Ron Dellums performed the ceremony.