Victoria Kolakowski: The Country's First Transgender Judge?

Victoria Kolakowski, a candidate for Alameda County Superior Court Judge, is aiming to be the first transgender judge in the judicial branch of the U.S. government. The New York born candidate, who now lives outside of San Francisco, finished first in her historic bid for a seat on the Alameda County Superior Court in last month's primary race. Voters will decide this fall whether to elect Kolakowski. She is currently an administrative law judge for the state Public Utilities Commission.

Alex Davidson had the opportunity to run a Q & A with Kolakowski. Check out her answers below, and stay tuned to see whether Kolakowski succeeds in breaking yet another LGBT glass ceiling.

1. This one's easy and just a clarification: if elected, you would be the first transgender trial court judge elected in the U.S., or first transgender judge of any court in the U.S.?

As far as we know, I would be the first openly transgender trial court judge in the U.S., or in more legalese jargon, judge of a court of general jurisdiction. I am presently an administrative law judge, which I argue is a judge, but this would be the first judge in the judicial branch of government.

2. How have you handled your spirituality in your practice of law? And how, if at all, would your spirituality affect your ability to be an effective judge?

My faith reinforces my understanding that each person has intrinsic worth and should be treated with respect, that we are all entitled to fair and equitable treatment under the law, and that integrity, honesty, and other virtues still have meaning and value in the world. It has given me compassion for the powerless and the oppressed, and an appreciation for the importance of justice. Also, it has made me sensitive to the fact that we all make mistakes, but that we nonetheless have to live with the consequences of our actions.

Beyond those sort of considerations, I do my best to separate my individual faith beliefs, as well as my political beliefs, from impacting my interpretation of the law. The judges who won’t make that separation, who place their own religious beliefs above the law, those are the activist judges, and they are as likely to be on the far right as on the left. That is contrary to what I value most about the law.

As an administrative law judge, I have never knowingly substituted my own preferences for the underlying laws that I am enforcing, even when I disagree with those laws.

3. There has been a lot of discussion about whether judges are truly impartial, with people (such as Supreme Court Justice Sotomayor) acknowledging that past formative experiences cannot be forgotten. Do you agree with this and, if so, how would you deal with your past in making judicial decisions?

Really, this boils down to what we used to call “good old common sense.”

On the positive side, our past can help us to understand what is really going on in the court, in the individual cases. We understand things about how the world really works, about human nature, about
what motivates people. Also, our experiences can help us to be more sensitive to the humanity of what can often be a cold system.

On the negative side, our past can introduce biases into our thinking that we need to overcome. What appears to be “common sense” to one person, or even a group of people, is sometimes unfettered and unquestioned prejudice.

I believe that wisdom lies in being aware of these potential impacts, and distinguishing between helpful experience and biased preconceptions. We have to be aware of when we are making value judgments, and be self-critical in evaluating whether that is helping or harming. This is why not just anyone with legal experience should be a judge. Wisdom and a good temperament are at least as important as knowledge of the evidence code in the courtroom.

As an example of how one’s past experience can help, one of my campaign themes is that I want to make the courts more accessible, particularly for people who can’t afford an attorney, and especially for people who don’t speak English as a first language. That sensitivity comes from my experience as an administrative law judge, as someone who had to represent themselves in a legal matter, and from growing up in an immigrant neighborhood that was distrustful of the legal system.

If the human element weren’t central to our system of justice, we could just have computers decide our cases for us. Nobody really wants to live in that sort of a world.

4. If elected as the first transgender person to serve as a trial court judge in the United States, would you feel some duty to raise awareness of the issues affecting your community?

I see the possibility of my presence on the court as a sort of ongoing sensitivity training. Just like people become more comfortable with us as gay and lesbian people when more of us come out (I am a lesbian as well), having an out, visible transgender judge will demonstrate to the judges, attorneys, staff and police who interact with the courts every day that we can be capable professionals, like everyone else.

5. You're from Queens (I used to work there!). Did you ever think you'd be running for election in Alameda County? And to that point, what was your family/home life like? Does your family support your election bid?

While I was born in Queens and spent the first year of my life there, I grew up in northern Brooklyn, in a Polish-American immigrant neighborhood called Greenpoint. (My parents and my brother moved to
Staten Island just before I went off to college.)

We rented an apartment in a building owned by my father’s parents, who were a night watchman and a cleaning lady, who had saved everything to buy a house for their family. My father worked his entire career in cardboard factories — he was a union shop steward at one point. One of my uncles was a local union president. So I grew up in a building filled with a large blue-collar Roman Catholic Polish-American family.

My parents married when they were eighteen and they were twenty when I was born, so they were very young. They hung around with musicians and artists — lots of hippies around the house, lots of diversity … it kind of reminds of my time living in Berkeley here in Alameda County! My family was nominally Roman Catholic, but my parents insisted that I go to public schools and not to parochial schools like they did.

I am the first person in my family to graduate from college, and my family has always been proud of me. My parents taught me to stand up for what I believe in, to work hard and to never give up. They took a little while to adjust to my transition, but they have been really wonderful overall. They would be so glad for me to win in November, but the thing that makes them happiest is that I am happy with who I am and with my life. What more could anyone ask for from their family?

Photo credit: Victoria Kolakowski For Alameda Superior Court Judge