Mayor Christy Holstege – The New Era of Pride & Politics

I have deep ties with the City of Palm Springs…while many of my peers have enjoyed the weekend trips, White Parties, and a myriad of other nightlife events traveling in from surrounding cities, my relationship with Palm Springs runs a bit deeper. While I have enjoyed representing GED Magazine, serving as Pride emcee, and being named Media Grand Marshal for the last in-person PS Pride Parade, my relationship with Palm Springs started in the third grade spending every summer there through my final year of college. My grandma, Ofelia Sinclair, and her husband owned a sleepy little hotel on Arenas Road called El Poco Lodge; it was a quaint little hotel that collected everyone from Hollywood celebrities and international visitors to the curious traveler making their first Palm Springs visit. I would run around the streets of Downtown Palm Springs during a time when most of the businesses were literally boarded up and the entire town took a break before the winter tourism. The city and its history were my playgrounds, with my grandmother telling me the many stories of Palm Springs art and history, with a spoonful of gossip. Many of the Hollywood greats (Frank Sinatra, Bob Hope, Lucy and Desi Arnaz, Rosalind Russell) added to the glamour of Palm Springs lore by making it home. Fast forward to the present day – El Poco Lodge is now called the Andalusian (owned by two fabulous gay men), and the city thrives year-round, with younger generations coming to play and live every year. Part of this youthful phenomenon is Mayor Christy Holstege, leading the way for Pride in politics.

Mayor Christy Holstege (Photo by Joshua Gilbert)

Serving as Palm Springs’ first-ever female mayor and the nation’s first openly bisexual mayor, her youth and down-to-earth demeanor belies an extensive career, making a name for herself (complete with causing some waves) in a still, male-dominated world of politics. She represents the City of Palm Springs on several important Coachella Valley Association of Governments (CVAG) committees, including Homelessness, Public Safety, and Transportation. In addition, she leads the Mayor’s COVID-19 Reopening Task Force, serves on the City’s Economic Development & Business Retention Ad Hoc Subcommittee and the City’s Affordable Housing and Homelessness Task Force. She also serves as Council liaison to the Friends of the Palm Springs Animal Shelter. Holstege has been an active member of the Palm Springs community, serving on the board of directors for Planned Parenthood of the Pacific Southwest, Well in the Desert, Coachella Valley Housing Coalition, and Shady Lane Mobile Home Park. She also served on the City of Palm Springs Human Rights Commission and the Palm Springs Homelessness Task Force. As an attorney, before representing the City, she was awarded a Stanford Law School-Stanford Public Interest Foundation Fellowship and funding to establish a legal aid clinic for domestic violence survivors within the Coachella Valley’s only domestic violence shelter. She has also represented farmworkers in civil rights, housing, and employment litigation at California Rural Legal Assistance in Coachella, California. Holstege earned a J.D. from Stanford Law School and a B.A. in Cultural Anthropology from U.C. Santa Barbara.

She hails from Sacramento, a big city opposite of Palm Springs’ environment. An important foundation of her platform is to be accessible and a real part of the community.

I had never met a mayor, city council member, and didn’t know lawyers; a different community than in Palm Springs where you know your council members, you know your mayor – you see us at the grocery store. We’re very, very visible, and accessible to our residents. So, it’s interesting coming from a bigger city and then living in Palm Springs because we do have such a tight-knit community and you’re never anonymous in Palm Springs. Everyone knows who you are and where you are.

She gained her education from the public school system, an experience that would shape her political and philanthropic mission. The inequities in the school system would reflect the inequities with the nation.

The reason I’ve run for public office is seeing the discrimination and the unfairness with my peers, with LGBTQ kids, with women and girls. I just thought, what’s the best way to create change for our communities? How will we ever have equality? And so that’s why I became a lawyer and why I ran for city council. We will never have equality until we have some of the seats, half the seats, all the seats. And I’m so proud that in Palm Springs, I am a part of (along with my colleagues) the first all-LGBTQ city council in the country. So, we have achieved all the seats in the Palm Springs government.

Making history as being a part of the nation’s first LGBTQ city council and as the first openly bisexual mayor has not come without resistance, even from within the LGBTQ community. The biggest opposition she has faced in her political career has been regarding her sexuality, with a disregard for her advancements for minority and homeless communities. Her biggest challenges?

 A lot of bi-phobia, bi-invisibility, discrimination, hate speech, to be honest because I was running as a young person, running as a woman, running as someone who’s openly bi yet someone who’s married to a man -as actually a large majority of the bi community might be married to the opposite sex because sometimes we pick our partners when we’re 20 because of oppression because it’s easier sometimes to marry someone of the opposite sex and date them when you’re young before you’re fully realized and know your full identity. So, it’s been difficult even in Palm Springs. We see Palm Springs as this gay Mecca, that we’re so inclusive. But it has been difficult to have people say, ‘Well, are you really bi? Have you slept with women?’

All these kinds of questions that I just don’t think a man gets, obviously bi men have such a hard time in the community as well. So, that’s really been hard. And I think people watching have seen and said, ‘How do you put up with this? How am I going to run for office if I’m seeing the hate speech that you’re subjected to?’ That’s a challenge, but it also just allows for so much visibility. I never knew that I would be the first openly bi mayor in the entire country, in history. Who would have thought that in 2020 that was the reality for our country? Obviously, there’ve been lots of bi mayors in the past, but openly, I was the first. And the only reason I found that out is because I was being attacked so much for being bi, that Victory Fund came in and helped me and supported me. They identified that this is the first openly bi mayor we’ve ever had. So, I think there’s a lot of opportunity for changing the conversation and being visible and fighting for LGBT rights in those moments where it’s difficult.

Mayor Christy Holstege (Photo by Joshua Gilbert)

During the past administration, the Palm Springs area saw a surprising number of rallies and protests in support of the Trump administration and with it, resistance to mask mandates and COVID vaccinations. Also coming to light is the racism that has been a lawful part of this supposedly safe place city. As a gay man and someone who calls Palm Springs my second home, I had to ask the Mayor how we heal and move on in the face of ugliness. It’s not just about joining hands in warm, fuzzy sentiments – Holstege’s vision includes ruffling feathers in this new, unapologetic era of politics.

I think this is the challenge that we’re all facing within our community, and it is time to really address the bigotry that’s out there. There’s more visible racism, visible bi-phobia, transphobia, and anti-LGBTQ sentiments. I’ve experienced that. I think that there is a lot of division, and I don’t think it’s just about coming together because I think that there is an important reckoning that must happen. We’re doing that in the city. We have a history where this city was involved in expulsions of people from downtown areas – people of color, the black community, Latinos, who were excluded from the city and because of racial covenants, weren’t allowed to purchase homes in any area of the city. So, it’s a divisive time, but I think it’s that way because I think we’re making progress, right? It’s a backlash for standing up for LGBT rights; we’re standing up for racial justice and that makes people afraid – and I think that’s okay. I think it’s important to say that it’s not divisive to talk about LGBT rights or racial justice, these are conversations we must have. How to do that in a way that brings everyone together? I don’t know if that’s possible. I think that they’re hard conversations and some people are going to be offended. And I think that’s okay too if we come together with respect. And I think that’s what we’ve lost in politics, is we don’t have mutual respect. That’s what’s difficult, frankly, to serve the city and see that it has become hostile and personal in politics.

Even though women have been an integral part of the Coachella Valley, it has taken more than 80 years for a female mayor to take the helm and only happened after a complete shift in the political system. Holstege hopes to bring light to yet another minority group in Palm Springs that hasn’t received its fair due.

Women have led this city for time immemorial. Women have always been at the helm of Palm Springs. There’s a photo in City Hall of women registering people to vote in Palm Springs before women had the right to vote there. We have a tribal council that was all women decades ago. So, I always try to give homage to the women who came before. When I became the first-ever female mayor for the City of Palm Springs, I did a presentation – here are all the women leaders who’ve come before. It’s not about me. Yes, we should have had a female mayor 83 years ago when we were founded as the city.

Why we haven’t is because we had a separately elected mayor. What I think has happened is we’ve had voters who’ve just voted for men for a variety of reasons. There’s a lot of barriers that women face for running for office and for serving, that’s why we moved to the rotating mayor system so that every district, everyone has an opportunity to represent the community and it’s not just holding out for, let’s be honest, wealthy white people – men who live in a certain area of the community. I think there’s still a lot of barriers that we need to address. Some things I’m fighting for, for example, is a fair wage, a living wage, for council members so that people can afford to leave the workforce to do these jobs or for those who can’t afford childcare so they can afford to serve the community in all the ways that we want younger people, people of color, working people, LGBT people to. We need to provide more support for us to run for office and to serve.

In addition to the role as a city leader, Holstege has a new role as a mother. She moved to Palm Springs to join her husband, a small business owner and third-generation Palm Springs resident, and the two welcomed their firstborn last year. How does she juggle her roles as mother, wife, business owner, activist, woman, and politician? Which, ironically, is also a question not often asked of male government leaders.

It’s hard, I’ll just be honest. I don’t have all the answers. I work some days for 10 to 12 hours on Zoom or for the city. And, you know, we get paid $29,000 a year for essentially a full-time job, so that’s often less than minimum wage for the hours that I’m working. It’s difficult to have a family, it’s difficult to be a caretaker, have a newborn. So really what I’ve found is that it’s a team effort. It’s not about me as mayor. It’s not about the city council. We have a staff of 500 people in the city, we have 48,000 residents. We are a team and I’ve just found people who can support me and help and carry the team forward. I gave birth two weeks before election day and I found team members who were ready to carry my campaign forward while I was in the hospital. So, I just try to remind people to really find your key people who have your back, who support you just like we all do at the job we have or whatever family responsibilities we have.

Palm Springs City Council (Photo by Joshua Gilbert)

And while embracing this new label of “mother” along with garnering the distinction of making LGBTQ history, she envisions a future without labels or references to one’s orientation. 

No one’s policing what it looks like to be straight. Why must we be policed? ‘Who have you slept with?’ ‘Are you bi enough?’ ‘Who are you married to?’ ‘Why do you have a baby?’ That’s policing people’s orientation. That’s not the world we’re fighting for. We’re fighting for a world where your sexual orientation doesn’t matter, you can be the best person you can be. I never ran on being bi, I ran as the best candidate for the job. I was actually outed in the election process publicly and it was a whole thing. But now, I think we see changes. There’s Sasha Renée Pérez who became an openly bi mayor of the city of Alhambra right after me. And so, we’re going to just have so many of these visible people that it really is going to change the game of what it looks like to be LGBTQ -and then we are going to get all the rights associated with that as straight people have.

In keeping in this year’s Palm Springs Pride theme of You Are Included, Mayor Holstege proves that sometimes in order to be included, you must make noise, you must make waves, and you must force change by example. I am extremely proud that Holstege represents the B in the nation’s LGBTQ political future.

Her message this 35^th Annual Palm Springs Pride is typical Holstege – a dash of activism, a dash of hope, and all down-to-earth:

I think we’ve had such a difficult almost two years now and my message to people is just enjoy and have fun. I’m looking forward to pride in Palm Springs. We’re such an LGBTQ destination and role model for other communities to follow. So, I just hope people enjoy themselves, I hope that they feel free to be open and out and their full, authentic selves even though we do live in times where it’s more and more difficult to do that. It’s such an honor to be here with you and to have these difficult conversations and complex conversations. So, thank you for having me and thank you to all your readers for their involvement in the LGBTQ community to support our businesses, to support pride in Palm Springs.

You can follow Christy on IG: @ChristyHolstege

And check out our in-depth chat on our official GED podcast, U.S. of Gay, as we talk about the challenges that our younger generation faces in getting into politics, the growth that Palm Springs continues to experience, and activism beyond social media – available at GEDMag.com and all major podcast platforms.