Mayor's Office

This week for the first time, the City of Madison raised the Trans flag at the Madison Municipal building. I was joined by Alder Dina Nina, Madison’s first trans alder, in making remarks for the historic occasion. See my remarks below, and view the entire flag-raising event here.

We all know that LGBTQ+ Pride was started by the Stonewall Rebellion of 1969, some 54 years ago, led by Black and Brown and Queer people.

But did you know that the City of Madison in 1975 became the first place in Wisconsin, and one of the earliest in the country, to ban discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation by amending its Equal Opportunities Ordinance?

Madison has been blazing a trail ever since. The City created the State’s first domestic partnership registry in 1990 by ordinance, affording rights to same sex couples.

The City became the first place in Wisconsin to prohibit discrimination on the basis of gender identity by amending the Equal Opportunities Ordinance.

The City became one of the first to raise the Rainbow Pride Flag over Madison in 2019 and lit the Madison Municipal Building in Rainbow colors. I hope everyone will check it out tonight.

We have had many ground breaking individual serve in City and County government including US Senator Tammy Baldwin and Congressman Mark Pocan.

But today we are here to celebrate a group of Madison Common Council members is the most diverse yet, with a quarter of Alder districts represented by LGBTQ+ and Alder Dina Nina Martinez-Rutherford will be the first openly transgender elected official in Madison.

Today the City of Madison recognizes the LGBTQ+ community as an important part of the diversity of the greater Madison community, and will continue to celebrate their contributions to our economy, culture, neighborhoods and city.

In honor of Alder Martinez-Rutherford, Madison will make history again by raising the Trans flag today and for a week. But before we do that we will have a few remarks from the Alder.