The Biden-Harris Administration set a record for the number of LGBTQ+ federal judicial appointments last week after Mary Kay Costello was appointed to the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. The number of appointed judges now sits at 12, breaking the former record (11) set by the Obama-Biden administration. Costello, a military vet, served as assistant U.S. attorney in Philadelphia since 2008. Costello served in the U.S. Air Force between 1986 and 1994 before she earned her law degree from Temple University. She was sworn in last month as a federal magistrate judge, NBC reports.
According to The Washington Blade, less than three percent of the country’s 900 federal judges are LGBTQ+. What’s more the LGBTQ+ Victory Institute’s statistics report that between June of 2022 and May 2023, the number of bisexual and pansexual elected officials grew. During this time, there was an 8.8% increase in the number of gay male elected officials and only a 0.8% increase in the number of lesbian officials.
Electing openly LGBTQ+ judges and officials has only become more prominent in the last few decades. A former U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker only came out after he retired, despite advocating for queer rights during his term. Deborah Batts became the first openly gay judicial nominee, nominated by former President Bill Clinton. She was sworn into office in 1994. It was almost twenty years before another openly gay judicial nominee came around in 2011 during Obama’s administration.
U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin shared his thoughts about the record on X writing “We’re diversifying the federal judiciary for generations to come.” In various branches of government, LGBTQ+ officials continue to break records for representation.
