Stephe Koontz

Stephe Koontz is an American politician, and the first out transgender person to win a contested election in the U.S. state of Georgia.^[1][2][3] She won a city council seat in the Metro Atlanta city of Doraville on November 7, 2017,^[4] on what the Washington Post called "a "historic night for the nation’s transgender community", in which six openly transgender people won elections in the United States.^[1] A 32-year resident and political activist in the city, she won by a narrow margin of six votes.^[5]

Koontz was invited to speak at the Georgia Alliance for Social Justice and Women's March "Power to the Polls" event on January 21, 2018.^[2] She was also featured, with other history-making elected officials, in Human Rights Campaign's nationally distributed Equality magazine.^[6] She was given the 2019 Allen Thornell Political Advancement Award by Georgia Equality for her promotion of non-discrimination ordinances across Metro Atlanta cities.^[7]

In November 2021, she was re-elected to the Doraville City Council for another four year term, where she will continue to serve as the only openly transgender elected official in the Southeastern United States.^[8] She was sworn in on June 26, 2022, as a member of the board of directors of the Georgia Municipal Association for 2022–2023 as the president of District 3 East, which covers the eastern half of metro Atlanta.^[9]