Sheila Kuehl
Kuehl was elected to the California State Assembly in 1994, becoming the first openly gay person elected to the California legislature. While running for office Kuehl found she was able to offset some negative stereotypes people had about lesbians thanks to their familiarity with her role as Zelda. She told an interviewer "When people know gay people personally, they tend to feel differently about the whole community. And all of a sudden, here's a person that they knew very well that they found out was lesbian."
Izetta Jewel
In 1922, Jewel became the first woman south of the Mason–Dixon line to run for the U.S. Senate. She narrowly lost the West Virginia Democratic Party nomination to Matthew Neely. At the 1924 Democratic National Convention Jewel's seconding speech (the first by a woman in both national parties) for presidential candidate John W. Davis captivated the usually distracted delegates for its eight-minute duration and was duly rewarded by a warm applause. In 1930 she was unable to unseat her incumbent Republican rival to represent New York's 30th congressional district and the following year she failed to win a seat in the New York Assembly. Jewel served as Commissioner of Public Welfare for Schenectady in 1932 and 1933. At one point she was jailed for ignoring a court order to reinstate a fired public employee. Ironically, a judge later voided the contempt of court charge because he felt as a woman she did not fully comprehend the consequences of ignoring the court.