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."
Kathleen Lynch (politician)
She first became involved in politics in 1985 when she was elected to Cork Corporation for the Workers' Party. She came to prominence as a campaigner against service charges being introduced by the corporation. When that party split in 1992, Lynch and other members of the Cork organisation were initially undecided as to their stance, but she subsequently decided to follow former party president Proinsias De Rossa and the bulk of the party's TDs into the new organisation which later took the name Democratic Left. Lynch was first elected to Dáil Éireann as Democratic Left TD for Cork North-Central at a by-election in 1994 caused by the death of Labour Party TD Gerry O'Sullivan. She lost her Dáil seat at the 1997 general election but was re-elected again at the 2002 general election, this time for the Labour Party following the merger of Democratic Left with that party in 1999.