posted on Facebook.Rasmussen was a self-described “gender anarchist” who used both he/him and she/her pronouns. Assigned male at birth, he served two terms pre-transition, beginning in 1988, as mayor of Silverton, a town of about 10,000 in western Oregon, near the state’s capital city, Salem.
After coming out as trans, he was elected mayor again in 2008, making him the nation’s first known trans mayor. He served until 2014.Three weeks after the 2008 election, protesters from the hateful Westboro Baptist Church arrived in Silverton.
The town’s residents stood up for Rasmussen.“It was a pretty unique moment,” Palmer told the Salem Statesman Journal. “Our citizens who dressed up in dresses.