Name Coos Huijsen | Role Politician | |
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Political party Christian Historical Union (1972-1976)Group Huijsen (1976-1977)Labour Party (1977) | ||
Coos Huijsen - eerste homopoliticus ter wereld
Coos Huijsen (born March 20, 1939 in The Hague) is a former Dutch politician, who was a member of the House of Representatives in 1972–1973 and from 1976 to 1977. In his first term in office, he was a member of the Christian Historical Union, which he left because the party would not support the left-leaning Den Uyl cabinet; in his second term, he sat as an independent member under his own banner of Groep-Huijsen.
As a member of the House of Representatives in 1976, Huijsen came out as gay, making him the country's first openly LGBT politician and the first known openly gay member of a national legislature in the world. In 2016, Huijsen published an autobiographical account of his coming-out, in the context of a changing Dutch society in the 1970s: Homo Politicus (Balans, Amsterdam).
After leaving parliament, Huijsen worked as a school teacher and director. He also switched parties again, becoming a member of the Dutch Labour Party in which he was active until 2000; he left that party because he found the party put too little work into education and gay emancipation. He then pursued a career as a historian, publishing several books on the Dutch monarchy, including:
