Spanjian Drops Out of D-8 Race: Can a Lesbian Win in This Gay Male Stronghold?

​Longtime city politico Laura Spanjian today announced that, not only is she withdrawing from the race for District 8 supervisor, she's also withdrawing from San Francisco.

Spanjian will take a position as the city of Houston's "sustainability director," starting next month. She currently works as the Public Utilities Commission's assistant general manager for external affairs (whatever that means).

While Spanjian hasn't yet returned SF Weekly's calls, it warrants mentioning that Spanjian's partner resides in Houston, and Spanjian actively campaigned for the election of that city's mayor, open lesbian Annise Parker -- who will now be her boss.

It also warrants mentioning that Spanjian trailed in both fund-raising and endorsements for the D-8 seat to Rafael Mandelman, Rebecca Prozan, and Scott Wiener. 

Since D-8 came into being in 2000, it has been represented by a gay, Jewish politician (Mark Leno and Bevan Dufty). In fact, even the losing candidates were Jewish (Eileen Hansen and Alix Rosenthal). That's likely just a Semitic statistical quirk.

But the male element is not -- it's an uphill battle for a female candidate to win in a district dominated by gay men.

So that's why the Spanjian's departure may be welcome news to Prozan; one woman in the race is facing test enough, but two would have canceled each other out. Prozan has not yet returned our calls.

Finally, if you're scoring at home, once again all the candidates in the D-8 race will be gay Jews (Spanjian is a gentile). But if the winner is female -- that would be precedent-setting.