The Herbsts had been living in New Hope for several years when Jess, who had been a regular at council meetings, was elected alderman—another name for city council member—in 2003. Over the years, she also served as road commissioner and mayor pro-tem, a kind of backup mayor. When the sudden death of the mayor of New Hope left the town without a leader in 2016, the council appointed Jess, as Jeff, as mayor until the next election. Once a month, for city council meetings, she would wipe off her makeup, take off her wig, and dress up as a man again so no one would know.

In January of 2017, she revealed her true gender identity in a letter on the town’s website. “I’m not especially sensitive to the pronoun I’m called, and I expect people to take time to make the change,” she wrote. (The understanding attitude was probably a good thing, since at least one news article I found misgendered her in the very first sentence.)

Right away, the story was picked up by national and international media. People wrote letters and emails of support to the transgender woman in the middle of nowhere. People who didn’t know her address simply wrote “Jess Herbst, New Hope, Texas” on an envelope, and it would somehow reach her anyway.

Around town, most people were accepting. Once, Jess was out with a trans friend who thought some women at a neighboring table were staring at her because the pair looked different. It turned out the women just wanted to know where Jess got her nails done. The chair of the planning and zoning commission from the nearby town of Anna met Jess for coffee to get her advice on coming out as transgender—then she came out, too.77

Of course, there was also hate. She appeared on an Internet show whose hosts insisted that gender transition wasn’t possible. When online trolls came after her, Jess responded to their questions until they had nothing left to say but “thank you.” A good sense of humor, a positive outlook, and a whopping dose of mood-soothing hormones kept her from getting angry in such moments.

Some people were just nervous. One man misgendered Jess by accident during a meeting, but Jess didn’t expect him to apologize as much as he did—she had known him for twenty-five years, after all. (She’s only been misgendered purposefully twice, she says.)

As a consultant who had worked internationally, Jess was accustomed to switching up her speech to make people more comfortable. She describes one man, a friend of hers, who stopped coming to council meetings after she came out. When she approached him at a town picnic, he mumbled awkwardly and avoided eye contact. But she stuck by him, changing tactics slightly.