Dutch Politician Coos Huijsen, One of the First Openly Gay Parliamentarians, Dies
Coos Huijsen, a former member of the Dutch House of Representatives, died in Amsterdam on October 19, 2026, aged 87. According to NOS, citing his family, he died at home after a short illness, with his husband Lank Bos at his side. The date was also confirmed by the Vrijburg religious community, of which he was a member.
Huijsen publicly came out as gay in 1976, when he returned to parliament as an independent. The Dutch LGBT archive IHLIA links his coming out to his swearing-in on March 30: Bos was removed from the chamber after identifying himself as the MP’s partner, prompting Huijsen to raise an objection with the speaker. The archive describes him as the world’s first parliamentarian to publicly acknowledge his homosexuality.
According to his Parlement.com biography, Huijsen first entered parliament in 1972 for the Christian Historical Union (CHU), a conservative Protestant party. He left the party in 1973 over disagreements about supporting the government of social democrat Joop den Uyl. He served as an independent MP in 1976–1977. After leaving the chamber, he joined the Labour Party (PvdA), but never returned to parliament.
He remained involved in the movement for equal rights for gay people. In 2007, he helped establish Het Blauwe Fonds, a private foundation funding projects that support LGBT people. According to the organization’s account, its founders wanted to channel donations and bequests into such initiatives. Huijsen chaired the foundation until 2017.
Outside politics, Huijsen worked as a history teacher and headed Amsterdam’s Gerrit van der Veen College from 1986 to 1998. In 2012, he completed a doctorate on the role of the House of Orange in Dutch society, and in 2016 he published “Homo politicus,” a memoir of his life and political work.
Photo: Bert Verhoeff / Anefo, Nationaal Archief — Wikimedia Commons, CC0 1.0. Coos Huijsen at his swearing-in on March 30, 1976. Resized and converted to WebP without cropping.
