How a lack of diversity is threatening America's first all-LGBTQ city council

The LGBTQ community celebrated when Palm Springs, California filled its city council with openly LGBTQ members last year, but that celebration is pretty much over.

The council — made up of three gay men, one bisexual woman, and one transgender woman — represents a city that's majority gay and lesbian. But its white faces don't reflect the fact that the city is also 25 percent Latino, leading to a series of "internal and external" challenges that threaten the council's future, The Washington Post reports.

Palm Springs' city council "has had a gay and lesbian majority for a decade, but very few women have served in recent years," the Post writes. The city is often characterized as a retirement community, prompting "the question of age diversity" on the council, the Post continues. Yet the biggest problem has stemmed from an all-white council representing a city with an 80-percent Latino student body in its public schools. After last year's election, a Latino civil rights group threatened a lawsuit over Palm Springs' at-large voting system, saying it "dilutes the ability of Latinos to elect candidates of their choice."

The council stymied the lawsuit by voting last year to hold council elections by district instead of of city-wide. It'll also hold elections by those newly defined districts later this year. Two members, including Mayor Robert Moon, opposed the move, seeing as they live in the same district, along with a third councilmember. Only one of them — Geoff Kors, who voted for the districts — has said so far he'll run again. And in the newly-created District 1, Palm Springs native Grace Garner, who is a straight Latina woman, is likely to join the force. Read more at The Washington Post.