Various local and national news outlets are calling the mayoral election in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, “historic” as Dean Trantalis was elected that city’s first openly gay mayor.

Trantalis, the son of Greek immigrants, didn’t only campaign on the platform of equal rights for all of the Florida city’s citizens. In fact, Trantalis’ sexual orientation wasn’t often discussed during the campaign, until his opponent went negative and sent a mailer with a doctored image of Trantalis in flamboyant clothing and make up.

“These are outfits I would never be seen in,” Trantalis joked and brushed off the homophobic attack against him.

As a city commissioner, Trantalis was known for his desire to protect the oceanfront city from excessive development.

“It was a campaign about infrastructure and traffic and overdevelopment and the homeless,” he said after winning handily in a run-off election.

“The landslide that now occurred gives me a feeling I’ve been handed a mandate for change, and that’s what I’ll do.”