There are certain people who become part of a city’s nervous system. You don’t plan to meet them. You don’t schedule them. They just show up again and again until they’re woven into your memories whether you realize it or not.
For Austin, one of those people was Leslie Cochran.
Most people knew Leslie as the loud, sassy, barely-clothed fixture of downtown. High heels. Thongs. Crop tops. A goatee. A walk that said “I dare you to look away.” Leslie was gender-nonconforming, theatrical, provocative, and deeply Austin. People tried to label him all the time, but Leslie never asked permission to exist, and that’s really what unsettled people most.
I interacted with Leslie for years without ever thinking it was anything special — because that was just life here.
In 2009, when I worked at Black Sheep Lodge, he would wander up to my tables like he owned the place. He’d spark up a conversation with the guests, charm them, flirt, make them laugh. Someone would inevitably offer to buy him a drink. Then another. Then another. He’d hang around for a bit… and eventually disappear before the bill hit the table.
Every single time, the patrons would look shocked for about two seconds — and then shrug and pay it. No one was ever angry. That was Leslie. You didn’t feel scammed. You felt like you’d participated in something very Austin.
What most people didn’t see was the quieter side of him.
At one point, I ended up at one of the places he was staying — a tiny trailer tucked into someone’s backyard. And it wasn’t chaotic or dirty or tragic. It was clean. Comfortable. There was a nice TV. Movies. Things he’d been gifted by people in the community who looked out for him. It was a reminder that Leslie survived not because the city tolerated him, but because people showed up for him in small, human ways.
One of my favorite memories connects Leslie to another person who shaped my creative life — my friend John Campbell. John was a photographer and a close friend of mine whose studio sat off South First, across from El Mercado. I spent so many nights there after hours, experimenting with light, playing with old cameras, even ones John had built himself. It was a space for curiosity and art and staying up too late because it felt right.
One night I showed up, and Leslie was there.
What followed was a black-and-white photo shoot that somehow managed to be both risqué and respectful at the same time. Leslie posed in underwear — confident, playful, fully in on the joke. And I will never forget that he was wearing Animal from The Muppets underwear, which felt almost too perfect. It was Leslie distilled: absurd, joyful, unapologetic, and somehow still sweet.
That’s the part people forget. Leslie really was a sweetheart.
He embodied “Keep Austin Weird” before it was printed on T-shirts and stripped of its meaning. He ran for mayor of Austin multiple times, starting in 2000, and in his first run pulled a surprising 7.75% of the vote. People laughed, sure — but they also listened. Leslie wasn’t just a character. He was commentary. He was a mirror.
After a serious head injury in 2009, his health declined. On March 8, 2012, Leslie passed away at Hospice Austin’s Christopher House, surrounded by people who cared about him. Then-Mayor Lee Leffingwell declared March 8 “Leslie Day” in his honor — a strange and fitting full-circle moment for someone who spent so much of his life outside official lines.
There’s a plaque downtown on East 6th Street now, quietly honoring him where he once roamed freely. Every time I see it, I think about how rare it is for a city to love someone exactly as they are — flaws, chaos, audacity and all.
Leslie wasn’t perfect. Austin isn’t either. But for a long time, they matched each other beautifully. 🥹
Editor’s note: This piece is written from personal memory and lived experience. Leslie Cochran was a complex, gender-nonconforming Austin icon whose presence meant different things to different people. The stories shared here reflect my own interactions with Leslie and the way he showed up in my corner of the city. Like Austin itself, he was imperfect, complicated, and unforgettable.
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