First Transgender Woman Elected As A Mayor In France

A small village in France has voted in its “first transgender person as mayor”.

The election took place in Tilloy-lez-Marchiennes, a small village of just over 500 people in the Nord department in France.

Marie Cau, 55, was elected mayor the village and according to local media she is most likely the first transgender person in the country to be elected mayor.

According to Stephanie Nicot, the cofounder of the National Transgender Association (Association nationale transgenre; ANT), she is “the first transgender person elected mayor in France.”

Credit: Newsflash/@lecoindeslgbt
Marie Cau was elected mayor the village

Although she added that others may have “gone under the radar [or] not made it public.”

Marie Cau is an engineer, with a degree in horticulture, who started out in the army before starting up an IT company.

She was elected with 14 votes in her favour and only one blank vote.

She says she is “completely a woman for about five years” after a “progressive” transition that took about 15 years. She has not yet changed her civil status, but plans to in the near future, “to avoid administrative hassles”.

She said: “I didn’t have to change my first name because Marie is my third birth name and I have been using it regularly for two years, as the civil code allows me to.”

Since 2016 in France, transgender people no longer need to prove they are transgender with medical documents in order to change their civil status, but they do still have to appear before a judge for the change to the records to take place.

Credit: Newsflash/Google
The election took place in Tilloy-lez-Marchiennes, a small village of just over 500 people in the Nord department in France

Marie Cau has been campaigning on “a model based on sustainable development, the local economy and local distribution channels, social causes and better [ways of] living together.”

Speaking of her victory, she said: “It’s a good score during COVID-19!”, adding that she was “not at all surprised, since the list embodied a desire for change”.

She said that “people did not elect me because I was transgender, they elected me based on my campaign promises”.


To find out more about the author, editor or agency that supplied this story – please click below.
Story By: Joseph Golder, Sub-Editor: Michael Leidig, Agency: Central European News

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