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Sarah Brown | |
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Cambridge City Councillor, Petersfield Ward | |
In office 6 May 2010 –23 May 2014 | |
Personal details | |
Born | 1972or1973(age 50–51) [1] |
Political party | Liberal Democrats |
Spouse | Sylvia Knight [2] [3] |
Domestic partner | Zoe O'Connell [3] |
Alma mater | Trinity Hall, Cambridge |
Sarah Brown is a transgender activist and former Liberal Democrat politician. She was the Cambridge City Councillor for Petersfield ward between 2010 and 2014, [4] serving as Executive Councillor for Community Wellbeing since 2013 [5] and served as a member of the LGBT+ Liberal Democrats executive. [6] She is a trans woman and, for several years, was the only openly transgender elected politician in the UK. In 2011, she appeared on the Independent on Sunday "Pink List" as the 28th most influential LGBT person in the UK, [7] dropping to 34th in the 2012 list, [8] but rising again to 27th in the 2013 list. [9]
Brown is an advocate for equal marriage, and has several times discussed marriage laws as they affected her; her 2001 marriage to her wife Sylvia Knight was annulled upon gaining a Gender Recognition Certificate in 2009, and she described her subsequent civil partnership to Knight as a "kick in the teeth". [10] [11] Her case was cited during the report stage of the Marriage (Same-Sex Couples) Bill, when her MP Julian Huppert moved a series of amendments, which included a set intended to allow couples who dissolved their marriages under the Gender Recognition Act to retroactively restore their marriage. [12]
Brown also advocates for improved provisions for transgender people under the National Health Service, and created the "#transdocfail" hashtag on Twitter and collated several thousand tweets talking about abuse of transgender patients that she alleges exposed "institutional transphobia" in the medical profession that "would be on the national news" if it "was happening to any other minority". [11]
Brown is currently in a polyamorous relationship with Knight and fellow former Liberal Democrat and transgender activist Zoe O'Connell, although none of them describe themselves as "poly evangelists". [3] All three partners contributed to a Guardian column discussing polyamory in the context of transition and Brown's previous marriage, which was later cited by Huppert during the Marriage (Same-Sex Couples) Bill debate. [3]
She is currently a trustee of Cambridgeshire LGBT charity the Kite Trust and a member of Stonewall's Trans Advisory Group. [13]
Brown has contested local and Parliament elections in Cambridge. She was an elected Councillor for Petersfield from 2010 to 2014.
Elections contested by Sarah Brown | |||
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Date | Election | Seat | Result |
6 May 2010 | 2010 Cambridge City Council election | Petersfield | 1,571 - Elected |
22 May 2014 | 2014 Cambridge City Council election | Petersfield | 720 - Seat lost |
3 May 2018 | 2018 Cambridge City Council election | Petersfield | 432 - Not Elected |
13 September 2018 | Petersfield ward by-election, Cambridge [14] | Petersfield |
Brown left the Liberal Democrats in September 2019 as part of a dispute over the acceptance of Phillip Lee. [15]
Stonewall Equality Limited, trading as Stonewall, is a lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) rights charity in the United Kingdom. It is the largest LGBT rights organisation in Europe.
Lynne Choona Featherstone, Baroness Featherstone, is a British politician, businesswoman and Liberal Democrat member of the House of Lords.
Ben Jeffrey Peter Summerskill is chair of The Silver Line and director of the Criminal Justice Alliance, a consortium of 135 charities working across the GB criminal justice pathway. He was the chief executive of the UK-based lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender equality organisation Stonewall, the largest gay equality body in Europe, from 2003 to 2014. He has also worked as a businessman and journalist. Summerskill is an occasional contributor to The Guardian, The Independent on Sunday, The Observer, The Times, Time Out and other publications. In 2015 he won a Lifetime Achievement Award at the British LGBT Awards In 2017, he was appointed by the UK government to the council (Board) of ACAS, the Advisory Conciliation and Arbitration Service. He was first appointed a trustee of the Silver Line in 2017.
PinkNews is a UK-based online newspaper marketed to the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and questioning community (LGBTQ+) in the UK and worldwide. It was founded by Benjamin Cohen in July 2005.
The rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland have developed significantly over time. Today, lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender rights are considered to be advanced by international standards.
Christine Burns is a British political activist best known for her work with Press for Change and, more recently, as an internationally recognised health adviser. Burns was awarded an MBE in 2005 in recognition of her work representing transgender people. In 2011, she ranked 35th on The Independent on Sunday's annual Pink List of influential lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people in the United Kingdom.
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Elections for Cambridge City Council were held on Thursday 3 May 2012. One third of the council was up for election and the Liberal Democrats lost overall control of the council, to No Overall Control.
Paris Lees is an English author, journalist, presenter and campaigner. She topped The Independent on Sunday's 2013 Pink List, came second in the 2014 Rainbow List, and was awarded the Positive Role Model Award for LGBT in the 2012 National Diversity Awards. Lees is the first trans columnist at Vogue and was the first trans woman to present shows on BBC Radio 1 and Channel 4. Her first book, What It Feels Like For a Girl, was published by Penguin in 2021.
My Transsexual Summer is a British documentary-style reality series about seven transgender people in different stages of transition. For five weekends in the summer of 2011, they stay together in a large holiday home in Bedfordshire, where they meet and help each other with some of the struggles that transgender people face. Between these weekend retreats, they go back to their lives and real-world challenges.
Sarah Elizabeth McBride is an American activist and politician who has been a Democratic member of the Delaware Senate since January 2021. She was previously the National Press Secretary of the Human Rights Campaign. She won in the November 2020 election in the safely Democratic 1st Delaware State Senate district. As the first openly transgender state senator in the country, she is the highest-ranking transgender elected official in United States history.
Julia Gasper is an English independent academic specialising in early modern literature, and a right-wing political activist affiliated with the English Democrats. She formerly belonged to the UK Independence Party (UKIP). A vociferous critic of LGBT rights, she has generated controversy with comments widely deemed homophobic and transphobic.
LGBT+ Liberal Democrats is a British lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and other sexual minorities equality group of the Liberal Democrats political party. The organisation is one of several Specified Associated Organisations, giving it special status within the party, and has been referred to as one of the "most important" of such groups. The group campaigns both within the party and UK-wide on LGBT+ issues, as well as mentoring and providing advice to the party's candidates.
Zoe O'Connell is a British Liberal Democrat politician, and a prominent campaigner for transgender rights.
The following is a timeline of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) history in the 21st century.
Helen Clare Belcher is a British transgender activist and Liberal Democrat politician. She has been featured in The Independent on Sunday's Rainbow List for her work on LGBT issues, particularly those affecting the trans community. In 2010 she co-founded Trans Media Watch, a trans-awareness charity for which she appeared on Newsnight. Belcher is a Wiltshire Councillor and the Liberal Democrat parliamentary candidate for Reading West and Mid Berkshire, having previously stood for Parliament in Chippenham.
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