Marie Cau, who won the election Saturday in Tilloy-lez-Marchiennes, in northern France, said her gender wasn’t an issue during the campaign and that voters chose her for her social programs.
“What’s surprising is that this is surprising,” Cau, 55, told Agence France-Presse. “They didn’t vote for me or against me because I’m transgender; they voted for a program and for values.”
A business manager with a background in education and agriculture, Cau has lived in the village for more than 20 years and ran on a platform of environmental sustainability.
Residents of the 600-person village, located near the Belgian border, elected Cau and her fellow “Deciding Together” candidates to the local council on March 15.
Then on Saturday, the newly elected council members made Cau the mayor in a nearly unanimous decision, according to the BBC.
Since she began her transition about 15 years ago, Cau said she hasn’t experienced discrimination and that “people are kind, despite some blunders.”
She said she looks forward to the day when her gender will be a “nonissue” — but acknowledged that her election shows “that transgender people can have normal social and political lives.”
France’s minister of state for gender equality, Marlène Schiappa, congratulated Cau on her historic victory.
“Trans visibility, and therefore the fight against transphobia, also requires the exercise of political or public responsibilities,” she tweeted.
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