Mina Tolu (born 31 August 1991) is a

Maltese Maltese may refer to: * Someone or something of, from, or related to Malta * Maltese alphabet * Maltese cuisine * Maltese culture * Maltese language, the Semitic language spoken by Maltese people * Maltese people, people from Malta or of Malte ...

politician, activist who champions LGBTQIA causes and is a

green Green is the color between cyan and yellow on the visible spectrum. It is evoked by light which has a dominant wavelength of roughly 495570 Nanometre, nm. In subtractive color systems, used in painting and color printing, it is created by ...

activist who has campaigned to raise awareness of

transgender rights A transgender person is someone whose gender identity is inconsistent or not culturally associated with the sex they were assigned at birth and also with the gender role that is associated with that sex. They may have, or may intend to establi ...

and

gender equality Gender equality, also known as sexual equality or equality of the sexes, is the state of equal ease of access to resources and opportunities regardless of gender, including economic participation and decision-making; and the state of valuing d ...

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...

. They ran for the

2019 European Parliament election in Malta The 2019 European Parliament election was held in Malta on 25 May 2019. 8 different political parties took part in the election, of which, only 2 won seats in the European Parliament; the Labour Party and the Nationalist Party, with 4 and 2 sea ...

. Tolu is currently deputy chairperson of

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and previously served as co-spokesperson of the

Federation of Young European Greens The Federation of Young European Greens, often referred to as FYEG ( ), is an umbrella organisation that gathers young green movements and organisations across Europe with 40,000 members. FYEG's aim is to defend climate and social justice on the ...

Early life

Tolu and their twin sibling, Ludo Tolu, were born on 31 August 1991. Together, they founded the Maltese

Student Organisation A student society, student association, university society, student club, university club, or student organization is a society or an organization, operated by students at a university or a college institution, whose membership typically consists o ...

, ''We Are'', in 2010. Tolu's father, Giancarlo Tolu, is a Maltese sportsman who broke a

Guinness World Record ''Guinness World Records'', known from its inception in 1955 until 1999 as ''The Guinness Book of Records'' and in previous United States editions as ''The Guinness Book of World Records'', is a reference book published annually, listing world ...

in bowling in 2004 and represented Malta at the European Senior Bowling Championships and the Senior World Cup. Tolu graduated with a Bachelor of Communications (Hons) from the

University of Malta The University of Malta (, UM, formerly UOM) is a higher education institution in Malta. It offers undergraduate bachelor's degrees, postgraduate master's degrees and postgraduate doctorates. It is a member of the European University Association ...

in 2014. Their dissertation project consisted of the creation of a comic meant to reach out to the LGBT

Young Adult A young adult is generally a person in the years following adolescence. Definitions and opinions on what qualifies as a young adult vary, with works such as Erik Erikson's stages of human development significantly influencing the definition of ...

(YA) audience. The comic was aimed at the Maltese audience, where literature of this type is limited.

Activism and career

LGBTQI activism

Tolu began advocating for LGBTQIA rights in 2010, starting with the foundation of ''We Are (''LGBTQIA youth & student organization) at the University of Malta. From 2014 to 2015, Tolu was a board member and Co-Chair of IGLYO - the International LGBTQIA Youth and Student Organization (2014 - 2015). They were IGLYO's candidate for the Council of Europe Advisory Council of Youth (CCJ) during 2016 and 2017. They were elected to the Advisory Council of Youth where they worked on portfolios of mental health, counter-narratives and 'no hate speech'. In 2015, Tolu joined the staff team of TGEU - Transgender Europe as

Communications Officer A communications officer is a naval line officer responsible for supervising operation and maintenance of a warship's signal flags, signal lamps, and radio transmitters and receivers. The communications officer is usually responsible for encrypti ...

Human Rights Conference at Stockholm Pride 2018 Closing Session 03

In 2016, Tolu represented Malta at One Young World Summit in Ottawa, Canada. They delivered a speech on trans rights and was a member on a panel about gender equality. Tolu spoke about challenging gender stereotypes, gender-neutral pronouns and stressed the need for gender equality to include transgender and gender-non-conforming people. During their speech on trans rights and violence against trans people at the One Young World Summit, Tolu spoke about TGEU's Trans Murder Monitoring project and called on the One Young World community fighting similar forms of

discrimination Discrimination is the act of making unjustified distinctions between people based on the groups, classes, or other categories to which they belong or are perceived to belong. People may be discriminated on the basis of race, gender, age, relig ...

, violence and hatred towards diversity to unite together and bring change in all these communities. In 2018, Mina Tolu joined the Women Deliver Young Leaders program, which is a global advocacy program that develops youth activists to work for

and

women's rights Women's rights are the rights and entitlements claimed for women and girls worldwide. They formed the basis for the women's rights movement in the 19th century and the feminist movements during the 20th and 21st centuries. In some countries, ...

. They returned to local activism in Malta by joining the

Pride Week LGBT pride (also known as gay pride or simply pride) is the promotion of the self-affirmation, dignity, equality, and increased visibility of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people as a social group. Pride, as opposed to sh ...

events in the run-up to Malta Pride 2018. In August 2018, Tolu joined the Human Rights Conference at Euro Pride held in

Stockholm Stockholm () is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in Sweden by population, largest city of Sweden as well as the List of urban areas in the Nordic countries, largest urban area in Scandinavia. Approximately 980,000 people liv ...

Environmental activism

In 2015, Tolu coordinated the national referendum campaign ''SHOut'' - Spring Hunting Out (No campaign) for the Maltese environmental NGO BirdLife Malta that aimed to abolish spring bird hunting in Malta. The result of the vote was a slim victory for the ''Yes Campaign'' of 2,220 votes.

Recognition

Mina Tolu was nominated and won the student award at the first LGBTQIA Community Awards in Malta, 2014. Their twin, Ludo Tolu, won the same award. In the same year, they were awarded ''Kokka Attiva'' by the University Student Council (KSU) for their work as a student at the

and was nominated for a JCI Malta young leader award.

Personal life

Tolu is non-binary and uses they/them pronouns.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Tolu, Mina 1991 births Living people Maltese transgender people Maltese non-binary people Transgender rights activists Transgender politicians Transgender non-binary people Maltese LGBT rights activists University of Malta alumni Non-binary activists Non-binary politicians 21st-century Maltese LGBT people