Sarah Brown is a transgender activist and former

Liberal Democrat Several political parties from around the world have been called the Liberal Democratic Party or Liberal Democrats. These parties usually follow a liberal democratic ideology. Active parties Former parties See also *Liberal democracy *Lib ...

politician. She was the

Cambridge City Council Cambridge City Council is a district council in the county of Cambridgeshire, which governs the City of Cambridge. History Cambridge was granted a Royal Charter by King John in 1207, which permitted the appointment of a mayor. The first recorde ...

lor for Petersfield ward between 2010 and 2014, serving as Executive Councillor for Community Wellbeing since 2013 and served as a member of the

LGBT+ Liberal Democrats ' is an initialism that stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender. In use since the 1990s, the initialism, as well as some of its common variants, functions as an umbrella term for sexuality and gender identity. The LGBT term is an ...

executive. She is a

trans woman A trans woman or a transgender woman is a woman who was assigned male at birth. Trans women have a female gender identity, may experience gender dysphoria, and may transition; this process commonly includes hormone replacement therapy and so ...

and, for several years, was the only openly

transgender A transgender (often abbreviated as trans) person is someone whose gender identity or gender expression does not correspond with their sex assigned at birth. Many transgender people experience dysphoria, which they seek to alleviate through tr ...

elected politician in the UK. In 2011, she appeared on the ''Independent on Sunday'' "

Pink List The Rainbow List (called the Pink List until 2014) is a list of the most influential openly LGBT individuals in the United Kingdom, published annually in the British national newspaper ''The Independent on Sunday''. The list was started in 2000 ...

" as the 28th most influential

LGBT ' is an initialism that stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender. In use since the 1990s, the initialism, as well as some of its common variants, functions as an umbrella term for sexuality and gender identity. The LGBT term is a ...

person in the UK, dropping to 34th in the 2012 list, but rising again to 27th in the 2013 list. Brown is an advocate for

equal marriage Same-sex marriage, also known as gay marriage, is the marriage of two people of the same sex or gender. marriage between same-sex couples is legally performed and recognized in 33 countries, with the most recent being Mexico, constituting ...

, 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 The Gender Recognition Act 2004 is an act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that allows people who have gender dysphoria to change their legal gender. It came into effect on 4 April 2005. Operation of the law The Gender Recognition Ac ...

in 2009, and she described her subsequent

civil partnership A civil union (also known as a civil partnership) is a legally recognized arrangement similar to marriage, created primarily as a means to provide recognition in law for same-sex couples. Civil unions grant some or all of the rights of marriage ...

to Knight as a "kick in the teeth". Her case was cited during the report stage of the

Marriage (Same-Sex Couples) Bill The Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act 2013 (c. 30) is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom which introduced same-sex marriage in England and Wales. Background Civil partnerships were introduced in the United Kingdom in 2004, allowi ...

, when her MP

Julian Huppert Julian Leon Huppert (born 21 July 1978) is a Liberal Democrat politician in the United Kingdom and former Member of Parliament for Cambridge from 2010 to 2015. He succeeded David Howarth, who stood down after one term as an MP. At the 2015 gene ...

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. Brown also advocates for improved provisions for transgender people under the

National Health Service The National Health Service (NHS) is the umbrella term for the publicly funded healthcare systems of the United Kingdom (UK). Since 1948, they have been funded out of general taxation. There are three systems which are referred to using the " ...

, and created the "#transdocfail" hashtag on

Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...

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". 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". 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. She is currently a trustee of Cambridgeshire LGBT charity the Kite Trust and a member of Stonewall's Trans Advisory Group.

Political career

Brown has contested local and Parliament elections in Cambridge. She was an elected Councillor for Petersfield from 2010 to 2014. Brown left the Liberal Democrats in September 2019 as part of a dispute over the acceptance of Phillip Lee.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Brown, Sarah Year of birth missing (living people) Living people Alumni of Trinity Hall, Cambridge Lesbian politicians English lesbians English transgender people English LGBT politicians English LGBT rights activists Liberal Democrats (UK) councillors Transfeminists Transgender women politicians Transgender rights activists Councillors in Cambridgeshire Polyamorous people Women councillors in England