Rural town elects Bangladesh's first transgender mayor
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Loading... - Debdan Khanna
- 01 Dec 2021
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A small town in Bangladesh has elected the country's first transgender mayor after the 45-year-old independent candidate beat her ruling party rival in a landslide, officials said Monday.
The South Asian nation is home to an estimated 1.5 million transgender people, who face rampant discrimination and violence and are often forced to live by begging or working in the sex trade.
But Nazrul Islam Ritu said her victory showed growing acceptance of the "Hijra" community, an umbrella term for those born male but do not refer to themselves as either a man or woman.
"The glass ceiling is breaking. It is a good sign," she told AFP.
"The victory means they really love me and they have embraced me as their own," she added. "I will dedicate my life to public service."
Ritu, who uses both male and female pronouns, was born into a large Muslim family but fled her rural hometown of Trilochanpur as a child and took refuge at a commune of transgender people in the capital Dhaka.
She returned in her late 20s and became a popular figure in the community after helping build two mosques and donating to several local Hindu temples.
She will now serve as the town's mayor after winning Sunday's election with 9,557 votes, more than twice her nearest rival.
Ritu is the first mayor in Bangladesh who is a third gender, the official designation for transgender people in the conservative Muslim-majority country. Read More…
