A social worker is to running for the Castle Douglas and Glenkens seat in Scotland in next year’s council elections.
Carol Mapley will be Scotland’s first ever transgender election candidate.
Carol said: “It’s the first step on the journey. I want to raise the profile of transgenders, lesbians and gays.
“We are pretty marginalised. Society is more accepting of gays than transgenders. I want to bring people out of the shadows.”
Carol was born as David and decided to become a woman in 1987, but she was forced to revert back to being a man after medical complications and had a mastectomy in 2001.
In 2007 she began living as a woman again and is awaiting gender re-assignment surgery.
She said: “I am a lot happier now. I feel I am myself.”
Miss Mapley also said she wants to challenge not just the public’s opinions, but the major political parties too.
She said: “The Labour Party has been really, really supportive. Councillors Grahame Forster and Willie Scobie have been especially so.
“I think the other political parties are quite anti. I want to challenge their views.”
Carol is not the Labour Party’s transgender officer and if successful in next year’s elections, she will consider running as an MSP.
