Kathryn Bristow was named on 8 March as a Green Party candidate for the UK’s 2021 local government elections – the first openly trans woman to be put forward by a political party in Bristol City. But less than two weeks later the party formally suspended her and selected another candidate, who was not trans, to run in her place.
Now, in an exclusive interview with openDemocracy, Bristow talks publicly for the first time about what happened – and why she’s suing her party over gender-based discrimination. “It’s because I’m trans,” she says, about why she lost her nomination. “It’s clear that I’ve been deemed a risk to the party’s reputation for being transgender.”
“I put female as my sex on the census, and said [that I would do] so publicly,” Bristow explained. A complaint to the Green Party regional council, submitted by Hazel Pegg, then the party’s internal communications coordinator, argued that she was “breaking the law” and “bringing the party into disrepute” with these actions. The Census Act 1920 requires everyone in England to answer questions in the census accurately, though a 2019 amendment makes questions on sex and gender voluntary.
