This is a first in France. The mayor of Estevelles (Pas-de-Calais), elected as a man and engaged in a gender transition journey, obtained the “support” of her municipal council on Wednesday, which she had requested to continue her mandate. as a woman.
“For more than 22 years, I have been at the service of my municipality (…). Out of transparency, today I feel the need to express a difference that I carry on a personal level, ”she wrote in a press release signed Estelle Szabo, born Alain.
VIDEO. First confidences of the mayor of Estevelles
Meeting on Wednesday, the municipal council “renewed its confidence in me”, rejoices the elected official, even if this vote of the council was not required by law. Of 18 voters, “14 voted for and four abstained”. At 63, the city councilor (without a label) of this town of 2,000 inhabitants thus becomes, she says, the “first” transgender mayor to formalize this transition during his term of office.
“A continuity in my life course”
“It is a continuity in my life course, in my political course. Thursday morning, I will present things to the employees of the municipality and I will communicate with the population, and from Friday, I will have my appearance as I wish and I will exercise as the mayor of Estevelles “, she reacted to the outcome of the vote.
“For a period, it was the resignation that was imposed on me”, in particular to “speed things up”, or “protect” my private life, explained the mayor. But “I am a fighting person”, and “proud of the investment that I was able to have in this small town, I did not want to abandon it. I realized that the best solution was to communicate,” she added.
The civil status change procedure that she started a few weeks ago is still ongoing. After contacts with the prefecture, the state told her “that there was no problem”, that it was “legally possible” to continue to practice as a woman, she assured . “I then chose to solicit the trust of my peers”, in particular to establish “my legitimacy”.
“You can be a person with a difference”
“This difference shared by hundreds of thousands of people in France, (…) is that of transidentity and the psychological suffering of not being in the bon kind,” she continued. “It took me many, many years to understand and accept who I really was”, thanks in particular to psychotherapeutic follow-up, and with the support of “my loved ones and my wife”.
“I only want to convey one message”, underlines Estelle Szabo: “It is that one can be a person with a difference, not necessarily always accepted today, and exercise a political function”.