While it was great to see Pink News highlight the trans and non binary candidates across various parties who stood on Thursday, it was disappointing that they left some high profile trans and non binary candidates out.

Our Chris Northwood is a councillor in Manchester. She stood in Manchester Central. She has written several articles for us, on issues like the importance of storytelling, the Cass Review and how we could fund a Universal Basic Income. She is also a member of the Party’s Federal Council.

From the Manchester Lib Dems website:

Chris is standing in Manchester Central. Working in Manchester’s tech sector for over a decade, Chris was elected to Manchester City Council as the city’s first openly trans councillor in May 2023, and is the deputy leader of the Manchester Liberal Democrats.

In addition to her council role and local campaigning activity, she also works for a national charity as a software engineer, building websites that provide support to those in need.

Fellow candidate Amanda Clark commended Chris’s help and support on Twitter:

Absolutely and an excellent ALDC mentor…learnt loads from her and was very proud to stand up for trans rights at all my hustings.

The article also missed out prominent non binary Lib Dem candidate Adrian Hyyryylainen Trett. They stood in Old Bexley and Sidcup and are a former Chair of LGBT+ Lib Dems, an international campaigner for LGBT+ rights.

From Liberal International:

Adrian is internationally known for being the first openly HIV+ Parliamentary Candidate to stand in the UK, and a campaigner especially on LGBTQ+ rights leading the Same-Sex Marriage campaign in the UK from 2010-2013 whilst chairing LGBT+ Liberal Democrats. Adrian also champions all other protected characteristics from across the human rights spectrum. 

Adrian has worked professionally in the Inclusion & Diversity sphere for the last ten years and currently works as a Global Inclusion & Diversity Advisor for Anglo American, previously for the past five years they had worked as Global Relationship Manager at ENEI looking after over 50 Global companies inclusion and diversity strategies.

However, the Pink News article does include our brilliant candidates Rebecca Jones, Helen Belcher and LDV team member Charley Hasted.

The article mentioned the particular risks they took in putting themselves forward:

Amid an increasingly hostile political tone around trans issues, several trans candidates refused to be cowed by the discourse and put their names forward for election.

The article also featured Iris Duane, the brilliant Scottish Greens candidate for Glasgow North. She and I took part in the Amnesty Scotland hustings a couple of weeks ago and spent a lot of time agreeing with each other about all sorts of issues from immigration to the importance of tackling poverty.

* Caron Lindsay is Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice and blogs at Caron's Musings