BANGLADESH TOWN ELECTS COUNTRY’S FIRST TRANSGENDER MAYOR.

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 Nazrul Islam Ritu said her victory showed growing acceptance of the gender in her Hijra community, an umbrella term for those born male but do not refer to themselves as either a man or woman.

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 double her nearest rival.

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