Elected as a man and engaged in a journey of gender transition, the unlabeled mayor of Estevelles, in Pas-de-Calais, obtained the “support” of her municipal council to complete her mandate as a woman. , she announced on Wednesday. At 63, Estelle Szabo becomes, according to her, the “first” transgender mayor to formalize this transition during her term of office.
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”. “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.
“I am a fighting person”
“For a period, it was the resignation that was imposed on me”, in particular to “speed things up”, or “protect” my private life, she explained. She mentions, in Release, one of her four daughters, aged 20, found in tears after reading a leaflet received in the family mailbox. But it was her colleagues in politics who finally dissuaded the mayor from resigning: “What did you do wrong? You have not been condemned, ”they told him in remarks that the elected official reports to our colleagues. “I am a fighting person”, and “proud of the investment 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 . A legal side that she wanted to reinforce by soliciting the trust of her peers, to establish her “legitimacy”. “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.
“This difference shared by hundreds of thousands of people in France, […] is that of transidentity and the psychological suffering of not being in the ”good” genre”, she continues. “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”. His approach is also a message: “one can be a person with a difference, not necessarily always accepted today, and exercise a political function”, declared Estelle Szabo.