While the visibility of transgender people has blossomed in the media, a new report by the LGBTQ Representation and Rights Research Initiative based at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in the US shows that transgender leaders remain close to invisible in public office. After an exhaustive search, the Initiative found that 126 transgender and gender variant candidates from 30 countries had run in just over 200 races since 1977. Forty-eight candidates were elected, and with re-elections they won 72 times.
To some, the numbers may sound higher than expected, but they are a drop in the ocean when compared to the hundreds of thousands of cisgendered candidates who run for office globally every year. For comparison, today there are around 10,000 female incumbent members of parliament out of approximately 45,000. There are 166 out lesbian, gay, or bisexual MPs. The only sitting elected trans MP in the world, Anna Grodzka, lost her re-election bid in the Polish elections of last weekend. Belgian Senator Petra de Sutter remains in office, but she was appointed, not elected. There are only twenty transgender elected officials currently in office at any level across the globe.
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