Geo Amazing and Interesting

Polish transsexual makes history as lawmaker

WARSAW: Anna Grodzka sits with poise in her leafy suburban home, flicks her hair and gently shoos away her cat. The 57-year-old is still coming to terms with being elected Poland's first-ever transsexual lawmaker for an anti-clerical party that is locking horns with conservatives in overwhelmingly Catholic Poland. "I'm not a single-issue politician," said left-winger Grodzka, who only recently completed what she calls her identity correction. "Going into politics isn't just about representing transsexuals, but about social issues," the long-time left-winger told. Grodzka will take up her parliamentary seat on November 8, along with Poland's 459 other newly elected deputies. In the October 9 polls, the declared atheist was voted in with almost 20,000 votes in the southern city of Krakow, which has a conservative reputation but is also home to a large student and artist community. Grodzka will be the world's only openly transgender lawmaker -- a broader term than transsexual including those who have not had a sex-change but plan to, or simply opt to live under a different gender. The first recorded transsexual politician was New Zealander Georgina Beyer, elected as a mayor in 1995 before sitting in parliament from 1999-2007. Transgender Italian Vladimir Luxuria -- still legally male but living wholeheartedly as a woman -- followed in 2006-2008. "I could not be more proud of and pleased for Anna's success," Beyer told. Grodzka ran for parliament for the new opposition Palikot Movement, led by flamboyant tycoon-turned-politician Janusz Palikot. (AFP)