“People can often fear what they don’t understand,” Emily Brothers told BuzzFeed News.
Emily Brothers, the Labour candidate for Sutton & Cheam.
Emily Brothers
It's two days since Labour's Emily Brothers came out as transgender, becoming the first parliamentary candidate for a major party ever to do so, and she's still taking stock after making one of the biggest decisions of her life.
"It's all been a bit of a whirlwind over the past 48 hours," she told BuzzFeed News. "But the reaction has just been so amazingly positive. People have been so kind, and so generous. I've been overwhelmed by it all."
Brothers, the Labour candidate for Sutton & Cheam in west London, said she's felt under pressure to speak up about her transgender background ever since she was selected as a candidate over a year ago. Until now, she hadn't even spoken about it with friends or colleagues, but with the general election months away, she felt she had a duty to be honest with voters in the constituency.
"I made the decision because I am a politician and, quite rightly, the public require honesty from their politicians," she said. "Also, I was concerned that somebody might choose to try to tell my story from a negative perspective – I was dreading a newspaper story saying, 'Here is another politician hiding something about themselves.'
"Although I don't think people have the right to know about personal issues like this, I do feel I have a responsibility, as a serious politician, to be honest with people."
Becoming the first openly transgender candidate from a major party was a step into the unknown and bound to attract significant attention from the media and the public.
"There was a concern about how people respond to difference, things they're not familiar with, and perhaps don't understand, or isn't that common to them," she said.
"People can often fear what they don't understand and, as a result, people sometimes react adversely. We have plenty of examples when people with a transgender background are abused online, on the street, so I had a real fear about that."
Party leader Ed Miliband (centre) said he was "so proud" of Brothers's decision.
Emily Brothers
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