French transgender woman hopes to run for president

A trans woman who has set up a new political party hopes to run in the 2012 French presidential elections.
On May 8th, in an interview with ’20 minutes’, Brigitte Goldberg, president of Avenir 2012 (literally, The Future 2012) revealed plans for her party – which was formally launched two days later – and for her own presidential candidacy next year.

Although Mlle Goldberg herself is transgender, and Avenir 2012 itself owns to having sprung from Trans-Europe, the party is not exclusively for the trans community.

She said: “It is not a transsexual party. It is the first political party with a trans leader.

“We do not claim to represent the entire LGBT community”.

However, the party expresses a simple adherence to the principles of the French constitution of 1793: respect, freedom and tolerance.

Describing Avenir 2012, as a party of the centre left, with a wide range of political and economic policies outside the social arena, Mlle Goldberg told ’20 minutes’: “We have sat and watched a gradual drift to the right. A return to a moral order that is quite at odds with the views of our supporters.
“We are in favour of same-sex marriage, adoption rights for gay couples and for greater legal and medical rights for individuals who identify as transgender or transsexual.”

There is still a long way to go between a candidate being announced and their arrival at the Elysee Palace – the formal residence of the President of the French Republic.
First hurdle on the way is obtaining 500 signatures before Mlle Goldberg can even put herself forward as a candidate.

Nonetheless, she is confident of passing that obstacle easily and, with the possibility of support from the LGBT community as a whole, she believes Avenir 2012 can do well.

Brigitte GOLDBERG

Born December 7, 1960

Musician

Founder of Trans-Europe

Founder and President of the Future 2012

The political party is also associated with Transgender Europe as well and are seeking as indicated above rights and benefits for transgender persons and also Lesbian, Gay and Bisexuals.

The party's position continues via their website:

With TRANS-EUROPE we benefited in the development of our program to the input of people working in many areas.These people perform a variety of professions, are all social levels, cultures and have different political views.It's diversity that makes up the richness of our thinking.We do not defend any ideology, but of values, Republican values ​​is what unites us.

We live in the era of the net and social networks, or they are undergoing, or they are used.

We decided to use these technologies that will remove the distances to create a network across France.A flexible network, flexible and very responsive.This does not contradict the action in the field, but allows us to have an operational structure.

Our goal, a candidate in 2012 presidential election.This candidate is a candidate, the president of the party.

Interesting race this should become, I will keep a close eye on this one and you can also.

Peace and tolerance

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