'Mancs accept me for who I am - just look at Corrie's Hayley', says city's first trans councillor

Whether she likes it or not, Chris Northwood is a trailblazer.

On May 5, she became Manchester’s first trans councillor, and now represents the Ancoats and Beswick ward. From what had been a neck-and-neck race between the Lib Dems and Labour, Northwood pulled away and secured her seat by 335 votes.

But the road to the Town Hall has not been smooth for the 35-year-old. There’s been a measure of strife — both politically and internally — for the new councillor.

Despite that turmoil, one thing has been a constant: Mancs have accepted her for who she is.

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“One of my ‘favourite’ moments,” she joked during a wide-ranging interview with the Manchester Evening News, “is when I was canvassing someone. He was telling me ‘you’re all a load of liars’, and this and that.

“I was trying to dislodge myself from the conversation because there was no way of making progress. If you’re on the door for too long, someone will come and check on you [while we canvass]. So Alan Good came along and asked if everything was alright.

“And he replied, ‘I’m just telling her, you’re all a bunch of s****s!’, and I thought, well he gendered me correctly, so that’s good. You have to laugh.”

That established something of a pattern for the 35-year-old Chris, who is originally from Doncaster and moved to Manchester more than a decade ago to take a job at the BBC as the corporation moved into MediaCity. She has since left that role, and now spends her weeks working part-time, and carrying out her council duties.

That pattern, she says, is one of acceptance for who she is as a person, but not always as a politician.

“We have had it on the door before where people [turn to other members of