After being chosen to serve as Bideford, Devon’s next mayor, Rachel Clarke made history. The seventy-three-year-old became the second female mayor in the history of the United Kingdom. The first was Jenny Bailey, the Mayor of Cambridgeshire from 2007 to 2008. On May 16, council members elected Clarke mayor, and on June 4, she was sworn in.
Clarke was a man at birth. It was only three years ago that she made the decision to identify as a woman. “I decided on my 70th birthday that, even though I didn’t know how long I had left on this earth, I wanted to enjoy myself while I did.”
Rachel Clarke was elected to the Torridge district council in 2021. She was elected as the first transsexual council member, however she lost her seat in May 2023 when she switched from the Conservative to the Independent party. Last year, the 73-year-old held the positions of deputy mayor and town councillor for Bideford.
Louise, the 44-year-old daughter of Clarke, has embraced her job as mayoress.
“I became a Torridge district councillor under my male name then after my wife passed away in March 2021, I became me after waiting 70 years,” Clarke recalled her journey. 1951 was my birth year, only nine years after the end of World War II. The law pertaining to homosexuality was not taught in schools until 1967, and until then, nothing changed.”
