Uruguay: first transgender senator assumes senate seat

 
  Uruguay: first transgender senator assumes senate seat
 
  MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay –  Michelle Suarez has become Uruguay's first transgender senator.

The 34-year-old lawmaker assumed her senatorial seat representing the Communist Party on Tuesday.

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Suarez says she always had the support of her parents, but she was discriminated growing up by some schoolmates and teachers.


Still, she ended high school with top grades and later became the first transgender person to graduate with a law degree from college in the small country of 3.3 million people.

She is now seeking to pass an anti-discrimination law in Congress that would expand transgender rights and protect more than 900 transgender people living in Uruguay.