Asked if trans-exclusionary Labour members should be able to remain in the party, Austin-Behan said: “No… Not at all, in the same way if someone doesn’t give the same respect to a lesbian or a gay man or anyone who is bisexual then I disagree with that and action needs to be taken.”

Austin-Behan was previously the lord mayor of Manchester, the first out gay person to hold the title and a Labour councillor for Burnage from 2011 before being deselected last year, in favour of a Momentum candidate.

His remarks come in the midst of furious internal rows within Labour over Jeremy Corbyn’s response to anti-Semitism within the party. And when asked whether he thought the opposition leader was sufficiently tackling the rising anti-trans activity within Labour, Austin-Behan told BuzzFeed News: “I think he needs to do a lot more because everything that’s going on at the moment [with anti-Semitism] isn’t boding well.”

On Sunday, the deputy Labour leader, Tom Watson, told the Observer newspaper that Labour could “disappear into a vortex of eternal shame and embarrassment” unless it fixes the anti-Semitism rows within the party — prompting thousands of Labour members to call for his resignation.

“I personally think Tom Watson was right with what he said,” said Austin-Behan, “and it [zero tolerance] is the only way that they’re going to move forward.” Anti-Semites should therefore be treated in the same way as transphobes, he said, with “zero tolerance” — and likened the situation to employment law.

“What would happen within Greater Manchester police or any workplace, if someone made those comments?” he said, referring to anti-trans campaigning. "It wouldn’t be allowed.”

Trans rights are “human rights” he said, adding “everyone should be treated as they wish to be treated” and as such people need to be better informed about the issues: “We talk about education in schools but we need to educate some of the older people as well.”

In his role as LGBT adviser in Greater Manchester — an area with a large LGBT community and a city with a world-famous gay village — Austin-Behan said he would like to see more gender-neutral toilets being made available across the region to help make the area more trans-inclusive.

“I think that’s an easy step and a massive step: We’ve got all these new buildings being built across the city and Greater Manchester. And even in schools, as long as there’s cubicles, then there’s no reason to have separate toilets.”

He would also like gyms and health clubs to take the same approach. “We as a society need to be more accepting,” he said.

Austin-Behan was fired from the air force in 1997 for being gay — when it was still legal to do so — and subsequently joined the fire service before setting up a cleaning company and becoming involved in local politics.

He said he knew he was different — gay — from the age of 7, and that as a child growing up in the Manchester suburb of Crumpsall in the 1980s, he would wear girls’ clothes and play with dolls.