The intersex mayor of the Melbourne suburb of Hobsons Bay has announced that he is standing for re-election.

Councillor Tony Briffa became the world’s first openly intersex mayor in 2011. He announced his decision to stand for election as an independent councillor again in a statement on his website:

‘Community members know I have been a hard working, dedicated, accessible and passionate councillor, Deputy Mayor and Mayor… In making my decision to seek re-election I have considered the past four years and all that I have achieved. I want to continue to make a positive difference to our community and our city.’

Briffa told Gay Star News that he is also ‘very proud that I have also been very out and proactive for our GLBTIQ community’. This included lodging a submission in support of marriage equality to the government on behalf of Hobsons Bay, funding to the Melbourne Queer Film Festival to show films in the western suburbs, marching in the Pride March wearing mayoral robes, adopting a policy to fly the rainbow flag in front of the council on IDAHO day and listening to the suggestions of a council GLBTIQ advisory committee.

But Briffa’s term hasn’t all been easy, with allegations of serious misconduct from fellow councillor Peter Hemphill relating to allegedly abusive emails sent to the public relations advisor for Mobil oil in 2011.

Briffa was raised as a girl after being born with a genetic intersex condition called Partial Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome. When he was an adult and learnt the truth about his condition he started to take hormone to replace those his testes would have produced if they hadn’t been removed when he was a child. He then changed the gender on his birth certificate from female to male.

‘I didn’t particularly feel male because I didn’t have all the basic male attributes and the male upbringing, but it made public life easier,’ Briffa says on his website. ‘The funny thing is that my birth certificate is as wrong stating my sex as male, as it was when it classified me as female… I am not male or female, but both.

‘I am grateful for the years I lived as a woman and the insight and experiences it gave me. I am still “Antoinette” and have now also incorporated and accepted my male (“Anthony” or “Tony”) side. I feel whole. I’ll continue to live as Tony but I feel I am now at a point in my life where I can celebrate being different.’