Maria Munir

Maria Munir is a public speaker and human rights defender who speaks out on a range of discrimination issues, including transgender rights and nonbinary discrimination.

In April 2016, Munir came out as nonbinary on live television at a question and answer session with former US President Barack Obama during his state visit to the United Kingdom. The decision to declare their nonbinary identity publicly gained significant media discussion of nonbinary rights and Munir was interviewed about their views on the subject by The Guardian, Channel 4, The Telegraph and others.

Munir has campaigned so that the UK Equality Act 2010 extend its provisions to nonbinary individuals. Approximately 250,000 people are not recognized by this act.

Munir was born with unilateral facial palsy across the left side of their face. They created a poster campaign highlighting the symptoms of facial palsy, and worked with Fixers UK to broadcast a segment on the television program Calendar on ITV Tyne Tees about the effects of the condition, and addressed a conference of the Royal Society of Medicine in October 2015, to an audience of paediatricians and other professionals.

Political career
Munir has been an active member of the Liberal Democrats, standing as a council candidate in their home town of Watford in the 2016 Watford Borough Council election. They stood in the Vicarage ward, a Labour Party stronghold, coming fourth with 279 votes. Munir campaigned for Sal Brinton's election as the Party Chair, and co-wrote the Your Liberal Britain strategy for the Liberal Democrats in September 2017 with Elaine Bagshaw, Duncan Brack, Rory Freckleton, Lee Howgate, Scott Smith, and Stephen Tall.

Awards
In 2016 Munir was shortlisted for the Christine Jackson award by the advocacy group Liberty for their work highlighting the inequality which exists in UK law relating to nonbinary people. They were also named as one of 8 Girls' Champions as part of the BBC's 100 Women series.

Links

 * Website
 * Twitter