Trans activist YouTuber Hannah Phillips now sitting on Lymington and Pennington Town Council

LYMINGTON has its first ever openly trans councillor after YouTuber and activist Hannah Phillips took the Buckland ward in the town council elections.

The 23-year-old former Arnewood School pupil earned 306 votes, but told the A&T that “a lot of people didn’t necessarily know I was trans at the point of voting for me”.

However, she has received “very positive” comments since winning the seat.

Cllr Phillips, a Liberal Democrat who grew up in Brockenhurst, said she has also faced a backlash from bigots posting hateful comments online after her election success.

“I want to make sure people understand that online abuse is nothing new to me,” she explained. “I’m a YouTuber and it’s my main job outside of my political work.

“The verbal abuse I’ve experienced online is not new and it doesn’t hurt me, because I’ve got a great team around me who review comments across all my social platforms and remove harmful messages before too many young people see them.

“I also get lots of nice comments and I get parents emailing me asking questions – it’s very encouraging stuff. But for every thousand positive messages you will get a negative one – you can’t please everyone.”

Cllr Phillips decided to go into politics after helping organise the New Forest’s first Pride event, which took place in New Milton last August.

She plans to combat inequality and climate change, and also wants to use her time in office to tackle street-level crime in Lymington and promote the town as a “picturesque postcard” tourism destination.

“I stand for equality and the environment,” she said. “My main goal in office is to make the streets safer and more friendly by tackling crime and making the place feel more like an environment you want to be in.

“It can be daunting walking down the streets after dusk and Lymington hasn’t always been the safest place to be – there was a [fatal stabbing] here not so long ago.

“I want to improve the safety of the place and focus on climate change. Being from Brockenhurst I feel I’ve seen the effects of it quite clearly over the years.

“I’m also for investing in the high street and making it a place all residents can be proud of. I’d like to try to bring the town back to that picturesque postcard view of it that we used to have.”

Cllr Phillips has been documenting her life as a trans woman with video blogs on YouTube since she was 12. Her self-titled channel now has more than 14,000 subscribers and her videos have amassed more than 1.8-million views.

“My channel is child-friendly and educational,” she said. “It is safe for children and their parents to watch together. It’s fulfilling and it’s my passion , and it has never been something I’ve done light-heartedly.

“I’m very grateful to have found support from local people. Since the election win it’s been a wild few days and I’ve had a lot of people saying very positive things to me.

“Beating both Lymington’s Conservative mayor and deputy mayor is good for trans visibility and it’s quite a breath of fresh air to have someone from a diverse background in office.”