We are thrilled and delighted to welcome Lord Michael Cashman CBE as the patron of TransLucent.
Lord Cashman is a strong supporter of our mission to advocate for and promote the UK’s transgender and gender-diverse community so as to advance our visibility, acceptance, legal recognition and healthcare, saying:
“I am proud to become the patron of TransLucent.Org.UK and support their powerful work for the UK’s trans and gender-diverse community.
There has never been a more important time to advocate and ensure that we achieve full human rights and equality for trans people. We are not equal until we are all equal. We will achieve equality”
Lord Cashman is involved with numerous human rights organisations, was a co-founder of Stonewall and is currently also a patron of Humanist’s UK and LGBT Labour.
Lord Cashman is best remembered for playing Colin Russell in EastEnders, who had the first gay kiss in a British soap in 1987. He represented the West Midlands in the European Parliament from 1999 to 2014, serving as Labour’s human rights spokeswoman and a Civil Liberties Committee member. House of Lords member.
Lord Cashman long supported LGBT Humanists and their fight against religious discrimination against LGBT people, serving as Vice President in the 2000s when the group had great success. For LGBT Humanists’ 30th anniversary in 2009, he praised activists on the 2001 London Partnership Register, the 2005 Civil Partnership Act, and bringing the International Day Against Homophobia to the UK. Michael utilised his position as an MEP to expose LGBT rights and expression crackdowns in Poland, Latvia, and Lithuania.
A member of the All Party Parliamentary Humanist Group since joining the House of Lords, he has spoken up repeatedly on issues like humanist marriage, assisted dying and reforming the Rwanda Bill. Humanists UK appointed him a patron in 2024 in recognition of this history of activism.
For civic and political service, he was named Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 2013.
