Not running from her past

RockyMountainNews.com – By Chris Barge, Rocky Mountain News

Aurora City Council hopeful open about life as transgender

Aurora – Pam Bennett marched into a meeting with a local newspaper editor last month and announced, “As you know, I’m not the girl next door.”

It’s a line that has served Aurora’s first-ever openly transgender City Council candidate well in the four years since she started living life as a woman. She expects to use it often between now and November’s city election.

“It’s a way to break the ice,” she said.

Whether attending a City Council meeting or holding listening sessions at a coffee shop across from City Hall, Bennett, 56, in many ways looks like a typical candidate. She wears lipstick and dresses conservatively in a pressed pant suit.