About this Archive

Administrative/Biographical History

Charlie Kiss (1965–2022) was a campaigner, trade unionist and trans pioneer. He was born in Paddington, west London to Marta Lombard, an artist and Geoffrey Kiss, an art lecturer. When he was four, his parents separated and he moved with his mother and future stepfather, first to Devon and then to York. By the age of 16, Charlie was living independently and had joined the lesbian feminist community in York. He regularly travelled to London for anti-nuclear protests, where, just after his 17^th birthday, he was arrested and charged for the first time.

Soon after this, Charlie visited Greenham Common (within the first year of the camp setting up). He was the youngest woman there and worked at completing his A-levels while living in a tent. He was one of the 44 women who broke through the fence at dawn on New Year’s Day, 1983, dancing on top of the missile silos, captured in a now iconic photograph. His actions led to brief prison sentences at Drake Hall, in Eccleshall, Staffordshire, and Holloway in north London.

Following Greenham Common, Charlie did a BTEC in Business and Finance at the London College of Printing (1989), and a degree in Business Studies at London South Bank University, graduating in 1993. Working in the printing industry, he campaigned against the poor conditions for workers and the culture of significant sexism and racism.

After postgraduate studies in Economics and Finance at Birkbeck University, London, Charlie moved into the social sector. Working for the London Borough of Camden as an administrator, he then moved into social housing support from 2006 until his death.

In 2002, with the love and support of his family and friends, Charlie began the transition to being male. His memoir, A New Man: Lesbian. Protest. Mania. Trans Man describes openly the mental health problems that stemmed from his gender dysphoria. Charlie also embraced his Colombian heritage at this time, which included his maternal grandfather, the diplomat Jaime Jaramillo Arango. He visited relatives in Bogotá, learned Spanish and became a Colombian national.

In 2015 Charlie became the first trans man to run for Parliament in the UK. Standing for the Green Party in Islington South & Finsbury, he did not get elected but won a record eight per cent of the vote. At the Green Party conference, he organised a panel looking at gender diversity and the discrimination faced by trans, intersex and non-binary people. This proved an important step along the journey to the Green Party’s adoption of trans-inclusive policies. In 2016, having left the Labour Party some 20 years before in protest over the war in Iraq, Charlie re-joined Labour, expressing his optimism about Jeremy Corbyn’s socialist manifesto, specifically the Party’s promise of a nuclear-free future.

In 2019 Charlie was diagnosed with the incurable lung condition idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, which had also killed his mother, Marta. He cashed in his pension and embarked on a world cruise, filling his schedule with political projects, and indulging his love of cycling. Admitted to hospital in May 2022, he was asked some basic questions to test his cognition, including the name of the prime minister. Charlie scoffed and said, ‘I’d rather not say.’

Charlie Kiss’ legacy includes more Greens on Islington council and better support and NHS funding for trans people. He also has a plaque dedicated to him outside the Lamb pub on Holloway Road as the first trans man to stand for Parliament.

Scope and content

Archive of Charlie Kiss (1965-2022), anti-nuclear activist and first transgender man to stand for Parliament, including: correspondence, papers, press cuttings, ephemera, newsletters, pamphlets, and other materials relating to the Campaign of Nuclear Disarmament and the Greenham Common Women's Peace Camp, collected during his time residing in the Camp [1979-1986]; and correspondence, research, financial records, and medical records relating to his gender identity as a transgender man including his transition and the acquisition of NHS primary care trust funding for his gender affirming surgeries (2002-2009); digital materials including digital videos, digital photographs and screenshots, and online articles relating to Charlie Kiss, his political career as a Green Party candidate and Labour Party member, memoir, experiences at Greenham Common Women's Peace Camp, and gender identity as a transgender man (1983-2022), [1979-2022]