But despite the fact that Toronto is one of the most progressive places in the country, and that Ward is vying for a seat in its most LGBTQ2S+ friendly ward, she\u2019s running against the odds. Toronto voters have historically dismissed trans politicians as fringe candidates, and Ward finds herself having to struggle to be seen as a serious contender.<\/p>\n
For a woman to run for councillor, one must be four times as good as a man, she says. \u201cAnd a trans woman has to be twice as good as any \u2018real woman.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Ward was born and raised in London, England, in the 1960s. The details of her early life are vague; she declined to discuss much of her personal history with me, explaining she prefers to keep some aspects private. She was, however, willing to share that she studied economics, government, and politics in London before deciding to follow the \u201cAmerican dream\u201d and move to the U.S. in the 1980s to work for an insurance and financial services company. She traveled to Toronto for the first time on a business trip, and found it life-changing.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/LGP_NickiWard_011_2026-09-12b.jpg\")
Toronto Centre city council candidate Nicki Ward dances with Cabbagetown Festival attendees as she canvasses.<\/p>\n
\u201cI felt I could breathe, I didn\u2019t have to pretend anymore,\u201d she says. The Church and Wellesley Village, in particular, \u201cwas a place where I could be myself, whatever that was.\u201d<\/p>\n
When she eventually moved here in the early 1990s, she settled in Milton, but commuted to downtown Toronto for her senior leadership role at a health insurance company. In 2000, her life was upended. During our interview, Ward told me she came out to her boss, which resulted in the termination of her contract.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe said \u2018I applaud your bravery, and I\u2019d love to get you a job, but I have to think of the team as a whole,\u201d she recalled. She became unemployed overnight. \u201cI didn\u2019t realize what privilege actually was until I lost it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ward managed to make a living by writing for a Torstar magazine called Forever Young about health and finance. She also wrote about LGBTQ2S+ issues for Fab Magazine. But there were other life-altering moments to follow. Among them, Ward was renovicted from her home. While it\u2019s uncertain whether it had anything to do with her trans identity, she says she was determined to stand up for her rights, both as a tenant and as a trans woman.<\/p>\n
To protest against her eviction, Ward says, she went to Milton Town Hall, and there she inadvertently stumbled into local politics. The year was 2006. A woman at the town hall stopped her and asked whether she was running in the upcoming election. That wasn\u2019t her initial intention, but she signed up without a second thought. \u201cIt kind of illustrates why I got into advocacy,\u201d she says. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t about being particularly politically aware, it was just that standing up for my rights meant standing up coincidentally for other people\u2019s rights as well.\u201d Ward did not win in that Milton election, but from then on, she became a more active LGBTQ2S+ advocate.<\/p>\n
The list of organizations and causes she\u2019s championed is long, including co-founding the Toronto Trans March, helping erect the Trans Memorial at Barbara Hall Park, becoming the first trans woman on the board of directors at The 519 community centre, and participating on the advisory board to amend the Canadian Human Rights Act and the Criminal Code in 2017 to protect trans and gender diverse people in Canada from discrimination.<\/p>\n
She ran unsuccessfully for Toronto city councillor in 2018 and 2022, and for parliament with the Green Party\u00a0 in the 2019 and 2021 federal elections<\/a>. But the fact that she came in second among nine candidates in the last municipal election, and still wasn\u2019t named in a recent Forum Research poll<\/a>, rankles her. That poll, based on a telephone survey of 390 Toronto Centre residents, asked respondents who they would support among candidates Chris Moise, Daniel Tate, Curran Stikuts, and Walied Khogali Ali. Moise led with 24 percent, while the rest received 14 percent, 7 percent, and 4 percent, respectively.<\/p>\n Ward, who won more than 18 percent of the vote in Toronto Centre in 2022, was grouped under the option of \u201cother.\u201d<\/p>\n In an email, Lorne Bozinoff, president and chief executive of Forum Research, explained that their selection of who\u2019s named in their survey is based on their perception of which candidates are most likely to be \u201csuccessful.\u201d I followed up to ask how they determine that, but did not receive a response.<\/p>\n Ward says she feels this speaks to a broader issue of transmisogyny. \u201cPeople have tried to dismiss me as a novelty candidate, as somebody who was there just to add a little bit of colour to the discussion, as opposed to someone who was seriously engaged in helping constituents,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n Her campaign proposals do seem to demonstrate she\u2019s sincere about wanting to help constituents. They include pushing for more co-op housing across the ward\u2014something she\u2019s also supported in her former role as the president of a large co-op, CityPark Co-operative Apartments\u2014as well as for a safer TTC, and to increase the transportation and parks budget<\/a> for Toronto Centre.<\/p>\n Ward emphasizes she has never been a novelty candidate. \u201cI have always run as a candidate who is trans, not as a trans candidate,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n The first trans person to run for municipal office in Toronto was Enza Anderson, who entered the mayoral race in 2000 and ran for city councillor in two subsequent elections. Some of the media\u2019s descriptions of her over the years now seem wildly out of touch and condescending. I was taken aback when I read an old Globe and Mail article from her early mayoral run, calling her a \u201cdrag queen<\/a>,\u201d and a 2014 Toronto Sun article that described her as a \u201cformer hairy Italian guy<\/a>.\u201d At the same time, I wasn\u2019t entirely shocked. The mainstream media have only recently begun tackling LGBTQ2S+ issues with sensitivity.<\/p>\n In some ways, it feels as though social perceptions of trans people have changed for the better since then, but in other ways, it has been concerning to see them regress. A recent Statistics Canada report <\/a>shows Canadians are now less accepting of transgender and gender-diverse people than they were nearly a decade ago. The proportion of women who agreed people should be free to express their gender however they choose declined from 85 percent in 2018 to 77 percent in 2025. The proportion of men who agreed dropped from 78 percent to 70 percent.<\/p>\n Now working in the banking sector, Anderson declined to be interviewed about her experiences on the campaign trail and to weigh in on the current election. But others who came after her shared their own perspectives.<\/p>\n \u201cI have always run as a candidate who is trans, not as a trans candidate.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/LGP_NickiWard_021_2026-09-12b.jpg\")
Ward speaks to MPP Kristyn Wong-Tam at St. James Town Festival in September.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/LGP_NickiWard_044_2026-09-12b.jpg\")
Toronto Centre city council candidate Nicki Ward and her adviser, Mark Smith, return from canvassing in the heat to debrief with Nicki\u2019s partner, Jill Newberry, at their campaign office.<\/p>\n