For 800 years a colourful roll-call of men and women has stepped forward to set precedents in the honourable post of the Mayor of Cambridge.

Never before has there been a woman who was born a man.

However, when Jenny Bailey dons the red mayoral robes at a ceremony in the Guildhall this morning, not only will Cambridge have its 801st first citizen, but Britain will have its first transgender mayor.

The 45-year-old Liberal Democrat, who underwent gender reassignment when she was in her thirties, will be helped in her civic duties by Jennifer Liddle, 49, her long-term partner, who is also transgender. The former councillor will accompany her as the mayoress. Even by the rich historical standards of Cambridge, the appointment is unprecedented.

“It’s an honour to be Mayor,” Ms Bailey told The Times yesterday. “I’m proud that I managed to get through something which was quite difficult and managed to come out of it a better person. If you ask me what are the things that define me, I would say being a parent, an engineer, a woman.”

Ms Bailey, a radio engineer who fathered two children, now aged 18 and 20, during a marriage with a woman she now calls her best friend, said she was proud to set a positive precedent in British public life.

However, she added, she was reluctant to become a poster-girl for gender reassignment – which she thinks of as treatment for a medical condition from which she has now recovered. “People can take me as a role model if they want. But for transgender people, all we want is to disappear and become normal, so I don’t want to let it define me. When you go through transgender experience and come through the other side, you are just happy to get on with normal life, normal problems, so this is a wonderful opportunity. I certainly do not want it to eclipse being mayor.”

Climate change, promotion of the technology industry and recognition for the “unsung heroes” of Cambridgeshire would be priorities during her year in office, said Ms Bailey.

Although she admits feeling slightly apprehensive of negative publicity, Ms Bailey said she had encountered little prejudice from colleagues and residents in Cambridge.

“When I was being warned there might be some tabloid interest I felt like I was on the set ofLife on Mars, living in the 1970s rather than 2007. I have spoken to a lot of people and they have all said it is not an issue.” Had it been, she said, she would probably not have stood as mayor. “I’m very lucky to live in this time.”

As a boy, Ms Bailey was brought up at Doncaster prison camp, where her father worked as an officer. Confusion over her gender started at the age of 6 or 7 and she continued to suppress her feelings throughout her twenties. “I just felt wrong,” she said.

Horrified by one doctor’s offer of electric shock aversion therapy, she eventually confided in friends and family and began to attend a clinic for hormone replacement therapy 15 years ago. There she met her current partner, Jennifer, 49, also a software engineer, who was undergoing treatment. “In my darkest moments I thought that, when I changed over, I’d be living in a caravan and would only come out at night to work in Tesco so no one could see me,” she said.

She now follows a long line of successors, some illustrious, others less so, as Cambridge celebrates eight centuries of mayoralty this year. Her former wife, who declined to be named, said that she was “incredibly proud” of her former partner. Their youngest son lives with Jenny and Jennifer in Cambridge, while the elder lives with his mother.

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