A newly-elected transgender Green MSP had pleaded for cash to help them apply for a visa to work in the UK before Thursday's vote. Q Manivannan, 29, began a fundraiser for a temporary graduate visa before their election to Holyrood as an MSP this week.
Dr Manivannan, a non-binary Indian immigrant who came to Scotland in 2021, sent messages to party colleagues asking them to donate to a fundraiser seeking to collect £2,089 for the visa, which would allow them three years to work and live in the UK. A newly-elected regional list MSP who stood in Edinburgh and Lothian East, Dr Manivannan said the time-limited right to stay in the country would allow them to save for the £5,047 cost of applying for a global talent visa.
After winning a Holyrood seat, they said: 'My name is Dr Q Manivannan, I am a transgender Tamil immigrant, my pronouns are they/them. I am to some in this country everything that the hateful despise and I am standing here as your MSP now with care.' They added: 'Every barrier placed before me with the Greens was the reason also that we pushed further. This is what diversity looks like in power.'
Former Conservative MSP Sue Webber, who failed to win a seat on Friday, had previously said: 'Voters will be astonished that this candidate doesn't even know if they will be able to stay in the country going forward.'
Dr Manivannan was elected as one of the first two transgender MSPs to sit in Holyrood alongside Iris Duane, another Scottish Green on the Glasgow list. Ms Duane, 21, said she would also become the first black MSP and was one of three Green MSPs elected in Glasgow.
Dr Manivannan was able to stand for Holyrood despite not being a UK citizen because of legislation passed under the SNP Government in 2020. Under the updated election law, anyone with the right to live in the UK, including those with a temporary right to vote, can stand as a candidate at elections to the Scottish Parliament.
Dr Manivannan, who has also described themselves as an anthropologist and poet, previously studied at OP Jindal Global University in Sonipat, near New Delhi, India. They later studied an MPhil degree at Trinity College, Dublin, before beginning a PhD at the University of St Andrews in 2021. On LinkedIn, Dr Manivannan listed themself as an 'anti-casualisation officer' at the University and College Union (UCU) between 2022 and 2023. In February and March 2023, some staff at St Andrew's went on strike for 18 days after UCU members voted for strike in a national dispute over pay and pensions.
Since January last year, Dr Manivannan has been listed as a co-convenor of the Scottish Green Party's Palestine Solidarity Group. They have pledged to support activist group Mothers Against Genocide's Manifesto for Scotland, including pushing to enforce the Scottish Parliament's boycott, divest and sanction (BDS) motion. The Scottish Parliament was the first in the world to endorse the BDS movement, which has been described as an effort to 'impose legal and targeted sanctions against apartheid Israel similar to those that helped abolish apartheid in South Africa'.
Before their election, Dr Manivannan said: 'I know what it means to stand up for justice and make change happen. I will introduce a brave, new energy to Holyrood - a politics which moves away from disagreement, distrust and suspicion and towards trust and collaboration.' They have previously supported a basic income scheme for artists, similar to that introduced in Ireland, where eligible creatives are paid €325 (£281) per week. Their academic articles include titles such as 'Queering Masculinities in Protests', 'Reading and writing grief as political action', and 'Writing for justice, reading for absence'.
