homophobia

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RCGP host conversion therapy conference in London – protest 23 March

On Saturday 23 March the Clinical Advisory Network on Sex and Gender (CAN-SG) are hosting at conference at 30 Euston Square, the headquarters of the Royal College of General Practitioners. CAN-SG are described by Trans Safety Network as “an organisation composed mainly of activists involved in the pseudoscience network SEGM, and the anti-trans conversion therapy campaigning body Genspect“.

A noise demonstration will be held outside the conference venue from 10am on 23 March, hosted by Transgender Action Block, Lesbians and Gays Support The Migrants, and The Dyke Project.

Protest poster, which reads as follows. Noise demo against Royal College of GPs conversion therapy conference. 30 Euston Square, March 23rd, 10am, 2024. Get loud, get angry against institutionalised abuse. No parasan. Full youth autonomy now. No cops, no SWP, no Tories.



According to the Memorandum of Understanding on Conversion Therapy, an agreement signed by 40 leading professional bodies and healthcare providers, conversion therapy “is an umbrella term for a therapeutic approach, or any model or individual viewpoint that demonstrates an assumption that any sexual orientation or gender identity is inherently preferable to any other, and which attempts to bring about a change of sexual orientation or gender identity, or seeks to suppress an individual’s expression of sexual orientation or gender identity on that basis”. Conversion therapy has been described as a form of torture in academic work and by UN experts.

The CAN-SG event speaker lineup is a who’s who of conversion therapy proponents and anti-trans activists, including:

  • Stelley O’Malley, founder and director of Genspect, who has described seeking to suppress the gender identity of teenagers in her therapeutic work, adding: “I don’t think you should have empathy or sympathy” for young trans girls.
  • Michael Biggs, an anti-trans campaigner linked to a prolific troll account on Twitter.
  • Richard Byng, a member of anti-trans pseudoscience network SEGM.
  • Rachel Cashman, a campaigner against trans inclusion in schools, and supporter of Women’s Declaration International (WDI). Under their former name of Women’s Human Rights Campaign, WDI have openly called for the “elimination […] of the practice of transgenderism”.
  • Az Hakeem, a member of Genspect and an active opponent of a proposed legal ban on conversion therapy. Hakeem was reported for conversion therapy to the GMC by a former patient.
  • Anne Hutchinson, who has promoted materials by Genspect in training for South London and Maudsley NHS Mental Health Trust.
  • Riittakerttu Kaltiala, a Finnish clinician and opponent of affirmative care who contributed evidence for Florida’s ban on medical transition for young trans people. I have not found any evidence that Kaltiala opposed Finland’s policy of forced sterilisation as a condition of legal recognition for trans people, which was repealed only last year, but am willing to be corrected on this. According to a recent academic biography, Kaltiala sits on the advisor board of the Cass Review.

The Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP) are signatories of the Memorandum of Understanding on Conversion Therapy. Signatories agree that conversion therapy is “unethical and potentially harmful”, and commit to ending this practice in the UK.

Following complaints from LGBTIQ+ groups and their own members, the Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP) released a statement saying that the conversion therapy conference would go ahead. In the statement, they argue that their headquarters building, 30 Euston Square, is “an event space run by an independent events company”. However, the statement opens by saying that the RCGP has “reached the decision that the Clinical Advisory Network on Sex and Gender (CAN-SG) conference can go ahead”, and later adds that “the College would be at risk of being faced with a claim for breaching the Equality Act if we acted otherwise”. This implies that the RCGP do, in fact, have control over their own building, and have taken the active decision not to oppose the conference.

Legal threats are increasingly common from anti-trans campaigners, who argue that cancelling contracts or events constitutes an attack on their “gender critical” views as “protected beliefs”. The CAN-SG conference has been widely reported as a gender critical event, and indeed several of the speakers appear to describe themselves as “gender critical”. However, the issue with the event is not the beliefs of the speakers or organisers in and of themselves. It is that they are actively promoting disinformation and harmful practices.

The RCGP’s position is therefore one of gross cowardice, and demonstrates that they are not actually committed to preventing harm against trans people in healthcare settings. It costs the RCGP very little to sign a document claiming that they oppose conversion therapy, or condemn the UK government for failing to introduce a legal ban. However, now that the fight against conversion therapy has come to their door, they are not prepared to act.

It is within the power the RCGP to ensure that the CAN-SG conversion therapy is cancelled. They have chosen not to do this. It is within the power of the RCGP to oppose CAN-SG in court, if it came to that. They have chosen not to.

This reflects the same failures we have seen from bodies including NHS England and the Cass Review. I am often asked why trans people do not trust doctors. This is why. We are failed by medical professions over and over again.

Change happens not because powerful organisations allow it, but because ordinary people fight for it. A true commitment to ending conversion therapy can be seen not in the actions of RCGP, but in the work of groups like Transgender Action Block, Lesbians and Gays Support The Migrants, and The Dyke Project. I am also hugely grateful to grassroots organisations such as Trans Safety Network, Health Liberation Now, and Gender Analysis for gathering a lot of the information I collated in this post.

That power also potentially lies with you. Trans support groups and harm reduction networks for people self-medicating can be found across the UK, and will always benefit from your support. And you can complain to the RCGP here.

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New Year’s Resolution: Smash the new Section 28

This post is about the Department for Education’s December 2023 draft guidance on “Gender Questioning Children”. Advice on how you can take action can be found at the end. You can download a printable zine here.

The post was updated on 23 February 2024 to add information on the Further Education Residential Standards Consultation and the murder of trans student Nex Benedict in a school toilet.

Like many other young people, my first experience of sexual assault was in school.

I stood in the lunch queue at my school’s canteen, a boy my age behind me. Unexpectedly, he began to tenderly caress my back and my bum. Feeling extremely uncomfortable and vulnerable, I turned to confront him. He leered, laughed, then accusingly asked, “you gay?”

Sketch of an imposing school building

Like many queer students during the 1990s and 2000s, I was bullied viciously throughout my time in school. I was teased incessantly, beaten up, and on one occasion knocked unconscious in front of my entire year group. Later, since I started living as a girl, I’ve been groped by men many times in clubs and pubs. Yet that specific moment of abuse sticks with me especially.

So much can be said about it. I was a heavily closeted trans girl attending an all-boy’s comprehensive, and yet to admit I was also bisexual. I wonder of course about the sexuality of my harasser, who may have found bullying the only “safe” way to experiment with his own desires. But most important is the context of the wider school environment. Homophobia and ignorance about sexuality and gender was the norm; one that was not simply enacted between children, but also deeply rooted in policy and law.

Nothing was ever done about this sexual assault – in part because I didn’t for a moment consider telling anyone.

I attended school at the time of Section 28, a notorious anti-gay law enacted across Britain by Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative government. Section 28 was named for a clause in the Local Government Act 1988, in which local authorities (responsible for the management of state schools) were prohibited from “promoting homosexuality by teaching or by publishing material”, or promoting the “acceptability of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship”. It was introduced following a major moral panic in the media over homosexuality in the wake of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, plus the publication of a handful of short books and leaflets with advice on teaching young people about the existence of gay and lesbian families or historical figures. 

Section 28 would remain in force for over a decade. It was eventually repealed by the first Scottish Parliament in 2000, and in England and Wales by Tony Blair’s second Labour government in 2003, although its effects would linger for years to come. In addition to directly barring local authorities from introducing affirmative teaching material about lesbian, gay, and bi lives, Section 28 had the wider impact of stifling any real discussion around sexuality or gender difference. Teachers were afraid to talk about the issue, and books were banned from schools and libraries. Meanwhile, “gay” was the ultimate insult in the playground, a go-to word for any person, action, or object that was undesirable or bad.

Section 28 did not have anything specific to say about acknowledging that lesbian, gay, or bi people exist, or about homophobic bullying in school, let alone about trans or intersex matters. It didn’t need to. The vague prohibitions of the law, along with a more general culture of ignorance, silence, and fear promoted by politicians and journalists, meant that many people were uncertain where the boundaries of legality lay. Instead, there was a widespread feeling that you simply couldn’t talk about it.

The impact on entire generations of young lesbian, gay, bi, trans, intersex, and queer (LGBTIQ+) people was horrific. Many of my peers talk about the traumatic impact of growing up during this time, of struggling to come to terms with their desires and experiences, of failing to receive protection from adult authority figures or being abused directly by them. You can read more about this in accounts such as in Kestral Gaian’s book Twenty-Eight.

The worst thing for me about growing up under Section 28 was the utter lack of information. When it came to my sexuality and trans experience, I didn’t even know what I didn’t know. I had no easy way into understanding my own feelings and changing body, let alone the quiet but immense impact of a law I’d never heard of. I wrote a diary across several years chronicling my self-hatred and feelings of being ill, broken, wrong, a freak. I was extremely unusual in coming out as a girl during my teen years, in part because I had the luck to stumble across supportive US-based internet communities when I was 15, circa 2002. I wonder what information and support my harasser in the lunch queue ever had available to him. 

The first adult I came out to outside of the internet was our Religious Education teacher, Mrs Richards. In retrospect, she was clearly a rebel, with a deep sense of Christian conviction about social justice which meant she was prepared to risk her job to do the right thing. At the time, I was vaguely aware she had been in trouble with the headteacher for telling a sex education class that, statistically speaking, at least some of us were gay and we needed to be okay with that. I told her that I wanted to be a girl, and asked where I could find help.

Mrs Richards did the best she could for me at the time – she sent me somewhere safer. She said she couldn’t speak with me, but recommended a free counselling service in town. This provided the first supportive, affirmative space in which I could explore my gender in person, laying the groundwork for my eventual transition. At the same time, I regret that even the most rebellious teacher in my school didn’t feel she could even safely listen to or reassure me in an extremely vulnerable moment.

sketch of several condoms, a bunch of bananas, and a condom on a banana

After Section 28

Following the repeal of Section 28, many teachers remained unsure about what the law said and whether they were allowed to discuss LGBTIQ+ issues in the classroom. Nevertheless, there has been a gradual shift towards the explicit acknowledgement and inclusion of queer lives in curricula and pastoral support structures. In 2005, Schools Out launched the first LGBT History Month resources for schools. In my mid-20s, now a proudly out trans activist, I attended an event in Coventry about moving on from the legacy of Section 28. It was supported by the city council and attended by many teachers. A few years later, attempts to reintroduce Section 28-style policies at some academy schools were explicitly condemned by the Department for Education. The world was changing.

Meanwhile, LGBTIQ+ adults and young people were more visible in society than ever before. We were increasingly present on TV, in movies, and in the charts. The emergence of social media meant we began to find one another and create our own content on Myspace… then Facebook, Youtube Tumblr, Twitter, Twitch, and Tiktok. It became more normal to have an LGBTIQ+ friend, colleague, sibling, child, uncle, or parent. This created a virtuous cycle: the more we were out and visible in society, the easier it was to come out. There are now more openly lesbian, gay, bi, and trans young people in the UK than ever before. I hear about this a lot from friends who teach in secondary schools. Queer kids are increasingly just a normal part of school life. For those who need more support – often young trans people – there are often clubs or groups facilitated by teachers: something that would have been almost impossible under Section 28. 

The new moral panic

Social progress is never linear nor guaranteed. We must therefore always be prepared to defend the gains we have made.

Since 2017, the UK has been gripped by a wide-ranging moral panic over trans people’s existence, as part of a wider backlash to social progress which has also affected groups including migrants, racalised minorities, and LGBTIQ+ people more widely. One element of this has specifically targeted educational, pastoral, and media support for young trans and gender non-conforming people. Prominent anti-trans campaigners have sought to raise fears over the growing number of out and proud young trans people, portraying trans experiences as a “social contagion” among children and adolescents, arguing that this should be addressed through the “elimination of transgenderism” or otherwise “reducing or keeping down the number of people who transition”.

The violence of this language is reflected in the violence that too many young trans people continue to face from other children and adolescents, as well as the adults who are supposed to help them. But anti-trans campaigners continue to position young trans people themselves as the problem. 2020, Liz Truss (then Women and Equalities Minister) stated that trans people aged under 18 should be “protected” from “decisions they could make“, raising fears of a new Section 28.

That new Section 28 is now here, in the form of draft non-statutory guidance on “Gender Questioning Children” for schools in England, produced by the Department for Education at the behest of the UK’s Conservative government. This document, which is currently under consultation, threatens to significantly undermine the ability of young people to safely be themselves. And just like Section 28, while the draft guidance specifically targets one group, it threatens to cause harm far more widely.

What does the Department of Education guidance say about “Gender Questioning Children”?

I will not be providing a detailed breakdown of everything the guidance states – for this, I recommend alternative analyses such as Robin Moira White’s excellent commentary for TransLucent. However, key elements include the following:

  • Trans students are presented as an implicit danger to themselves and others. Schools are told to “safeguard” against young people coming out or transitioning, and the impact of this on other students.
  • Schools are told to out trans students both to their parents and to the “school community”. The guidance prioritises informing others over young people’s own right to safety, confidentiality, or self-determination.
  • Schools are encouraged to intentionally misgender students. Secondary schools are advised to consult parents and “only agree to a change of pronouns if they are confident that the benefit to the individual child outweighs the impact on the school community”. Primary schools are told that “children should not have different pronouns to their sex-based pronouns used about them”.
  • Schools are told to ban trans girls from girls’ toilets and changing rooms, and ban trans boys from boys’ toilets and changing rooms. The guidance advises that toilets access should be based on “biological sex”, with the possibility of an “alternative changing or washing facility” for individual students given special dispensation.
  • School uniforms should be worn according to “biological sex”: that is, trans girls are expected to wear boys’ uniforms, trans boys are expected to wear girls’ uniforms, and non-binary people are expected not to exist.
  • For sports, schools are told to “adopt clear rules which mandate separate-sex participation” where “physical differences between the sexes threatens the safety of children”.
  • The guidance entirely ignores legal protections for young trans people,most notably through excluding any discussion of “gender reassignment”, the category under which people who socially and/or medically transition are protected in the Equality Act 2010.
  • The guidance does not actually use the word “trans” once (let alone non-binary). The very language we use to describe our own lives is excluded from the document. Instead it refers to children being “gender questioning”, “gender distressed or confused”, experiencing “gender incongruence”, or “gender dysphoria”, or undergoing “social transition”, implying that this occurs as the result of a contested “ideology” or “belief.

In short, the proposed guidance aims to position young trans, questioning, and otherwise gender non-conforming people as a problem. If implemented, it would make it extremely difficult – if not impossible – for young people to be themselves in school, to trust teachers, or to seek support if they are subject to transphobic bullying from peers. As Gendered Intelligence observe, “What strikes us most about this guidance is the tone of cruelty and contempt towards children and educators throughout.”

sketch of placards, reading Fight Section 28, Glasgow Lesbian Avengers: we object!, and Don't Fuel Hate Scrap 28

How dangerous is the Department for Education guidance?

In this post, I invoke the legacy of Section 28 very deliberately. The new proposed guidance on “Gender Questioning Children” is of course a very different document, produced in a different time, with a different response from civil society. However, I feel that understanding the guidance’s similarities to Section 28 is useful for analysing why it is so harmful, and understanding its differences can help us to map routes to resistance.

Like Section 28, the draft guidance is most dangerous in its vagueness. It does map out numerous ways to directly abuse young trans people, for example, through intentional misgendering and seeking to block social transition. However, it is the more general refusal to engage with the humanity and agency of young trans people – for example, through failing to even use the word “trans” once – which is most chilling.

While young trans people are of course the main target of the guidance on “gender questioning children”, the impact promises to be wider. As my own story shows, while Section 28 only explicitly targeted “homosexuality”, teachers or bullies didn’t tend to draw any distinction between gay, bi, queer, or trans experiences. Indeed, the atmosphere of ignorance and uncertainty made it difficult to event come to term with those differences. Many of us who went to school at that time struggled to come out because we had very little context for understanding ourselves. At my school, like many, boys were punished for painting their nails or growing hair past their neck. Similarly, the new guidance threatens to make life more difficult for any gender-nonconforming young person, regardless of whether they identify as trans. The point is to shore up and reinforce traditional understandings of sex and gender, in line with hardline conservative ideologies. Teachers, administrators, governors, and academy sponsors who actively wish to reinforce gender roles and make queer people’s lives more difficult will gain a powerful tool to legitimise sexist and homophobic policies, as well as transphobia.

However, homophobic bullying and ignorance also prospered under Section 28 because teachers were unsure about the limitations of the law and afraid to overstep. The new guidance’s insistence on entrenched biological essentialism could make even sympathetic teachers feel afraid to acknowledge queer and trans lives in their teaching, or otherwise put them under pressure from headteachers and governors. The whole point is to make LGBTIQ+ and especially trans students an impossibility: to enable incomprehension, to make them feel unwelcome, to “reduce” them in number, to make them disappear.

Where young queer and gender non-conforming people refuse to comply with this imperative to disappear – through coming out, through transition, through stubborn persistence – the guidance aims to make their lives immensely more difficult. They are to be outed to their peers, to their parents, to their peers’ parents. They are to be banned from wearing clothes associated with the “other sex”, barred from toilets and changing rooms, discouraged from using their own name and pronouns.

If enacted, this intentional targeting of trans and gender non-conforming lives and wellbeing will send an important message: it’s open season on the queers. As with Section 28, the guidance risks empowering bullies through fostering an atmosphere of institutionalised disrespect. The guidance states that “bullying of any child must not be tolerated”, but that statement feels pretty meaningless when the same document encourages schools to identify some children as different to their peers, and refuse their self-expression.

Normalising transphobia is extremely dangerous. We can see this, for example, in the murder of Brianna Ghey, a 16 year old trans girl who was stabbed to death in 2023 by two of her peers from school. Like many transphobic killings, her murder was extremely brutal. Prior to her death, the murderers shared numerous graphically violent messages about Brianna, using transmisogynist slurs and referring to her as “it”. This language and dehumanisation directly reflects discourses in society promoted online and in the press by gender-critical activists, journalists, and politicians from every major party. Brianna’s killers may have held the knife, but others with more power have repeatedly called for the “elimination of transgenderism”, and continue to do so. 

Edit: 23/02/24 –

Two recent events have further highlighted just how dangerous the Department for Education “Guidance for Schools and Colleges: Gender Questioning Children” really is.

Firstly, the Department for Education has quietly introduced a second consultation. This consultation is on a proposed change to the actual law for Further Education colleges providing residential accommodation for students aged under 18. The law currently states that sleeping accommodation should “provide appropriate privacy for all students”. The Government is proposing to replace this with a clause requiring that “gender questioning students” either be segregated and made to sleep in a room on their own, or otherwise forced to share a space with students assigned the same sex at birth, as “different legal sexes should not be sharing sleeping accommodation”. This intervention shows how the main guidance is just one part of a wider attempt to undermine young trans people’s dignity and safety.

Secondly, just days ago Nex Benedict, a trans student in the US state of Oklahoma, was murdered by cis girls in the school toilets. Nex and another trans student were violently assaulted just months after their home state introduced a law requiring all students to only use toilets that match the sex listed on their birth certificate. This horrific killing reflects what researchers have been telling us for years: trans and gender non-conforming people of all genders are most at risk of violence in gendered spaces, and enforcing strict rules only exacerbates these risks.

The good news

It is difficult to feel positive in the current moment. After years of anti-trans campaigning and threats, the Conservative party is acting to intentionally make life harder for young trans people, in a move that has far wider implications for student safety as well as queer and feminist initiatives in schools. The Department for Education’s proposed school guidance is not simply being championed by the Conservative government – its publication has been “welcomed” by the Labour party, and supported by liberal media outlets such as the Observer as well as the Tory press.

However, the legacy of Section 28 is once again useful for understanding what is happening here. The Conservatives are once again showing us who they really are – this is not new. The Labour leadership were just as useless in responding to the original Section 28, and the UK Labour government was in power for six years (most of my time in secondary school!) before they bothered to repeal the law in England and Wales. The liberal media was somewhat more opposed to Section 28 in the 1980s than they appear to be now, but ultimately it was neither journalists or politicians who created the pressure for repeal. It was LGBTIQ+ campaigners and our allies: especially young people from groups such as Queer Youth Network who worked ceaselessly to change the conversation and create a better environment in schools and beyond.

Moreover, there are two major differences between 1988 and 2024 which are important to highlight.

Firstly, the legal situation is radically different. Section 28 was written into law, and applied across Britain. By contrast, the new guidance is “non-statutory”, and applies only to England. This means that schools are not legally obliged to follow it, especially in elsewhere in the UK. The government’s proposals can therefore be ignored. In fact, ignoring the guidance might even be the wisest option even for transphobes, given that the government’s own lawyers have warned that those who follow it risk breaking the law, as the recommendations appear to directly contradict both the Equality Act and elements of safeguarding legislation. Moreover, the guidance is yet to be published in its final form, as it is under consultation until 12th March – meaning that you can tell the government exactly what you think about it. Edit: 23/02/24 – however, since this post was written the government is now also seeking to change the law through the FE Residential Standards Consultation.

Secondly, there appears to be way more support for trans and gender nonconforming young people now than there was for young gay people in the 1980s, perhaps especially among teachers. The world has changed. For example, I learned about the government lawyers’ warnings from Schools Week. The very day the draft guidance was published, their main headline was Trans guidance: DfE lawyers said schools face ‘high risk’ of being sued. Individual teachers are speaking out across social media to voice their disgust and opposition to the proposals, and teaching unions have also expressed their concerns. Furthermore, headteachers such as Kevin Sexton from Chesterfield High School in Liverpool are going public with their opposition, noting that inclusive policies that centre actual safeguarding for young trans people have been working perfectly well for years. The school has no intention of scrapping its gender-neutral uniforms, mixed-gender sports, or all-gender toilets it provides to young people who need them.

As such, we are in a strong position to fight back against the new Section 28.

sketch of a table with an old-fashioned telephone, piece of paper, and pen on it

How you can take action

The original Section 28 was defeated because countless ordinary people took action. That can be the case again. Of course, some people are better placed than others to fight this particular threat to young people (for example, if you work in education in England). However, there will be things you can do regardless of who you are, how old you are, and where you live.

If possible, act with others, rather than alone. We are always more powerful together.

IDEA 1: Resist the new Section 28 in schools

If you are currently a student, a teacher, a parent or carer, a school administrator, a governor, or even working for an educational company or charity (e.g. in teacher recruitment) you are particularly well-placed to fight back against the new Section 28.

We can see inspiring examples of this in current protests by students and teachers in the US state of Florida, where the government has introduced a slew of anti-LGBTIQ+ laws, including a trans sports ban and a Section-28 style “don’t say gay” law. Kayla Kumari Upadhyaya wrote in Autostraddle about the power of student-staff solidarity in one Florida school:

I know a high school walk out sounds like a small thing, but this is huge. It shows a two-fold approach to resistance happening in the state: First, the administrators and staff members who flouted the ban in the first place showed it’s totally an option to just…not enforce transphobic regulations. If more Florida school staff were willing to do this, it would make the ban difficult and maybe even impossible to reinforce. Second, the students showed their solidarity and support not just for this one trans athlete but all trans athletes, holding signs and chanting affirmations of support for trans lives everywhere and questioning the ban. It’s further evidence that the Florida legislation does not adequately represent the Florida people.

Here are some ideas for English and Welsh schools:

  • Non-compliance. As Upadhyaya observes, transphobic laws and guidance rely on people enforcing them. Headteachers, administrators, governors, and academy sponsors are of course in the best position to reject the new guidance should it be formally introduced following the government consultation. We can see this in the example of Chesterfield High School in Liverpool. But students and teachers can also take action, as can parents (regardless of whether or not your own child is trans). Anti-trans campaigners will be putting pressure on schools to enforce the new guidance, so every person who puts pressure on them to not do so will be important.
  • Implementing alternative guidance. Robin Moira White notes that examples of good practice already exist for supporting trans students in schools and colleges. These include the Scottish government’s guidance on Supporting Transgender Pupils in Schools and Brighton & Hove City Council’s Trans Inclusion Schools Toolkit, both published in 2021.  

Actions include:

  • Refuse to implement the UK government’s guidance on “Gender Questioning Children” if you are in a place to do so, and instead follow the advice of e.g. the Brighton & Hove guidance.
  • Write to the headteacher, Board of Governors, and/or academy sponsor, or ask for a meeting. Tell them that the school should ignore the UK government’s guidance and implement a better alternative. Highlight the danger posed to young people by the UK government’s proposed guidance, and the potential legal challenges the school may encounter if it follows that guidance.
  • Hold a meeting of your own with other students, parents, teachers, and/or administrators. Discuss how you might work together for non-compliance and/or introducing or defending a better alternative.

IDEA 2: Pile on the political pressure

You don’t need to work or study in a school to make a difference. Countless other organisations are in a position to make a difference, and you can put pressure on them to do so. People living throughout the UK are potentially in a good position to do this.

Actions include:

  • Write to your MP or councillor, or phone them up, or ask to meet them in person. Demand they put pressure on their party to actively oppose the UK government’s proposed guidance on “Gender Questioning Children”. This is particularly important for Labour representatives, as their party is likely to win the UK’s next general election.
  • Write to your union and ask them to take a strong stance on opposing the proposed guidance, for example through public statements and/or taking part in the consultation.
  • Write to local and national newspapers. Change the conversation by explaining why you think the government’s proposals pose a danger to the safe of young people.
  • Ban the Conservative and Labour parties from Pride. In this post-Section 28 age, politicians love to use events such as Pride to boost their public image. If you’re not already involved in your local Pride, consider getting involved, or hold a counter-protest within the parade to ensure that transphobic politicians feel unwelcome.
  • Stop giving money to transphobic media. Publishers such as the Guardian Media Group are always shilling for cash, claiming their journalism offers an important beacon of truth in a complex world. That’s not true if they’re constantly pushing hate. If a publication is publishing transphobia, don’t buy paper copies, don’t donate, don’t give them quotes or press releases, and at the very least install an ad block on your browser if you must keep reading.

IDEA 3: Take part in the consultation

I am less certain about this proposal than the others, but it is an obvious one to include. The UK government is holding a formal consultation on their proposed guidance for “Gender Questioning Children” in schools. Anyone can participate, and tell them what you think.

You can take part in the consultation here.

The upside of this is that it is an opportunity for us to speak back directly to the UK government and Department of Education. The downside is that there is a good chance we will be ignored. The past decade has seen more consultations on trans civil rights and healthcare than ever before – and overall, things have got a lot, lot worse. For example, a majority of respondents to the consultation on the Gender Recognition Act from both the UK and Scottish government supported reforms; those reforms are now thoroughly dead, at least for the time being. Trans communities have poured an enormous amount of time and energy into responding to malicious consultations when we could have been doing far more constructive things with our time.

However, in her post for TransLucent, Robin Moira White makes an important point. With the consultation closing on 12th March, the civil service may have little time to assess responses before a new general election is held. She therefore proposes that respondents request that the existing draft be “torn up and thrown away”, and new draft guidance be introduced, based on the Scottish and Brighton examples. If enough people and organisations argue for this, then it might put sufficient pressure on a new Labour government to do a better job.

A related approach was proposed by Edinburgh Action for Trans Health in response to an NHS consultation in 2017. They recommended “hostile participation in the form of direct submissions of demands that don’t react to the questions posed or restrict themselves to the scope imposed by the government”.

Actions therefore include:

  • Take part in the consultation yourself, demanding the government scrap the proposed guidance and introduce something better.
  • Encourage any relevant organisation you are part of to participate in the consultation (e.g. children’s and/or LGBTIQ+ charity, school, educational body, Pride organisation, university department) and ask for the same thing.

I won’t be producing any advice myself this time – instead, I hope this post will help people in thinking about wider routes to resistance. Edit 23/02/24 – However, the following guides have been produced by various organisations:

If you’re responding to consultations, don’t forget to also respond to the Department for Education’s deeply transphobic proposals regarding Further Education Residential Standards. This consultation closes 5 April 2024 so you have longer to respond.

IDEA 4: Support trans youth groups

Regardless of how things play out with the proposed guidance, young trans people are still having a hard time in schools.

There are a small handful of national bodies which support young trans people through advocacy and peer support: e.g. Gendered Intelligence, Colours Youth Network, and Mermaids operate across England. Perhaps more importantly, a lot of small, local youth groups exist specifically for queer and/or trans young people across the country. This was an unthinkable possibility when Mrs Richardson referred me to a local counselling service, so we really need to value and uplift these groups.

Actions include:

  • Find out what youth groups exist locally where you are, and how you can best support them. Some groups will benefit from publicity in the local area; others will want to keep a low profile given the current atmosphere of transphobic backlash. Many will benefit from volunteers – not just to work directly with young people, but also to do jobs such as fundraising, running social media, or designing websites. 
  • Donate money. Pretty much every trans-oriented organisation will benefit from donations, especially those working with young people. If you can afford it, consider setting up a standing donation.
  • Fundraise. If you can’t afford to donate, or want to do something more, you can do other things to raise money for trans youth organisations. Examples include: putting together a small gig, an art gallery, or a bake sale, or doing a sponsored activity.

IDEA 5: Plan a creative protest

Back in 1988, after the Conservative party introduced Section 28 and most Labour politicians refused oppose it, it would have been easy to despair. Instead, some extremely audacious actions took place in opposition to the law. Just after the House of Lords voted for the new law, members of the Lesbian Avengers abseiled into the debating chamber to protest it.

A few months later, another group of lesbian activists invaded a BBC studio during the Six O’Clock News, shouting “stop Section 28!”

While neither of these protests succeeded in blocking Section 28, they highlighted queer opposition to the new law, and inspired entire generations of new activists to fight back.

Actions include:

  • Get creative. Find or create a group of like-minded individuals and think about how you can protest against transphobia. Consider how your action might best attract attention to the cause or put pressure on a group or organisation to change their position on the government’s proposed guidance. Think also about how you will keep yourselves and others safe.

There are no doubt a whole host of actions and interventions I haven’t thought of. We are never powerless, even in the face of entrenched fear and hatred.

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So now it’s your turn: how will you resolve to smash the new Section 28?

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A brief history of all-gender toilets in UK universities

To celebrate this year’s umpteenth hit-piece on trans equality, I thought I might tell a little story about toilets.

On Friday, The Times reported that the University of Warwick has been “criticised for its ‘capture’ by Stonewall”, as evidenced by guidance asking people to challenge their biases, plus a proliferation of gender-neutral pronouns and toilets.

This coverage struck me as both unsurprising and bizarre. Unsurprising, as Stonewall have recently been subject to a barrage of homophobic and transphobic coverage from the likes of The Times, the BBC, The Guardian, the Telegraph, the Daily Mail etc etc. But also bizarre, as this is simply not news – all of the initiatives described have been underway for many years now, and they were hardly introduced by Stonewall.

As such, this feels like a good opportunity to explore the forgotten history of one of these initiatives: the introduction of all-gender toilets at Warwick, and in UK universities more widely.

I first became involved in campaigning for all-gender toilets in 2007. Using public toilets was a huge fear for me when I first transitioned. Fortunately, it turned out I was able to use women’s toilets without any trouble, but many of my queer siblings were not so lucky. I met and read about many trans people and other gender-nonconforming individuals, especially butch lesbians, who faced abuse and harassment in toilets due to their appearance. All-gender toilets offer a level of safety and access for people who don’t necessarily tick binary gendered boxes.

I was inspired therefore to learn about campaigns for all-gender bathrooms in US universities, through blogs, forums, and the 2004-05 TV documentary TransGeneration. I teamed up with some friends to write a motion for the 2007 National Union of Students (NUS) LGBT conference, calling on the NUS LGBT to campaign for equal toilet access. The motion passed with a near-unanimous vote, and you can see the text of the resulting policy below:

Conference believed: 1. Gender is self-defined according to an individual's gender identity. 2. That a large number of people who may be identified as trans have a gender identity or gender presentation that is ambiguous or confusing to others. 3. That gender presentation and gender identity do not necessary fit within a simple male/female binary. 4. A lack of awareness regarding such issues means that trans people have difficulties in areas of life others would take for granted. 5. That trans people are often inappropriately forced to use disabled toilets or (more often) gender-specific facilities in which they may face serious discrimination. Conference further believed: 1. That trans people should have the right to use facilities that they feel most comfortable with, free of discrimination and harassment. 2. Many trans students would benefit from the availability of gender-neutral toilets, which may exist alongside the genderspecific amenities currently available. 3. That educational institutions are environments in which trans students should be able to feel as comfortable in themselves as anyone else. 4. That motions in favour of gender-neutral toilets in universities such as the University of Bradford provide a positive precedent. Conference resolved: 1. To mandate a national drive by the NUS LGBT liberation campaign for the establishment of gender-neutral toilet facilities 2. To encourage student LGBT groups and student unions to fight for gender-neutral toilet facilities in their educational establishments and student union buildings by producing a briefing pack offering support, advice, and educational literature to these organizations. 3. To mandate the LGBT Officers and committee to produce an online briefing for constituent members on the issue of gender neutral toilets, including best practice policy, examples of constituent members who have successfully passed policy in favour of gender neutral facilities and strategies for winning the arguments. 4. To encourage student LGBT groups and student unions to fight for gender-neutral toilet facilities in their educational establishments and student union buildings, and to offer support, advice, and educational literature to these organisations. 5. To offer support for trans students so that they can use the facilities that they feel most comfortable with - whether gender-neutral or gender specific -free of discrimination and harassment.

Of course, we were hardly the first people to undertake such campaigns in the UK. In 2002, Benjamin Cohen wrote an (unsuccessful) motion in favour of gender-neutral toilets for the King’s College London Student Representative Council. In 2005, an NUS LGBT briefing stated that ‘ideally a unisex toilet would […] be provided for those who feel uncomfortable defining into male or female’. Plus, throughout the 2000s “unisex” toilets were introduced in many UK nightclubs, although their owners were generally not so interested in the welfare of clubbers.

Buoyed by the success of our NUS LGBT motion, I took a similar proposal to the Students’ Union (SU) Council at the University of Warwick later in 2007. The motion was passed, albeit with an amendment to say that we would “investigate the possibility” of providing accessible toilet facilities for trans people, instead of committing to actually providing them. I invited Riley Coles, a student campaigner from the University of Bradford, down to Coventry to speak in support of the motion as they had recently introduced all-gender toilets at Bradford SU (you can hear Riley’s side of the story here). In turn, I was invited to speak in support of all-gender toilet policies at various Student Unions, including at Manchester and Sheffield as well as Bradford.

Trans Access Needs Proposer: Ruth Pearce Seconder: [name redacted] This Union Notes 1) Its own equal opportunities policy. 2) The Sex Discrimination Act 1976, that makes its unlawful to discriminate against gender, and the Sex Discrimination Regulations 1999, that make it unlawful to discriminate against people intending or undergoing gender reassignment. 3) Sex, biologically, is not a straightforward issue as many are born with an ambiguous sex and gender is not binary. 4) That gender is self-defined, as recognised by Union institutions. 5) That trans people are widely discriminated against, facing ignorance, harassment and sometimes violence. 6) Warwick has a hidden population of trans students, including those who are transsexed and those who identify as genderqueer, and there are no doubt also intersex students. 7) Trans students at Warwick are currently forced to use gender specific facilities when some have an ambiguous appearance that invites discrimination, whilst others do not identify within the gender binary. 8) That the NUS LGBT liberation campaign recently passed a motion to campaign for gender-neutral toilets in all educational institutions and student unions. This Union Believes 1) Trans people should have the right to use the facilities they are most comfortable with, free of discrimination and harassment. 2) Confining gender to a binary distinction discriminates against students unable to define as only either male or female. 3) The availability of gender-appropriate facilities is an access issue, as trans students may be reluctant to make use of the Student Union buildings due to a lack of facilities that they would feel safe and comfortable using. 4) Both those trans students who identify as neither male nor female and those transsexed students who are transitioning in their social role from one apparent gender to another would benefit greatly from the existence of gender-neutral toilets. 5) That gender-neutral toilets may also be made use of by cisgender (non-trans) students. 6) That moves towards making gender-neutral toilets available by student bodies in USA institutions and UK universities such as Bradford and Sussex provide a positive precedent that deserves following. 7) That the redevelopment of Union South provides an unapparelled opportunity for the provision of gender-neutral toilets in the Students’ Union, given the extortionate cost of creating them under normal circumstances. This Union Resolves 1) To provide accessible toilet facilities for trans people as well as exploring the possibility of gender-neutral toilet facilities. 2) To publicise the existence of these provisions, their locations, and the reasons for them at the beginning of every year. 3) To make feminine hygiene services available in these facilities in a similar manner to in the female toilets, for those trans students with particular needs associated with the female sex, and female students who choose to use them. 4) To mandate the Students’ Union to campaign for the provision of gender-neutral toilet facilities in the University. 5) To support all trans students who wish to use the facilities appropriate to their gender, whether these facilities are gender-neutral or gender-specific.

What we rapidly realised was that having a policy isn’t the same as achieving an outcome. NUS LGBT introduced numerous policies at its conference every year, and student officers simply didn’t have time to campaign on all of them. Moreover, at the time the campaign was dominated primarily by cis gay men and lesbians. Consequently, all-gender toilets were not to become an NUS LGBT campaign priority until the 2010s.

Similarly, having a policy at Warwick SU did not translate into the immediate introduction of all-gender toilets in the SU building, let alone across the university campus. It took a concerted campaign across many years to make that happen, involving innumerable staff and students. All-gender toilets were first introduced in odd corners of the SU building, then occasionally elsewhere on campus, and then gradually in new buildings before being more widely rolled out. This process took well over a decade.

In opening up new conversations about toilets, we rapidly realised that all-gender toilets were not just beneficial to trans and gender non-conforming people. For example, single parents benefited from being able to accompany young children of a different gender into facilities, and carers could do the same with people they cared for.

Equally, we knew that all-gender toilets were not appropriate for all people. Some women and men do not share gendered spaces for religious reasons. Women and girls who have experienced male harassment and violence may also not wish to share spaces with men. We therefore campaigned for an “additive” approach, with all-gender toilets available alongside women’s and men’s facilities: the approach eventually adopted by the University of Warwick.

Additionally, some service providers sought to introduce all-gender toilets at the expense of disabled people, much to our frustration. If single-cubicle “accessible” toilets are the only all-gender toilets available, it can increase the number of people using these facilities, to the detriment of disabled people who require them. We therefore urged university bodies that this was not an adequate solution.

These issues were explored in detail in a briefing published by West Midlands Area NUS (WMANUS) in 2007. This document also included a series of sample arguments in favour of all-gender toilets, case study examples of their implementation, and model motions for Students’ Unions. I also included a section on toilets in the Under Construction: Trans Students guide I wrote for the NUS in 2008.

By 2009 I started my postgraduate studies and took a step back from toilet campaigns. However, there was no shortage of new activists to step into the breach. There are too many to name them all, but one of the key figures has been Sam Parr, who continues to push for more accessible toilets for all on the University of Warwick campus through endless meetings and consultation exercises.

By the mid-2010s, all-gender toilets could be found on many university campuses and other public buildings, including at Warwick. In 2017, when I organised a conference about the gender equality scheme Athena SWAN, I was delighted hear a conversation among a group of cis equality and diversity workers about how best to make the case for all-gender toilet provision at their institution.

Meanwhile, when I spoke to a new generation of student activists, I began to hear complaints around how some campaigners focused too much on toilets as an “easy” campaign priority, rather than tackling issues such as trans healthcare, employment, and housing. Certainly, an all-gender toilet will not put food on your plate or a roof above your head. They must be part of a wider struggle for liberation.

Still, that struggle continues. So I was delighted to hear from colleagues this week that sanitary bins will soon be available in all toilets across campus at the University of Warwick, especially for the benefit of trans and/or disabled men who might require them in men’s facilities. You can see a reference to this idea in our original 2007 policy, albeit with some pretty awkward phrasing!

Trans histories tend to be forgotten. They are frequently not written down, and are often lost due to a lack of intergenerational contact. The only way we can change that is through sharing our stories and building back our history. I hope this post can help with that a little.

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I have not named numerous individuals involved in the campaigns I describe in this post as I am aware that doing so could result in harassment. However, if you see yourself in this story and would like to be named, please let me know and I will gladly edit this post to credit your work!

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Video: Transgender Moral Panic – A Brief Social History

In February 2018, I was invited to deliver a guest lecture at the University of Warwick as part of the “Hidden Histories” series.

In the last year there has been an enormous upsurge in media commentary that expresses concern about the role of trans people in public life. Gendered changing rooms, non-binary people, trans children and notions of self-definition have all come under intense scrutiny.

In the talk, I explored the background to the recent wave of media coverage. I argued that the transgender moral panic has been shaped by deep-seated cultural anxieties around sex and gender, taking in trans-exclusionary radical feminism, homophobic discourse, scientific racism, Brexit, and proposed changes to gender recognition laws.


Recommended further reading

Meg-John Barker (2017)
2017 Review: The Transgender Moral Panic

Combahee River Collective (1977)
The Combahee River Collective Statement

Emi Koyama (2000)
Whose Feminism Is It Anyway? The Unspoken Racism of the Trans Inclusion Debate

Emi Koyama (2001)
The Transfeminist Manifesto

C. Riley Snorton (2017)
Black on Both Sides: A Racial History of Trans Identity

Christan Williams and Gillian Frank (2016)
The Politics of Transphobia: Bathroom Bills and the Dialectic of Oppression


Corrections

I made two minor errors in unprepared asides during the talk, which I correct here for the sake of transparency.

  • Lily Madigan was elected to the position of Women’s Office in her constitutency Labour party at the age of 19, not 17.
  • David Davis was a co-founder of Radio Warwick (RaW), not David Davies.

 

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There’s something oddly reassuring about Radfem Hub

A (cis, feminist) friend of mine posted in horror on Facebook this afternoon. Said friend had just visited Radfem Hub for the first time. “UNBELIEVABLE,” she exclaimed.

I’m fairly certain I had a similar reaction when I first went to the site. It’s always unpleasant to stumble across a series of staggeringly unpleasant attacks upon your being and personhood; as such, I recommend that any readers approach Radfem Hub with extreme caution.

At the same time, I don’t find it particularly threatening any more.

I mean, let’s take a look at what Radfem Hub actually stands for. It’s described as “a radical feminist collective blog”, and as such you might expect to find articles on all kinds of different subjects related to patriarchy and the oppression of women. Instead, the current front page of the site displays article after article dedicated to the evils of trans people, trans activists, trans allies, and the insidious influence of trans ideology upon the wider feminist world. You have to scroll way down the page before there’s even mention of a pro-choice agenda and a now-obligatory potshot at  50 Shades of Grey*. And then the transphobic posts start up again.

Radfem Hub isn’t really a radical feminist site. It’s an anti-trans hate site.

I don’t say this because I’m interested in redefining radical feminism. I say this because, surely, a radical feminist site – even a radical feminist site populated by transphobes – would have something else to talk about beyond hating on trans people. There are so many other things to worry about in the world! I mean, take for example the London Feminist Network yahoo group: it’s pretty clear that trans people aren’t welcome there unless they toe a particular line, but the group’s members at least have far more to discuss than whatever it is we’ve done to annoy them lately. In contrast, the population of Radfem Hub seem to have little to do other than hate on trans people.

Ultimately, it’s not that threatening. Sure, the actions of those such as bugbrennan (who has a nasty habit of publicly outing trans people) are pretty disturbing, but the site itself is bound to only ever appeal to a small group of bigots. There’s no way it’s going to appeal to the radical feminist mainstream, who are way too busy tackling stuff like the gender pay gap, capitalist exploitation of women’s bodies, nasty propaganda from “pro-life” groups and the like.

In a way, I’m reminded of The Christian Institute. This lot are a non-denominational group who state that they exist for “the furtherance and promotion of the Christian religion in the United Kingdom”.  Their actual activities seem to consist largely of posting homophobic witterings on the Internet and shouting in vain at the government to do something about that awful homosexual agenda.

The Christian Institute cast their net a little wider than Radfem Hub (going for Muslims and pro-choice activists almost as much as they go for LGBT people) but it’s pretty obvious what they are. They’re a hate group. And as such, they’re never going to gain too much sway within the world of mainstream Christianity, even as the Catholic and Anglican churches desperately try to block the government’s plans for the legalisation of gay marriage.

So here’s the thing. As long as groups like Radfem Hub and the Christian Institute remain dedicated to hate, they’re only going to gain so much traction. I’d be much, much more worried if they had much to say on issues that might actually interest anyone beyond their core audience.

* For the record, I agree with Radfem Hub that 50 Shades of Grey is deeply dodgy, although I dislike their predictable “kink is necessarily bad!” approach to the issue.

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What’s in a consultation?

The media is currently getting itself into a massive tizzy over government proposals to allow gay couples to have civil partnerships in religious buildings. The predictable right-wing wonks are being wheeled out to moan about it being a slippery slope that will end up with any given Christian priest (no-one cares about what Jews, Muslims or (God forbid) Pagans might think, it seems) being forced to marry a couple of scary gay men with Nazi tattoos.

Meanwhile, left-leaning and right-leaning papers are falling over themselves to predict that full gay marriage (and, weirdly, heterosexual civil partnership) will be next, despite the fact that there has been no confirmation of this from anyone in government. I mean, let’s take a look at the actual statement from the equalities minister, Lynne Featherstone:

“Over the past few months I’ve spoken to a lot of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people and campaign groups, and it quickly became clear that there is a real desire to address the differences between civil marriage and civil partnerships. I’m delighted to announce that we are going to be the first British government to formally look at what steps can be taken to address this.”

Yep, there’s certainly a lot in there confirming that gay marriage is around the corner. I’m hoping that it will be (hell, we could immediately take the next logical step and start pushing for legal recognition of polyamory or something!) but have my doubts. After all, the Tories aren’t really that keen on gay marriage. The Liberal Democrats have policy on it and Nick Clegg says that he’s in support, but if you can’t trust the Lib Dems on student fees, trident, detention policies, supporting the poor, the disabled, women or just about anyone else really, then I’m not convinced that you can trust them on equal marriage either.

Moreover, there’s that little issue of the consultation. Government consultations can take forever! I first started campaigning on amendments to the proposed Single Equality Bill (as it was then) back in 2007, and the first consultation was held well before then. The Equality Act eventually emerged in 2010 after being rushed through at the last minute by a desperate Labour party. Ben Summerskill of Stonewall has (for a change) made a pertinent point relating to this:

“If there’s a genuine commitment to making progress in this area, it is painfully slow. Equalities minister Lynne Featherstone has explicitly said she would consult on proposals the government intends to implement in the lifetime of this parliament. If that is to happen by 2015, then consultation should begin now.”

I’d take his word for it: Summerskill knows a thing or two about just how “painfully slow” progress on equal marriage can be.

So this will probably take some time. But it’s interesting that whilst this particular consultation is likely to take ages as civil servants painstakingly gather the views of any given bigot at hand, another important consultation is little more than a formality.

The government is still planning to radically reinvent the NHS despite massive opposition from those who actually understand our health service and care about the welfare state. The “consultation” on this has been minimal to say the least, and health services have already had to start preparing for changes that may have a huge negative impact upon service provision for some of the most vulnerable people.

Funny that the government is so keen to hold a consultation on religious civil partnerships when the relevant law is already there (as part of the Equality Act), but is happy to push ahead with its NHS clusterfuck with as little input from others as possible. Draw your own conclusions.

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“Fit” comes under further criticism

Events have moved pretty rapidly since I wrote my previous entry about an inappropriate scene within a DVD produced and distributed by Stonewall.

Natacha Kennedy wrote an article on the Guardian website for Comment is Free, in which she addresses many of the recent missteps from Stonewall.

Interestingly, a user under the name of “Stonewall UK” responded to her article in the comment section, stating the following:

Just to clear up a few inaccuracies in this article:

1) Stonewall categorically does not oppose same-sex marriage. We’re currently analysing the results of a consultation with thousands of our supporters on our priorities, which we’ll be reporting back on. These include tackling homophobic bullying in schools, ensuring gay asylum seekers get fair case hearings, and whether the term ‘civil partnership’ should be changed to the word ‘marriage.’ Civil partnerships offer exactly the same rights and responsibilities as marriage – including the right to have a ceremony in a place of worship (Stonewall lobbied for this in the Equality Act 2010). We recognise there are a range of issues on this subject and we’ll be reporting back on our supporter survey soon.

2) It is untrue to say Stonewall does not allow trans people to join. JessicaReed is right to ask – trans people who are lesbian, gay or bisexual are – of course – represented by Stonewall. Anyone can join Stonewall. As a charity it is our objective to represent lesbian, gay and bisexual people. When we were set up in 1989, there were discussions around whether Stonewall should also represent trans people, and it was decided that, for lobbying purposes, the two issues were separate. In England and Wales, there are very effective trans lobbying and campaigning organisations – including Press for Change and The Gender Trust to name but two – who represent trans people and who Stonewall keeps dialogue open with.
In Scotland, Stonewall represents LGBT people because historically there were gaps in provision for trans people when it was set up. There are of course now several organisations campaigning on these issues in Scotland, which we feel is important in progress towards full equality.

3) FIT, Stonewall’s anti-homophobia film for schools, has in fact already been sent to every school in Britain (in February this year). This is public knowledge. It’s also public knowledge that this is an anti-homophobic bullying resource, fitting in with Stonewall’s charitable objectives to tackle homophobia and campaign towards equality for lesbian, gay and bisexual people. We, of course, support equality for trans people and we beleive the trans campaigning organisations are doing very effective work on this, which we fully endorse.

A pretty damn good response to this can be found here on the Why The Silence blog.

I find it pretty telling that in point three, Stonewall don’t even really address the criticisms made by Natacha.  Yes, the DVD has been out for some time (given the issues with it, that’s not necessarily a good thing), and yes, it’s focused on homophobia.  So why have a trans bit at all?  Why “support” our equality and undermine it by being stupid and Othering when talking about our issues?  Why state that trans organisations are doing very good work in the area when – if you had a clue – you’d realise that they have barely any funding at all?  We’re weakened, not strengthened by being divided in this way.

To be perfectly honest, I feel the inappropriate part of the DVD speaks for itself:


 

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Perspective

As a trans woman, I’ve always been very aware of gendered spaces such as public toilets. Until recently I always had an underlying concern (if not plain fear) associated with entering such a space, an understanding of how such spaces are policed and how easy it is to be found wanting, and the consequences of such. I’m (very) lucky to pass as a cis woman well enough these days for that not to be so much of a problem.

However, the experiences of androgyne and genderqueer people I know have made me hyper-aware of the power of such spaces, and the symbols associated with them. Every time I want to go to the loo in public these days, I think, “woah, what an intense binary divide”. I’m faced with two doors, two categories which split humanity right down the middle and determine so many expectations and social controls. Woe betide those who don’t fit in well enough to go through either door without worrying about what will happen when they do so.

Similarly, when I went to the cinema earlier this week, I noticed that in every advert which featured a car, there was always a man and a woman. The man was always the active one: the driver. The woman always took the passive role in the passenger seat. One of these adverts wasn’t even for a car! This isn’t a coincidence.

Any advert where a team of people go out to do impressive physical feats in order to produce or promote a product usually has an all-male team. When there’s a woman, she’s usually “sexy” in a somewhat hardcore manner (power-dressing, sensible hairstyle) but inevitably remains in a nice, clean, safe office/base/aircraft carrier, appreciating the male action from afar.

These roles are everywhere, all the time, arising from and in turn subconsciously altering our behaviour and expectations. Sexism and transphobia don’t just pop up out of nowhere.

Hell, I’m even getting annoyed by those Sky Sports adverts up everywhere where some very macho looking famous sporty fellow wears a determined expression consistent with hegemonic masculine values. “Accept No Compromise” it blares. You’d never get a woman on one of these posters. Or, y’know, a gay man. Genderqueer people don’t even come into the equation, obviously.

Of course, if you really accepted no compromise, you’d be pretty unimpressed with the terrible service Sky can sometimes offer. Maybe I’d rather that non-(white, straight, cis etc) men weren’t on those stupid posters after all.

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The Well of Loneliness

I finished reading The Well of Loneliness last night.

As a novel it’s not fantastic. The plot plods along in a relatively predictable fashion, following Stephen – the protagonist – as they grow up, get a job, and meet people. The writing is mediocre and occasionally quite dull.

As a giant “fuck you” to the world, it’s very powerful and still disturbingly relevant. The story follows Stephen, a female-assigned “invert”. Invert is a late nineteenth century/early twentieth century term that’s often said to refer to homosexuality, but there’s a whole body of literature out there discussing whether or not it’s more to do with gender identity than sexuality. It’s now considered somewhat backward to associate lesbianism with necessary masculinity, which has led to a great deal of criticism by latter-day activists. However, if Stephen – and other female-assigned inverts such as Jamie – are seen as trans men, everything begins to make a whole lot more sense Certainly Stephen’s story often reads more like that of a trans man than a lesbian.

I’ve come across several pieces that describe The Well of Loneliness as a plea for tolerance. It strikes me more as a demand for tolerance, and one that’s still disturbingly relevant. . The condemnation of those “good people” who oppress others for differing from society’s norms still holds true. The demand to accept the very existence of those who transcend sexual and gender stereotypes still holds true.

I got pretty depressed earlier today reading the mindblowingly ignorant comments following a Guardian article about trans rights. It made me think about how there’s still a lot of people out there who happily move through their “normal” lives whilst handing out casual bigotry whenever it suits them. We’ve come so far, yet we still have so far to go.

On a brighter note, a guy I know from Queer Youth Network was in a positive documentary on Channel 4 last night, which you can still watch on 4od. The fact that we’ve got to the point where we can tell a positive story like this on national television shows that progress.

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Transphobia, seen from the outside

I just had an odd experience.

My boyfriend and I had gone down to Crown Way to post a couple of letters and buy some peppers and a card. There were a bunch of boys who must of been in their early teens at the very most hanging around outside, and we were treated to a somewhat confused barrage of abuse that shifted rapidly from homophobia to transphobia.

“Lesbian!”

“Lemon, lemon, lemon!”

“Dyke!”

“Are you a shemale?”

“Have you got a dildo?”

I haven’t experienced this kind of harassment for a long time, but at the same time I’m quite used to it. I’d kind of resigned myself to it when we left the shop again…only to realise when we ran the gauntlet again that they were exclusively addressing my boyfriend, who is a trans man.

“Are you a boy or a girl?”

“Have you got a dick?”

Transphobia is always uncomfortable and somewhat distressing, but this is the first time I’ve experienced it happening to someone else first-hand whilst knowing I’m not being targeted myself. It shows the powerful nature of “passing privilege”: if you’re assumed to be cis rather than trans, your gender identity is taken entirely for granted and upheld by people around you. Whereas the moment you’re percieved as trans, you’re instantly a potential victim.

I still don’t really know what to do in these situations either. I feel strongly that anyone who harasses someone else in the street for how they look or who they are should be confronted, but there’s so many dangerous ways in which situations like that can deteriorate. We didn’t feel particularly threatened by the children since they were so small and stupid, but what’s it going to be like for any gay couple or trans person they come across when they’re older?

Anyways, quote of the day goes to the woman behind the counter in the newsagents. She was complaining about the kids and then commented that she didn’t know what half of the things they were saying meant.

“What’s a dildo anyway?”