sexual violence

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Labour’s Section 28 is here – act now

In May 1988, the Conservative government introduced Section 28. This legal measure outlawed support for “homosexuality as a pretended family relationship” across Britain, especially in schools. While Section 28 was eventually repealed between 2000 and 2003, it has had a long legacy of harm. Most LGBTIQ+ people who lived through it have never forgiven the politicians responsible.

In February 2026, following a similar pattern of escalating moral panic and extremist rhetoric against trans people (including non- binary people), the Labour government looks set to introduce its own version of Section 28, in the form of proposed revisions to the guidance on “keeping children safe in education” in England. These proposals seek to erase trans children: through extreme restrictions on social transition, toilet and sports bans, and censorship of the word “trans” itself. Like Section 28, they will most likely also create a wider chilling effect, reducing support for lesbian, gay, bi, and gender-nonconforming young people as well.

There are some important differences between the situation in the 1980s and today. Section 28 provided a strong rallying point for action in part because it was a single, explicitly homophobic, and powerfully impactful legal clause. Labour’s transphobia has been a lot more piecemeal, and complicated by an endless series of messy court cases, including this week’s extremely unclear High Court ruling on proposed segregation measures in the workplace and public services. Meanwhile, many Labour politicians continue to claim that they oppose transphobia, even as they support the most actively transphobic government in British history.

It is for this reason that we need to be loud, clear, and explicit about the active danger posed by Labour government policy. And this danger is explicit in the new proposals for “keeping children safe in education”.

Protest outside EHRC HQ, 2025. Photo from Trans Kids Deserve Better.


What is the new schools guidance?

“Keeping children safe in education” is statutory guidance for schools in colleges in England. As “statutory” guidance, the document effectively operates as part of English law. It is regularly updated by UK governments, and the Labour government is now consulting on proposed revisions for 2026.

It is these proposed revisions that pose a threat to the safety of young trans people.

Importantly, this is not the same as the draft non-statutory guidance on “Gender Questioning Children” introduced by the Conservative government in late 2023. That guidance was not law, and was never formally adopted by the government – although in practice, many schools changed their policies and practice because of it.

However, Labour’s new proposed revisions to the guidance on “keeping children safe” are clearly influenced by that Conservative document, as well as the Cass Review, and the 2025 anti-trans Supreme Court judgement in For Women Scotland vs The Scottish Ministers.

In 2023 I outlined some key issues with the Conservative guidance. Here are those points, with notes on what has changed or been kept the same, as Labour seek to bring the Tory proposals into law.

  • Trans students are presented as an implicit danger to themselves and others. This is still effectively the case in the 2026 proposals, which position a young person coming out as a major safeguarding issue.
  • Schools are told to out trans students. This is still effectively the case in the 2026 proposals, which ban measures to protect trans students’ privacy (see toilets and changing rooms) and encourage schools to tell parents if their child is is “questioning their gender”.
  • Schools are encouraged to intentionally misgender students. This is still effectively the case in the 2026 proposals, which draw on the Cass Review to discourage support for social transition.
  • Schools are told to ban trans girls from girls’ toilets and changing rooms, and ban trans boys from boys’ toilets and changing rooms. This point is made even more strongly in the 2026 proposals, which draw on the 2025 Supreme Court decision to call for a complete trans toilet ban.
  • School uniforms should be worn according to “biological sex”. This is one of the few Tory proposals which has been dropped from the 2026 proposals. The new proposals instead state that schools and colleges “should consider adopting policies across school and college life that maintain flexibility and avoid rigid rules based on gender stereotypes”.
  • For sports, schools are told to “adopt clear rules which mandate separate-sex participation”. This is still the case in the 2026 proposals, which explicitly ban participation “in sports designated for the opposite sex”.
  • The guidance entirely ignores legal protections for young trans people. This is almost entirely the case for the 2026 proposals, which acknowledge possible Equality Act protections on the grounds of “gender reassignment” in one short footnote.
  • The guidance does not actually use the word “trans” once. This is still the case in the 2026 proposals. Young trans people are instead referred to as “gender questioning“. The document also uses the term “LGB” instead of “LGBT”. The language of trans or non-binary identity and experience is entirely erased.

Safeguarding and risk

“Keeping children safe in education” is a safeguarding document. The idea of the guidance is to manage risk, and help prevent harm to young people. Yet the Labour government’s proposed changes will have the opposite effect.

Discrimination and exclusion hurts people, especially young people. If implemented, the new guidelines will ensure that schools cannot possibly be an affirming or safe space for young trans people. This will be especially dangerous for the many young trans people who do not have a safe home environment, due to the transphobia of their parents, carers, or guardians. My own research has shown how an absence of affirmation can put young trans people at risk of sexual exploitation and statutory rape. These risks can be mitigated where people are able to socially transition in a safe, supportive environment.

This leads me on to the biggest issue with the proposed guidelines: their fearmongering and misinformation around social transition.

Social transition

Social transition describes a range of things a person might do to affirm their own gender. These things might include: a change of clothes or haircut, a change of name, and/or a change in pronouns. Social transition describes a series of choices that are linked to coming out as trans or otherwise gender diverse (e.g. non-binary, genderqueer, genderfluid). Social transition can also be a stage of experimentation or questioning, where young people figure out what is right for themselves. The changes we make may be temporary, or permanent: but regardless, these are deeply personal decisions.

In the Labour government’s proposed changes to the “Keeping children safe in education”, social transition is represented as a problem. The document recommends that “Schools and colleges should take a very careful approach”, and that “Primary schools should exercise particular caution, and we would expect support for full social transition to be agreed very rarely”. It further states that “a [school’s] decision relating to social transition may not be the same as a child’s wishes”.

This guidance is justified through reference to the final report of the Cass Review, a document which pathologises social transition by insisting that it should only be undertaken with medical guidance. This recommendation is as dangerous as it is offensive. Social transition is a personal decision linked to coming out. Doctors should have no role in deciding how someone dresses, or what name or pronoun they use.

The Cass Review has been widely discredited and condemned globally by researchers, medical practitioners, and community groups with relevant experience and expertise. This is in part because its most controversial recommendations are informed by pseudoscience and misrepresentation of evidence. For example, the Cass Review found no actual evidence of harm caused by social transition. Instead, it positions transition as a problem in and of itself. Its recommendations have been adopted as part of an eliminationist drive to erase trans existence entirely.

Speaking to the Metro this week, Dr Cal Horton, an expert in trans childhood, explained:

“Trans children need to be supported and respected in order to be safe at school, in order to access their right to education, in order to enjoy their childhood. Instead, we are seeing a complete ban on access to appropriate toilets, PE, accommodation on school trips, a complete erosion of their rights. It will lead to children avoiding the bathroom, avoiding exercise, missing out on school trips, dropping out of school, losing any hope of education, equality, friendship, happiness.”

I agree with Dr Horton. Furthermore, I believe these are the intended outcomes of the new Labour government proposals. As with Section 28, young people are presented with a choice between state-mandated abuse, or staying in the closet. The overall aim is to stop trans children from existing altogether.

As with Section 28, these hateful guidelines will never fully succeed in their aims. If implemented, they will certainly cause enormous harm. Yet trans kids are powerful and know their own minds, and many will continue to come out.

It is incumbent on us to fight with them for liberation.

Act by 22 April

We have two months to fight back against the Labour government’s new Section 28, as a consultation on the proposed guidelines is open until Wednesday 22 April.

One of the most obvious things you can do is respond to the consultation. This will likely be a long and discouraging process, so if you choose to respond, I encourage you to give yourself as much time as possible to work on it. There will also likely be consultation guidance produced by organisations such as Trans Actual and Gendered Intelligence. I will update this post as soon as that is available.

You can find the UK Government’s consultation page here. Note that they are consulting on a series of wider changes to the “Keeping children safe in education” guidance, not just the section on “gender questioning children”. Scroll to the bottom of the page for consultation document, full draft guidance, and a summary document.

At the same time, you may quite reasonably distrust government consultation processes at this point. I know I do. The consultation on the EHRC’s trans segregation plans last summer received approximately 50,000 responses, which were fed into AI instead of being read by human beings. If media reports from the likes of The Times are to be believed, the EHRC then simply produced the same hostile guidelines they were planning to all along.

Fortunately, there are a lot of other things you can do to oppose Labour’s new Section 28, including:

  • Writing to your MP
  • Organising against the proposals within your union
  • Organising against the proposals with other parents or students
  • Asking your local school’s headteacher or board of governors to speak out against it
  • Banning the Labour Party from your local Pride (if they’re not already banned!)
  • Supporting trans youth groups
  • Supporting youth-led campaign groups, especially Trans Kids Deserve Better
  • Planning or supporting protests against the Government, Department for Education, and Labour Party

I’ve written about these ideas and more in two previous blogs posts. Both are also available as downloadable zines, so feel free to share these freely, either as PDFs or through printing them out and sharing them around.

I am hoping to update the first one at some point to more explicitly address the latest proposals. However, I am not realistically sure when I will have the time or capacity. You are therefore welcome to create your own updated version too if you want, as long as you don’t sell it for profit, or misrepresent any of my original words or messages.

If you seek to understand criticisms of the Cass Review, or collate evidence for sharing others, I am maintaining an ever-growing roundup of academic research, commentary from medical experts, and statements from community groups here:

…and if we fail?

The original Section 28 was met with a storm of protest. LGBTQ people rallied across the UK. Ian McKellen came out as gay on live radio to speak out against it. Lesbian activists disrupted the BBC news, and abseiled into the House of Lords. The campaign group Stonewall was founded to oppose the new law.

None of this succeeded in stopping Section 28. But it did provide the initial momentum for a long, gruelling, yet eventually entirely successful campaign for its repeal. In the process, an entirely new wave of campaigning groups and activists emerged – including Queer Youth Network, where I cut my own teeth as a young campaigner.

The Conservative Party, meanwhile, never fully shook off the legacy of Section 28. They are still distrusted by many queer and trans voters for the harm they caused to entire generations.

If the Labour Party similarly proceeds with its plans for trans segregation and erasure in schools and beyond, we must never forget. Their legacy will be one of bigotry and hatred – and it is up to us to ensure their policies fail.

Protest outside the Department for Education, 2025. Photo from Trans Kids Deserve Better.


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Supreme Court auto-reply

Last week I attended a workshop in Switzerland on standards of evidence in sex and gender research (more on that soon!) During my trip, I had my standard out-of-office auto-reply set up for my email account, informing people of my absence so they wouldn’t expect any immediate engagement from me.

I would typically switch off that auto-reply on my return to work as normal. However, in the wake of last week’s Supreme Court judgement, there is simply no more “work as normal” for me or any other trans person living in the UK.

As such, I have written a new auto-reply, which will be sent to everyone internal to my workplace who emails me. It is impossible for me to forget what is happening to trans people and especially trans people in the UK, so I will ensure it is impossible for my colleagues to forget this also. Equally, my intention is to transform bad feelings into understanding, and practical action. We have always been powerful when we work together and build movements.

I am sharing the text of the auto-reply here in case it is of use to anyone wishing to do similar.

You may be aware that the UK’s Supreme Court has initiated a mass rollback of trans people’s civil rights. In light of this, I am uncertain if it will continue to be safe for women and people like me to continue working at the University of Glasgow.

You can read more about the judgment and its implications here:

UK Supreme Court Rules That Trans Women Aren’t Women under the Equality Act 2010
https://www.wearequeeraf.com/uk-supreme-court-rules-that-trans-women-arent-women-under-the-equality-act-2010/

Illegally Female
https://www.autostraddle.com/uk-supreme-court-ruling-anti-trans-women

While the judgment itself does not require organisations to act in a prejudiced manner, numerous politicians and policymakers have indicated that they intend to make discrimination mandatory. My friends have reported increased street harassment, as the ruling is seen to position trans women as legitimate targets for misogyny and violence. Trans people of all genders are already even more likely to experience public harassment, sexual assault and rape than cis women (see e.g. https://bulletin.appliedtransstudies.org/article/3/1-2/3/), and this is likely to get worse.

The Chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), Baroness Falkner, has promised to revise guidance to encourage employers to discriminate against trans people in the workplace. For example, she told Radio 4: “if a service provider says we’re offering a women’s toilet, that trans people should not be using that single-sex facility.”

If you are concerned about the safety, wellbeing, and continued access to employment and education for women and trans people such as myself, you can take one or more of the following actions:

  • Write to members of the Senior Management Team at the University of Glasgow, especially the Equality Champions, and ask what they will do to protect trans staff and students, including through ensuring continued access to women’s and men’s facilities as relevant. Find their contact details there <link removed for blog post>.

  • Write to your Head of School and ask what pressure they will be putting on the Senior Management Team to do the same.

  • Write to your MP and MSPs. Explain exactly why you are concerned, and demand action to protect trans people’s civil rights. For example, you could ask for new primary legislation to protect trans people, ask why the UK is no longer complying with the European Convention on Human Rights, or demand the dismissal of biased commissioners from the EHRC. You do not have to write a perfect letter and it is okay to be emotional and express sorrow or anger, so long as you are not aggressive or mean. Advice on writing letters is linked here: https://bsky.app/profile/whatthetrans.com/post/3lnf4sadrjs2p. You can find contact details for your representatives here: https://www.theyworkforyou.com/.

  • Support trans people materially, through providing time, resources, and/or money to community initiatives. Examples include: Glasgow Trans Collective (fundraising for emergency support to people facing an immediate danger of threat to life, https://linktr.ee/glasgowtranscollective); Trans Harm Reduction (supporting harm reduction for people self-medicating in the absence of NHS treatment, https://transharmreduction.org); and Five for Five (donating money every month to a range of trans women’s causes, https://www.fiveforfive.co.uk).

  • Check in on your trans friends and colleagues. Make sure they are okay, and do what you can to be there for them. But do your own research on what you can do to help: don’t put this burden on us. Some good places for information include the websites and social media channels for TransActual, What The Trans, QueerAF, Trans Safety Network, and Trans Writes.

This auto-response is inspired by bell hooks’ comments in her book Teaching to Transgress:

“When education is the practice of freedom, students are not the only ones who are asked to share, to confess […] empowerment cannot happen if we refuse to be vulnerable while encouraging students to take risks. [Lecturers] who expect students to share confessional narratives but are themselves unwilling to share are exercising power in a way that could be coercive. In my classrooms, I do not expect students to take any risks I would not take, to share in any way that I would not share. […] It is often productive if [lecturers] take the first risk, linking confessional narratives to academic discussions so as to show how experience can illuminate and enhance our understanding[.]”

I will not necessarily respond to any replies you send to this automated message, as I am trying to stay focused on teaching, admin, and research. But regardless, thank you.

Photo of a lake and mountains.

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The ‘West’ has much to learn from India’s anti-rape campaign

I’ve seen a lot of blatant racism around anglocentric portions of the Internet in the wake of India’s horrific rape scandal (if you haven’t read about it already, there’s plenty of information on this Wikipedia page – trigger warning for graphic description of sexual violence).

There are those who attempt to thinly disguise their racism by expressing a generalised horror at things that happen in other parts of the world. There are those who are more honest in their bigotry, suggesting that countries such as India are necessarily savage and backward. I even came across one sickening comment from an individual who suggested that the human race would be better off if most of Asia, Africa and the Middle East were simply wiped off the world map.

This kind of blinkered claptrap suggests a divide between “us” and “them”, the civilized “developed” world and the barbaric “developing world” – a divide in which the so-called West sets the agenda for women’s rights.

Of course, the reality is far more complex. This is not India’s problem – it is an international problem.

Yes, rates of sexual violence are horrifically high in India, but things aren’t exactly rosy in the rest of the world either. For instance, in a study of 33 countries it was found that the United kingdom has the lowest rape conviction conviction rate: only 6.5% of reported rapists are convicted, with an estimated 95% of rapes going unreported. By contrast, in India around 25% of rape cases that go before a court result in a conviction.

(It’s worth noting, of course, that these statistics don’t exactly match up – e.g. the UK figure of 6.5% rape conviction is so small in part because it takes into account that many cases do not go to court. The Times of India reports that police file chargesheets in 94% of reported rapes, but of course this does not mean that all of these cases go to court. Moreover, there are no doubt many more rapes that are never reported, just like the UK. Nevertheless, the implication is that – once a case eventually gets to court – a rapist is somewhat more likely to be convicted in India than in the UK.)

In the aftermath of the latest high-profile rape victim’s tragic death, Indian newspapers are highlighting the intersectionality of rape: the way in which individuals from marginalised groups are more likely to experience rape and less likely to experience justice, the fact that perpetrators are most likely to be family members rather than mysterious men on the street, the idea that consumer culture and political indifference play a role in enabling rape. Campaigners and journalists alike are suggesting that rape can be best addressed through cultural change. It’s utterly tragic that this discussion is taking place in the wake of a horrific attack, but it’s difficult to imagine a similar level of introspection in the UK mainstream media. Instead, victim-blaming remains the norm here.

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Of course, the wealth of thoughtful articles in the Indian media can’t simply be attributed to the individual initiative of journalists. The issue of rape came to mass attention and retained mass attention over the last few days because of ongoing protests for change. Thousands upon thousands of demonstrators have remained resolute in their demand for an India free of rape, a non-sexist police force that consistently supports women, and a political class who actually give a shit.

In the West we have so much to learn from the power and tenacity of this movement. The mass  protests have continued as politicians promise change and police respond brutally. The sheer unyielding resolve of those involved is incredibly inspiring.

In spite of this, I’ve seen some discomfort amongst Western commentators in response to a demand for the death penalty for rapists from many protesters. To this I have two responses: firstly, it’s not our job to tell campaigners in India how to fight their battle. And secondly, the Indian anti-rape campaign speaks with a plurality of voices, not one voice – see, for instance, this argument against the death penalty from a number of women’s groups.

I’d like to finish this piece by quoting a powerful article from The Hindu. Urvashi Butalia argues that rape culture is all-pervasive, and that in order to destroy rape culture we need to make changes on every level of society.

It is important to raise our collective voice against rape. But rape is not something that occurs by itself. It is part of the continuing and embedded violence in society that targets women on a daily basis. Let’s raise our voices against such violence and let’s ask ourselves how we, in our daily actions, in our thoughts, contribute to this, rather than assume that the solution lies with someone else. Let’s ask ourselves how we, our society, we as people, create and sustain the mindset that leads to rape, how we make our men so violent, how we insult our women so regularly, let’s ask ourselves how privilege creates violence.

It is important we raise our collective voice for women, but let’s raise it for all women, let’s raise it so that no woman, no matter that she be poor, rich, urban, rural, Dalit, Muslim, Hindu, or whatever, ever, in the future, has to face sexual violence, and no man assumes that because of the system and people’s mindsets, he can simply get away with it. And let’s raise it also for men, for transgenders, for the poor — all those who become targets of violence. Let’s not forget that the young rape survivor in Delhi was accompanied by a friend who too was subjected to violence and nearly killed. Let’s talk about him too.

Butalia’s approach reflects that of intersectional Western feminism: in particular, some of the ideas popularised through the Slutwalk and Reclaim The Night movements. This does not mean that Western ideals are the “best”. Instead, it suggests that rape is an international problem to which we must seek international solutions. We in the West would therefore do well to listen more to our sisters in India and beyond.