Labour’s Mayor of London Ken Livingstone first sparked the idea of giving gay couples rights, when he introduced the London Partnership Register in 2001. And it was Labour that overturned Section 28, equalised the age of consent, passed the Gender Recognition Act, and despite the Tory-Lib Dem coalition introducing same-sex marriage, it was the majority of Labour MPs that swung it.
Not so. A year into Starmer’s premiership, that relief and hope has rotted into a sense of disappointment and betrayal for many LGBT people. Why?
So far, he has failed on most fronts. But let’s start with the good news. Under the Crime and Policing Bill, hate crimes against LGBT people will be given parity with racist hate crimes. So a homophobic attack will be an “aggravated” offence allowing for a significantly harsher sentence, just as it is for a racist attack.
And where is the promised ban on conversion therapy? Since Theresa May first announced it in 2018, Labour had six years in opposition to prepare, and now a year in office. The evidence of its harm is there – I’ve spent 15 years reporting on it – and the blueprint to outlaw is too. Other countries have done it. It’s only difficult if you’re more worried about what anti-trans campaigners might say than the victims of this psychological torture.
For many transgender people, now is the worst time in their lives to live in Britain, following a year of escalating oppression. Whether you agree with the Government’s approach or not, the impact of its policies and rhetoric on this group is undeniable. You only have to listen. Their voices – so often drowned out – reveal fear and suffering: fear of not even being able to use a public toilet, fear of hate crimes rising further still, fear of their every movement being policed – and the suffering of waiting years for an appointment at a gender clinic.
Late last year, the Government extended the term of Baroness Falkner as chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) – the equalities watchdog – for another 12 months. She is widely regarded by groups representing trans people as gender-critical rather than trans-inclusive.
But when questioned by the Women and Equalities Committee about whether this constituted a breach of privacy, Baroness Falkner replied, “We don’t think Article 8 rights apply.” Article 8 of the Human Rights Act is the right to a private and family life.
Following the Supreme Court ruling, the Government could have reminded people of its limitations, that it applies to the Equality Act and is not an overarching legal definition of what constitutes a man or a woman. (As a reminder, anyone with a Gender Recognition Certificate is deemed by the Gender Recognition Act to be their acquired gender “for all purposes”.) It could have raised concerns over the British Transport Police saying it will now strip-search trans women using male officers.
I asked the Government what Starmer has achieved for LGBT rights in his first year. A spokesperson said he was “the first to do an on-camera HIV test on World AIDS Day”. They said he’s “making it easier for same sex female couples to get IVF treatment” and reaffirmed his commitment to a conversion therapy ban. I’ll believe it when I see it.
Use of the term “genocide” at first glance seems inaccurate and extreme, particularly in these times. But it should perhaps be understood within the wider term of “cultural genocide”, coined (alongside the word genocide) by lawyer Raphael Lemkin in 1944.
She explained: “We in the UK face bathroom bans, violence, abuse, deliberate social exclusion, strip searches of trans women by male police, and calls to photograph us in toilets and other spaces.”
Attempts to erase a minority in Starmer’s Britain. Utterly damning.
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