Even Labour’s most acidic critics might have previously admitted it was the party for minorities, the party for equal rights. It was, after all, Labour who codified them in the Equality Act 2010 as one of its last swishes of the tail from the Blair-Brown years.
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.
So when the party won last year, I noticed two feelings among LGBT people of varying political stripes: relief and hope, at least for the rights of this community. Relief that the 14 years of Conservative rule, which began with same-sex marriage but ended in an ugly baiting of trans people, was over. Hope that Starmer’s background as a supporter of LGBT rights and as a human rights lawyer would provide protection; that on this issue alone, surely things wouldn’t decline.
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?
Starmer promised just before the general election to provide a “reset” for LGBT people, an end to treating this community “like a political football”, a “trans-inclusive ban on conversion practices”, and “a strengthening of the law so that LGBT+ hate crime attracts tougher sentences”.
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.
More money has been given to LGBT domestic abuse victims and to the compensation fund for veterans fired for their sexuality. But most are still waiting for it – only 69 people out of 1200 who applied have received anything.
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.
Although the equalities minister Bridget Phillipson reiterated Labour’s commitment to a trans-inclusive ban in May, I’ve stopped believing Labour will do it in their first term, which perhaps means never. For all the people whose lives have been destroyed by it, I hope the Government proves me wrong.
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.
This isn’t a coincidence. First, the Government made the ban on puberty blockers for trans young people indefinite. Then, in its first six months in office, waiting lists rose for the hubs opened to replace the Tavistock clinic. (Those numbers have since fallen, but it’s now harder to obtain a referral as patients can’t go through their GP anymore; they need a specialist in paediatrics or mental health.) Plans to simplify the gender recognition process were then quietly dropped, reportedly due to concerns over the rise of Reform UK.
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.
On her watch, when the Supreme Court ruled that under the Equality Act “woman” applied to biology not gender identity, the EHRC swiftly released interim guidance which said that in workplaces, hospitals, restaurants, and leisure facilities, trans women cannot use women’s bathrooms – and trans men can’t use men’s bathrooms. This would mean trans people having to “out” themselves whenever they used a public toilet.
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.
The Government’s pick for Falkner’s replacement is reportedly Dr Mary-Ann Stephenson who has supported the right of gender critical campaigners to speak out, including by donating money to barrister Allison Bailey’s legal fund against her employer who had told her to delete gender critical tweets. When questioned by the Lords and Commons equalities’ committees, Dr Stephenson said it was “about my opposition to practices of no platforming and attempts to close down debate”. Nonetheless, this is unlikely to allay concerns about where the EHRC is heading.
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.
Instead, Starmer said: “We’ve accepted the ruling, welcomed the ruling, and everything else flows from that, as far as I’m concerned.” Trans people have now been banned from using the bathroom consistent with their gender identity in parliament. Just three years ago Starmer said, “trans women are women”. Now amid a turning tide against trans rights, he U-turned. So much for an end to political footballs.
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.
This hasn’t been a “reset”. It’s felt, for many, like a besiegement. This week, in a development no one could have predicted under a Labour government, the Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention – an international NGO – issued a “red flag alert for genocide” over “recent judicial and governmental developments in the United Kingdom, which attempt to harm transgender and intersex people in the UK by stripping them of privacy and segregating them as ‘others.’”
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.
It relates to a destruction of a culture rather than a people and was invoked last week by the trans former judge Victoria McLoud who said the UK was “engaging in steps tending towards cultural genocide”.
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.”
The Lemkin Institute added it “believes these moves are part of a broader process of erasure”.
Attempts to erase a minority in Starmer’s Britain. Utterly damning.
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