Trans Day of Visibility 2023 – Echoes of The Past

“A perversion.”

“Political correctness prioritised over the welfare of children.”

A “militant…lobby”.

“A campaign to misinform and distort.”

You might be forgiven for thinking that this language related to the storms of the past few years around trans rights – hence why it’s at the top of an article about Trans Day of Visibility (“TDOV”), celebrated every year on 31 March. However, this language comes instead from the time leading up to the overturning of the infamous Section 28, which had banned the “promotion of homosexuality” by local authorities upon its introduction over 30 years ago in 1988.

SECTION 28 – A PAST WE’D HOPED TO LEAVE BEHIND

Section 28 was at last repealed by Westminster twenty years ago this November, in 2003. However, this long-overdue step had been presaged by the Scottish Parliament which, in one of its first devolved acts, had repealed Section 28 three years earlier. The months leading up to the Scottish Parliament’s final vote on the matter in 2000 were marked by acrimony between those advocating the repeal of a dehumanising law and those who claimed that seeking to ‘normalise’ gay relationships was, variously, prioritising political correctness above the welfare of children, a “perversion”, and a threat to the Christian family. Prominent public figures claimed that gay relationships were morally inferior to straight ones – for which the ‘design’ of human genitalia was offered as evidence in a Daily Telegraph editorial by the then Anglican Bishop of Liverpool.

Advocates of gay rights were denigrated as a “militant homosexual lobby” - and, as MSP Wendy Alexander, who spearheaded the bill, said, the debate had been characterised by a campaign to misinform and distort “without precedent in British public life.” And yet the bill passed, with cross party support, and set the example that the rest of the UK would follow 3 years later. As one Nicola Sturgeon said at the time, “A discriminatory and shameful piece of legislation that was imposed on Scotland by Westminster will today be repealed by the Scottish parliament ahead of other parts of the UK. That says something about the state of Scotland that we can all be proud of.”

GENDER RECOGNITION REFORM AND SECTION 35 – PROGRESS REVISITED

Twenty years on from the scrapping of Section 28, history appears to be repeating itself in the context of trans rights. Efforts to reform the process for the granting of a gender recognition certificate in England and Wales, promised by Theresa May’s government in 2017, foundered under a wave of (predominantly) right wing, so-called gender critical opposition that swept in with Boris Johnson’s ascension.

But in Scotland, the SNP and Scottish Greens (governing under a power-sharing agreement since 2021) pressed on with reform and, after three separate consultations (all of which were supportive) and a public evidence session held by the Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee, the bill passed its Stage 3 vote in December 2022, with support from MSPs of all parties in Holyrood.

This was against the backdrop of eerily familiar rhetoric. The Daily Mail accused Nicola Sturgeon of “weaponising vulnerable children” to boost a “separatist agenda”. The Maryburgh and Killearnan Free Church of Scotland, in consultation submissions, claimed, “Gender was decide [sic] by GOD who created us all 'In his own Image' while in our mother's womb and we have no right to act like God ourselves as if HE had made a mistake. GOD does NOT make mistakes!!!” Meanwhile, JK Rowling has become synonymous with the gender critical backlash, thanks to her increasingly strident views that (for example) the movement for trans rights offers “cover for predators”; that trans equality will deprive cis women of hard-won rights; and that young people choosing to transition is a form of social contagion.

A CAMPAIGN TO MISINFORM AND DISTORT, TRULY WITHOUT PRECEDENT

However, this is where the two histories begin to diverge – and on Trans Day of Visibility 2023, it is vital that we recognise the currents that threaten the progress made for equality across all of our society. The UK Government, in an unprecedented decision, chose to enact Section 35 of the Scotland Act 1998 to block the Gender Recognition Reform Bill from entering into law in Scotland, marking a dramatic assault not only on a law aimed at ensuring dignity for trans people but also on devolution itself. This is against the backdrop of an increasingly bleak picture for trans, and LGBTQ+ in general, rights in the UK – an anti-progressive culture war largely fuelled by hysterical untruths and mischaracterisations.

In 2022, the then Attorney General (now Home Secretary), Suella Braverman, stated that it was lawful for schools to effectively bully transgender students. The Equalities Minister, Kemi Badenoch, sought to pressure the Financial Conduct Authority to drop policies aimed at permitting self-identification at work. Trans participation in sport has been dramatically curtailed by virtue of a raft of discriminatory policies - for example, the Rugby Football Union’s decision to ban all trans women from playing contact rugby, or the World Athletics ban announced last week that comes into force, aptly, today. One in five LGBTQ+ people have experienced hate crime in the past 12 months (rising to two in five trans people). And in a genuine threat to women’s (and birthing parents’) rights, anti-abortion groups have reportedly been targeting audiences in the UK, using online advertising and outreach campaigns targeting schools and universities. Most tragically, the human cost to this escalating tempo was demonstrated by the killing of a 16-year-old girl, Brianna Ghey in February 2023.

TRANS DAY OF VISIBILITY

The purpose of Trans Day of Visibility is, in part, to raise awareness of the challenges faced by the trans and non-binary community, and to enable allies to better stand in solidarity with their trans and non-binary siblings. TDOV 2023 sees the culmination of a particularly dark period of trans rights, not only in the UK, but also abroad – for example, the rash of discriminatory laws being debated and passed in states across the United States.

And yet possibly the more important ambition for TDOV is the intention to celebrate and, as the name suggests, give visibility to trans and non-binary people. Despite significant headwinds, the trans community has much to celebrate. Just last week, the Spanish parliament passed a landmark law that, in allowing for self-identification, has achieved what Holyrood has been cruelly barred from doing – as well as dramatically strengthening LGBTQI+ rights in general. Germany also introduced important changes to the process for obtaining recognition of trans people’s authentic gender towards the end of 2022, as did Finland in February of this year.

There are now twenty countries in the world where, in varying forms, gender self-identification has been legalised. That number will continue to grow and, although it took fifteen years for Section 28 to be fully repealed in the UK, the story of what happened over the rest of the decade and beyond ought to give the LGBTQI+ community and its allies cause for hope. For instance, the UK passed a number of important pieces of legislation safeguarding LGBTQI+ rights – the Gender Recognition Act 2004, the Equality Act 2010, culminating in the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act 2013. Attitudes to LGBTQI+ culture evolved from the lows of the Section 28 period to the point where an iconic family TV programme like Doctor Who has been graced with many queer characters and storylines and, for the upcoming series, its first companion played by a trans actor, Yasmin Finney (who is now also YSL Beauty’s new ambassador).

The current storm, so disappointingly reminiscent of the past struggle to overcome the trauma that was Section 28, will pass. Culture wars abate, just as they did around “the promotion of homosexuality” and equal marriage rights – just look at how far we’ve come by being visible and authentic. That’s why marking days like TDOV matters so much.

FOOTNOTE: For clarity, a gender recognition certificate has minimal impact on everyday life – it is not required, say, for changing gender on ID documents, for healthcare, or for accessing bathrooms. For most people, it’s principal relevance is to enable birth, marriage and death certificates to register a person’s authentic gender.]