Reading the news and social media is exhausting as an LGBTQ+ person... but I remain hopeful3/27/2022 
Myself and Cllr Melly (City of York Council) at the Gender Revolution demo (Sept 2021)
Content warning: the following post discusses queerphobia, transphobia, and quotes queerphobic/transphobic rhetoric.
​Back in September, I had the privilege of speaking at and helping organise the Gender Revolution demonstration here in York. This was a demonstration that took to the streets and made clear the failings of the Gender Recognition Act (2004), in particular for non-binary people.
I specifically remember at this time that there had been a cabinet reshuffle, which resulted in Liz Truss being made Foreign Secretary and Kemi Badenoch a Minister for Equalities. Their track records speak for themselves: Badenoch had been caught on camera referring to trans women as “men†and dismissed trans rights activism saying "what are transsexuals looking for"; Truss' tenure as an equalities minister has involved her disbanding an LGBT panel due to "fundamental disagreements" between herself and the panel, over self-ID. As I said at the time: this government cannot ever say they stand with us as the LGBTQ+ community whilst their ministers actively stand against us.
The reason I'm recalling this demo from last year is because I remember the massive amounts of support from the public. Sadly, not everyone agreed with our reason for protesting, but that's to be expected and thankfully nobody was assaulted or felt unsafe. I spoke to many individuals who were unaware of the issues with the GRA; they left the conversation more aware of the problems and knew what needed to be done to rectify them. It was also so refreshing to be cheered along and applauded during our march around the city, chanting "trans rights now!". I went home with a brilliant, hopeful feeling: that we will soon see progress for the LGBTQ+ community. Today I, along with many others on social media, read that we have our very first trans MP - Jamie Wallis - in the House of Commons. A historic moment for LGBTQ+ political representation. Wallis' tweet was incredibly brave, and initially seeing the amount of support come in for him briefly relit the feeling from many months ago that things are beginning to get better.
However, the way our media have acted, and the reaction of politicians to Wallis' statement, has led me to feel the exact opposite of what I felt back in September. Our mainstream media for the past week has instead of focusing on the pressing issues that matter - such as the cost of living crisis, or Ukraine being invaded - been asking politicians about genitals.
One incident of this happening occurred with Shadow Health Secretary Wes Streeting, where he responded "men have penises, women have vaginas". He then went on to say that "trans rights should be debated in a "respectful" way". Not only a few minutes later, he reached out to Jamie Wallis sending "love and solidarity", applauding Wallis as "hugely courageous". There wasn't even 20 minutes between his comments on talkRADIO, suggesting the rights of trans individuals are up for debate, and his tweet sending so-called 'love'. This is our would-be Health Secretary, arguably showing very clearly he would be no better than his predecessor (who himself has been called out for his comments) on supporting trans people.
I find it baffling how so many politicians will call human rights a 'debate', and in the other send 'solidarity and support'. Trans rights are certainly not a 'debate'. A debate is whether pineapple goes on pizza, or whether there are more doors or wheels in the world, not whether somebody deserves human rights. The most infuriating example of this, for me, must be the response from the Prime Minister where he said to Wallis that "The Conservative Party I lead will always give you, and everyone else, the love and support you need to be yourself", whilst making jokes about Keir Starmer's recent comments: “Good evening, ladies and gentleman, or as (Labour leader Sir) Keir Starmer would put it, people who are assigned female or male at birth.â€
Johnson is in charge of this country; he's the Prime Minister. If he really means what he says (which, let's be honest, there is a 0% chance of!) he wouldn't have his equality ministers be open transphobes, nor would he make such awful comments. Alas it's no surprise that the man who has made inflammatory comments (namely 'tank-topped bum boys') also makes such remarks about the trans community. This is something I've been feeling for a long time now. That feeling of "things will get better" from September has slowly been dying down, to the point where I struggle to believe we'll ever see an improvement. One tweet that caught my eye earlier today was one sharing a BBC News article from 2009, almost parallel to the sort of articles we see nowadays:
It's hard to believe that less than a quarter of a decade ago, these were the sort of articles being published.
The bottom line here, though, is that I'm clinging onto this flicker of hope that things will improve. It may take a long time, but I'm holding onto that hope and pray that one day, the term "trans row" will be a thing of the past; that transphobic politicians will be held accountable for their actions; that we'll see proper reform to the Gender Recognition Act. I remain hopeful.
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