Section 28, the law that prohibited the “promotion” of homosexuality in schools and libraries, was scrapped on this day in 2003 (three years after Scotland repealed the local version, Clause 2A). I’ve written about it a few times now, including in the anthology Twenty-Eight.
Section 28 came into force just as I was leaving school, so it didn’t affect me directly. But the climate that created it – the viciously anti-LGBTQ+ newspapers, the viciously anti-LGBTQ+ politicians – damaged an entire generation of queer people. As I wrote in my contribution to Twenty-Eight:
Section 28 was largely a creation of the right-wing press, and many of the people, publications and proprietors who contributed to the anti-gay panic back then are at the forefront of the anti-trans panic today…
It’s all so horribly, sickeningly, wretchedly familiar. Once again we are told we need to “protect children” from a sinister “lobby”, an evil “ideology”. And once again that poisonous narrative is peddling hatred towards the entire LGBT+ community. Just look at how supposed “reasonable concerns” about trans kids’ healthcare have become death threats to Drag Queen Story Hours, at the widespread use of “groomer” against LGBT+ people and allies online, at the growing number of reported anti-LGBT hate crimes. What’s printed in tabloids and broadsheets is amplified on the streets. And as US Republicans are currently demonstrating in states such as Alabama and Arizona, Tennessee and Texas, worse is coming.
Abolishing Section 28 didn’t abolish homophobia, transphobia or any other -phobia. It just told the people who had those views, that quarter of the population that voted to keep the clause, to be quiet about it. And now those people are being given permission to be loud all over again.
I wrote that in 2022. There’s no joy in being able to say “I told you so”.