Apologies for the language, but there is an internet meme that’s become popular:

Me sowing: Haha fuck yeah!!! Yes!!
Me reaping: well this fucking sucks. What the fuck.

And another:

Well, well, well. If it isn’t the consequences of my own actions.

I was reminded of them yesterday when a British anti-trans group blogged about the US rollback of anti-discrimination protections for trans people, gay and lesbian people and women who have or need abortions.

it actively harms lesbians, women seeking abortions and women who defy gender norms… [the] religious right are waging a war on women and against the principle of health care as a human right.

Trans people and allies have been trying to warn anti-trans groups about this for years, which is why many, many people quoted this in response:

I can’t believe leopards are eating my face, says woman who voted for the “leopards eating your face” party.

It’s funny, but it isn’t remotely funny. The US’s anti-women legislation was initially presented as anti-trans legislation, but that was only ever a Trojan horse. And the same tactics are being used here.

In the UK, anti-trans groups have allied with the religious right to attack key legislation such as the Equality Act; yesterday’s government leak indicates that they’re being listened to. But the Equality Act doesn’t just protect trans women. It protects all women. Black women. Asian women. Lesbian women. Pregnant women. Religious women. Disabled women.

And it’s not just the Equality Act. Lawyers who previously represented anti-abortionists are now helming anti-trans test cases in an attempt to remove protections for LGBT+ kids at school. There is a concerted effort to remove the bodily autonomy of trans teenagers, something that would undermine the Gillick and Fraser competences that means teenage girls can get access to contraception.

What’s so frustrating about this is that the religious right has been very clear about it. They even put it in writing. The Family Research Council, one of the key drivers of anti-women legislation, published its master plan for attacking trans people in 2016. The FRC is part of the Hands Across The Aisle Coalition, which connects US evangelicals with British anti-trans activists.

As Brynn Tannehill wrote in 2018:

These right-wing organizations don’t try to hide their relationship with so-called feminists. Indeed, they proudly display it in order to create the illusion that both the left and the right oppose inclusion of trans people in society. In reality, only one side’s interests are being represented here ― the radical religious right.

Real feminists, lesbians, queers and bisexual woman should ask what sort of woman or feminist would align themselves with these right-wing organizations. They are all anti-choice. They all want to ban access to birth control. They universally want to overturn Lawrence v. Texas and allow states to make homosexuality illegal again. They want to overturn Obergefell v. Hodges, and Roe v. Wade. They want to ban same-sex adoption. They all are hostile to fair-pay-for-women laws. They oppose women working outside the home. They are all hostile to the Women’s March and Me Too. They are fake medical organizations and anti-LGBTQ and anti-choice hate groups. They have cheered the assassinations of abortion providers. They are publications that have published horrible things about women, such as “Does Feminism Make Women Ugly?”

This isn’t a choice between transgender people and women. This is a choice between trans people and right-wing organizations pretending to represent women. And you are deluding yourself if you think these right-wing organizations will not be coming for queers and cisgender women next. They have said that’s exactly what they plan on doing.

As predicted, the UK government has abandoned its plans for gender recognition reform. Not only that, but instead of making life marginally better for trans people it has decided to make life much, much worse.

GRA reform isn’t the story here, although it’s worth noting in passing that, as in Scotland, around 70% of respondents were in favour; the government claims that the result was “skewed” by an “avalanche” of pro-reform submissions while ignoring the fact that every single anti-trans group in the UK, and many other organisations including religious groups and US conservatives, urged people to make anti-reform submissions. Apparently the will of the people only matters if they give you the result you want.

The real story is this. Months after the conservatives were asking focus groups whether trans rights were a culture war hot-button they could weaponise against Labour, they apparently intend to follow in the footsteps of the US and Hungary by attacking trans people’s existing rights.

According to the Sunday Times:

New protections will be offered to safeguard female-only spaces, including refuges and public lavatories, to stop them being used by those with male anatomy.

That’s a bathroom bill straight out of the US Republican playbook.

Trans women who haven’t had surgeries have been using the ladies for decades, as they should: presenting female in the gents is an invitation to get your head kicked in, or worse.

It’s also part of being able to get legal gender recognition. In order to get a Gender Recognition Certificate under the system the government will now not reform, you need to produce evidence that you have lived uninterrupted in your correct gender for at least two years. If you’re applying for a GRC, as I am, the gender recognition panel may ask you to produce evidence that you’ve been using the correct toilets, as the panel did with me.

You do not need to have had surgery to obtain a Gender Recognition Certificate, and in fact such a requirement would be illegal under human rights legislation: legal gender recognition can’t be contingent on sterilisation.

I’m sure US-style bathroom bills would ultimately be defeated here, but that doesn’t mean the next few years are going to be easy for trans people and the wider LGBT+ community. The nasty party has taken its mask off.

The Guardian on the Polish presidential election:

[The party] has often hit out at gay rights and what it calls “LGBT ideology”, in rhetoric that is popular with parts of its base and the Catholic church.

Among other things, Duda’s new charter pledges no support for gay marriage or adoption by gay couples, with Duda describing the latter as part of “a foreign ideology”. It also seeks to “ban the propagation of LGBT ideology” in schools and public institutions – language reminiscent of a notorious Russian law targeting so-called “gay propaganda”.

…The messaging does have an effect. In a survey last year, when asked to name the biggest threat to Poland, the most popular answer among men under 40 was “the LGBT movement and gender ideology”.

The messaging does have an effect. And yet the Guardian, and many other UK papers, happily and frequently platforms the very same arguments about trans people that the Polish far right perpetuate about the wider LGBT+ community. It’s usually worded more diplomatically than in Poland, but the message is the same: we need to protect our children from dangerous predators who do not deserve human rights.

The messaging does have an effect. In the US, the hitherto uncontroversial existence of trans people has been weaponised by the Christian Right and its supporters in the Republican Party. Yesterday, to mark the 4th anniversary of the most lethal massacre of LGBT+ people in US history, the US government formalised a new rule that removes anti-discrimination protection from LGBT people in healthcare. Unless state laws say otherwise, it is now perfectly legal for doctors to refuse to provide any medical treatment to LGBT+ people and women who have had abortions. Not just transition-related treatment, or abortions. Any medical treatment. 

This began with scaremongering about trans women in toilets. It does not end there.

The messaging does have an effect.

There’s a famous cartoon by artist KC Green:

As Green told The Verge, it’s popular because:

it’s a feeling we all have, apparently. It’s a feeling we all get of, just like, “Things are burning down around me, but you got to have smile sometimes.” It’s a basic human [feeling], “Well, what are you going to do?”

The version you see online is usually just the two panels I’ve shown here, but the full version shows the dog continuing to ignore the fire. Green:

it is kind of grotesque at the end. It’s easier to sell the first two than the entire panel where the dog melts into nothingness.

As a two-panel strip, it’s a funny “hey, what can you do?” thing. The full version shows the problem of doing nothing.

You’ll find the “this is fine” attitude in all kinds of places, about issues large and small: faced with a mountain of evidence that the room is very much on fire, many people choose to ignore it and tell themselves “this is fine”.

LGBT+ people are not immune to this – particularly older, more conservative LGBT+ people who tell others not to worry about their countries’ lurch to the right, about the well-funded campaigns against equality legislation, about the campaigns against inclusive education, about the return of blatantly homophobic and transphobic rhetoric in politics and in the media. This, they tell us, is fine.

It isn’t fine.

Progress can be reversed all too easily. The latest Rainbow Map of Europe shows that: the map tracks European countries’ LGBT+ rights and protections, and it shows that some countries are sliding backwards.

The UK is one of them. In 2015, it was rated the best place in Europe for LGBT+ rights; this year, it’s ninth. And that’s before we see the effects of having an equalities minister who doesn’t see protecting LGBT+ rights as part of her portfolio.

Other countries are worse. Hungary is going after LGBT+ people (and inevitably, protections for women and girls generally). Poland has declared “LGBT-free” zones. As many countries lurch to the right, LGBT+ people make for easy scapegoats for both politicians and the church.

That’s likely to get worse. Buzzfeed News reports that there is “an emerging global trend during the COVID-19 pandemic: the scapegoating of LGBTQ people.”

reports across the world reveal a parallel phenomenon: Institutions of power — from governments and churches to police and media — are blaming sexual or gender minorities for the spread of the virus.

It forms part of a wider campaign against LGBTQ people, the resonance of which stretches back decades. With the world’s attention elsewhere, administrations are capitalising on the crisis by removing LGBTQ rights, weaponising lockdown restrictions against members of this community, and neglecting those who cannot access government support because of their identity — with many left destitute and in danger.

Human rights defenders are calling for help, warning of the collateral damage within and beyond this minority. But in the chaos of a pandemic, the message is going largely unheard.

As ILGA-Europe executive director Evelyne Paradis says: “History shows that those who are vulnerable before a crisis only become more vulnerable after a crisis, so we have every reason to worry that political complacency, increased repression and socio-economic hardship will create a perfect storm for many LGBTI people in Europe in the next few years.”

This is not fine.