Liberty:

Liberty joins other UK human rights organisations to say: trans rights are human rights.

In a joint statement with Amnesty International UK and Human Rights Watch it says:

“Human rights are universal and belong to everyone. Yet too often in the UK trans people are spoken about and treated as though their rights don’t matter.

The toxic media coverage about trans people has recently spiked. At times of crisis and political change, marginalised groups are often singled out for abuse and hate. History has shown us time and time again the dangers of setting the rights of one marginalised group up for debate. But we know that our rights and freedoms are bound together.

What’s more, this isn’t an equal conversation or level playing field. Key voices are missing – trans and non-binary people, and in particular young trans people. They are so often spoken about, not listened to. As a society, we need to make space so they can be finally heard without having to defend who they are.

We need to do this because denying rights leads to dehumanisation.

This is already happening in Hungary, Russia and the US, where trans people are facing serious human rights abuses, and new and vicious attacks on their fundamental rights.

We cannot allow this to happen here. Today, as we mark the International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia and Transphobia (IDAHOBIT), our collective of UK human rights organisations wants to remind people that trans rights are an indivisible part of human rights.”

Benjamin Ward, UK Director of Human Rights Watch said: “For too long now, trans people in the UK have been dehumanised and their voices silenced.” said Benjamin Ward, UK Director at Human Rights Watch. “It’s time for people in the UK to stand together with trans people and for the human rights and humanity we all share.”

Kate Allen, Director of Amnesty International UK, said: “Trans people often face extreme discrimination, and right now we’re seeing growing threats to their human rights in the UK and abroad. But the biggest human rights organisations are united by their side – we won’t rest until trans people can live freely as themselves, without inequality or abuse.”

Martha Spurrier, Director of Liberty, said: “We must, as a human rights movement, demonstrate that we will forever stand by the side of trans people and I’m proud to join others to spread this message on International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia and Transphobia.”

I mentioned that today is the international day against homophobia, biphobia and transphobia but I don’t think I’ve ever explained what transphobia actually is. The Trans Actual website has put together a comprehensive explanation.

Transphobia, like homophobia and biphobia, is an umbrella term to describe various negative attitudes towards people based on a single characteristic: who they love, or who they are.

You can be perfectly pleasant to trans, gay or bi people and still be transphobic, homophobic or biphobic; you can vote for equal marriage but feel uncomfortable around gay people, use trans people’s pronouns but think they’re mentally ill, accept that bisexual people exist but believe that bisexuality means promiscuity or sexual greed. And while that’s not ideal, you’re not directly hurting anybody. But unfortunately some people with transphobic, homophobic or biphobic beliefs do hurt people – not necessarily physically, although god knows there’s plenty of that, but also by discriminating against them or making their lives more difficult or dangerous.

And just as people who are racists don’t like being called racist, people who are transphobic (or homophobic, or biphobic) get very upset when people point it out. Some of the most transphobic people around are adamant that they don’t have a bigoted bone in their body.

Like many of their strategies, that one has been nicked wholesale from the religious right and the far right: racists aren’t racists, they’re race realists who just want to protect white people’s civil rights; religious conservatives don’t hate LGBT+ people, they just believe in family values. The transphobes’ equivalent is to claim to be protecting “sex-based rights” or battling “gender ideology”, terms that come from right-wing religious fundamentalism. The term “gender ideology” was barely used before 2016.

Most people who say they aren’t -phobic truly believe it: in the movie of their life, they’re certain that they are Luke Skywalker, not Darth Vader. Few of us want to believe we’re the baddies. So to protect that, they attempt to define what homophobia, transphobia or biphobia is or isn’t. That definition always, always, finds in their favour. They are the judge and the jury of their own prejudice, and they always find the defendant not guilty.

The thinking goes like this. Transphobia, homophobia and biphobia are traits that bad people have. I am not a bad person, therefore what I do cannot be transphobic, homophobic or biphobic.

Racists do this too. My favourite (and I say that with bleak humour) example is the Ku Klux Klan, some of whose chapters recently claimed that because they no longer go around wearing pointy hoods and burning crosses on people’s lawns, they can’t possibly be racist. But of course, they are.

Transphobia, like racism, doesn’t just mean acts of violence. It can be pushing a narrative that human rights for trans people are in conflict with human rights for others. It can be trying to limit trans people’s access to healthcare, or demanding that charities do not help trans people. It can be misrepresenting the actions of a few as representative of the many, or misrepresenting science and medical opinion to cast doubt on trans people’s very legitimacy. It can be choosing not to hire trans people, or to give them a platform you offer to others. And most dangerously, it can be about stochastic terrorism: demonising a particular group of people in the knowledge that such demonisation may lead others to commit violence against them while your own hands remain clean.

Today, like every day, LGBT+ people are on the receiving end of all of those things. It’s terrible everywhere, but in some parts of the world it is also exceptionally dangerous.

Graeme Reid in Advocate.com:

The annual celebration  is an opportune moment to reflect on the advances made in LGBTQ+ rights, and the challenges that remain.

…At a time when access to health care is a global concern, LGBT people remain vulnerable to discrimination, driven by health workers’ personal prejudice or government policy.

…Access to appropriate health care is a struggle for transgender people in many parts of the world. Coercive medical requirements can foster abuse.

…LGBTQ+ people are often cast as a threat to traditional notions of the family, society and the nation. Stigma and hate speech are even more threatening in a pandemic, when vulnerable groups are blamed and targeted.

…As IDAHOBIT is celebrated throughout the world, as an aspect of  “breaking the silence,” challenges to  equal access to healthcare, education, protection from discrimination and violence, and rights to association, expression and privacy remain pressing in many parts of the world. Even in a crisis of staggering proportions, the advances that have been made in human rights, including for LGBTQ+ people, need to be protected.

If you’re straight and cisgender, you probably don’t give Pride events much thought: they’re just parties, right? But if you’re LGBT+ you know that they’re much, much more than that. They’re places where, however briefly, you know you’re not alone; places where you aren’t hated or tolerated, but celebrated.

Pride events are among the many casualties of coronavirus this year. Spiller of Tea explains why that’s sad for LGBT+ people.

I’ve read a lot recently about how straight people are missing pubs and restaurants and cafes. This is entirely understandable, and I do sympathise, but imagine if your pubs were the only places in which you could safely relax your mannerisms, speak freely about your home life, or hold your partner’s hand. Then imagine that you lived in a city that only had one pub. Maybe go on to imagine that this single establishment only opened two nights a week, from 10 pm until 6 am, when the majority of old bastards like me are tucked up in bed. One place in the entire locality where, if you don’t like sticky floors, banging music and drinking until it’s light, you’re basically excluded anyway. That is the reality for huge numbers of LGBTQ people in the UK, and Pride is one of the few precious moments of relief we are allowed from this frustrating, constrained existence.

The outside world may have stopped, but homophobia, biphobia and transphobia haven’t. The trolls have more time on their hands, so they’re more vicious than ever. The newspapers continue their assault on trans people (just yesterday The Scotsman ran a column claiming that it was “a biological fact” that trans women are men) and politicians continue to court the bigot demographic. As I was reminded yesterday, people still stare and glare at you in the street.

You may well be bored and lonely, but you probably don’t have people wishing you dead on social media or calling you a deviant in the press.

…in these most difficult of times, when LGBTQ people are facing all of the physical, emotional and financial issues cis-het people are facing, they present an added burden to people who, like the rest of you, are already fast-approaching breaking point.

…This crisis has, distressingly, not even begun to put an end to the attacks our community is so often forced to endure, but what it has achieved is to rob us of one of our most vital coping mechanisms in the face of those attacks. And for that, I will unashamedly mourn its loss.