By Connie Frankish
As a trans person, I am accustomed to feeling unsafe. Albeit I am comparatively privileged in that the UK currently ranks tenth in the world for trans people to live, only beaten out by the usual suspects such as Canada, Sweden, and the Netherlands. But the current UK trans climate feels palpably heated. The Sunak interlude seems to have contributed to an emerging trans panic felt across the country. Although his tenure was brief, Sunak catalysed many anti-trans notions which appear to have seeped into Labour’s first stint at running the country in a post-Caitlyn Jenner world.
Sunak’s brand of conservatism often veered into the realm of ‘traditionalist’ ideology. ‘Traditional values’ to a queer audience translates to: concealed discrimination, conventional expectations, and conformist attitudes. I, like many thousands of trans people, rely on public transport for my daily commute, and it would not be an exaggeration to describe this for visibly gender diverse people to be a terrifying experience. In October 2023 when Sunak declared that “A man is a man, and a woman is a woman”; I having gone without an incident of being the victim of a hate crime in some months – which I have experienced dozens of times since being a teenager in the late noughties – that following day during my morning commute I was referred to as a ‘tr*nny’ by a young man and then that same evening commute was harassed for some time by two men. Therein: actions have consequences. Sunak’s rhetoric was under the guise of ‘protecting women’, of which there are a plethora of ways of doing so without recklessly endangering an already powerless minority. Scholar Judith Butler refers to fear of trans women perpetrating violence as a “phantasm” – not real.
Then in February 2024 Sunak in the House of Commons in front of Brianna Ghey’s Mother mocked Starmer for his inability to “define a woman”. Sunak being a proponent of sex equalling gender. It has been established since the nineties that we can describe sex as decided by anatomy were gender is a construct. A particular favourite anecdote of mine: if in French a table can be a woman, then so can I. In Following Ghey’s murder in February 2023 a petition was launched to change the law around issuing posthumous gender recognition certificates. The Conservative government denied this right as they felt that “current policy strikes the right balance”. The rights of those without is to be ‘balanced’ by the dispute of those already with said rights. The Miami Herald described it best: “trans people not having the dignity in death that everyone else in the world takes for granted.”
In the 2024 election trans rights were a frequent topic of debate. It was a means for multi-millionaire Sunak to engage otherwise disenfranchised working-class right-wing voters. Starmer’s refusal to speak on trans issues was interpreted in two distinct ways; either as downplaying his allyship or sitting on the fence hoping his ambiguity would win votes from both sides. Unfortunately, we now know that this was the latter. Days before the election during his final debate against Sunak, replying to a post on the platform X by J.K.Rowling that read “Do biological males with gender recognition certificates have the right to enter women-only spaces?” To which Starmer stated that “trans women do not have the right to use women-only spaces.” Although he had never officially positioned himself as a trans ally, his words felt like a betrayal to the community. By that point, the writing was on the wall that the Tories would be out and Labour in, and Starmer no longer felt he needed to court the queer vote to win.
There has been no mention of trans issues since the election. Whether this shows how uninvested the cis majority truly are in our rights as is so often proclaimed is undetermined. But what have Labour actioned since assuming power? Concerning protecting women, Labour were criticised for deprioritising their annual Women’s Conference in September 2024 by reducing both the length and number of debates. Their budget released in October 2024 sees to cut funding in the arts and increase tuition fees, both of which are sacred grounds for the LGBTQ+ community. Whilst ignoring what are supposed to be cornerstone issues to Labour voters, such as funding the NHS, lowering energy costs, and capping public transport prices. Who do Labour serve? I could not say. But certainly not the trans community.