And why I will never stop speaking out
LGBT+ people in the UK have gained, for the first time in modern history, the same rights and freedoms as anyone else. Well, mostly. There are still some discrepancies, which vary in nature and range from religious to financial and health-based. At the same time, our media and certain public figures continue to spout forth their hatred and whip up prejudice, and discrimination is still allowed in certain circumstances. And at the heart of it all is politics; all the time our politicians allow this to continue, continue it will.
In this article I am going to highlight some of those inconsistencies and also explain why I will always continue to advocate for the right to live your own life, whatever your sexuality or identity.
Same-sex couples can marry in a religious ceremony, but only if the religious organisation agrees and the premises are registered for same-sex marriages. Religious organisations or individual ministers can opt out of marrying same-sex couples if they choose. And same-sex couples still cannot marry in The Church of England or the Church in Wales. The C of E website (accessed on 3rd March 2024) states, "The law prevents ministers of the Church of England from carrying out same-sex marriages. And although there are no authorised services for blessing a same-sex civil marriage, your local church can still support you with prayer." This caused devastation for some Christian LGBT+ people, and friend of mine who is a devout gay Christian man left the Church of England because of it; he could no longer support a church that actively discriminates in this way.
Religious groups and individuals are still allowed by law to offer the shameful practice of conversion therapy, although they don't tend to call it that. I live near one of these places; it's called Ellel Glyndley Manor and there they offer a course called "God's design for sexuality" in which they promise to "look at the importance and significance of the biblical covenant of marriage, the power of boundaries and will explain how sexual expression outside of this has consequences not just on our lives, but all those connected to us." Below is a table of the course's contents, lifted from their website on 3rd March 2024.
Another site near me is King's Church. In a Buzzfeed article from 2017, Patrick Strudwick explains that my local MP Caroline Ansell worships there, and that she has accepted substantial donations from CARE, a Christian organisation that has funded "gay cure" events. Our UK government has been debating and consulting on the banning of conversion therapy since 2018. Initially, trans people were not included in the consultation, but this has been amended. Other countries have gone ahead and banned conversion therapy, as there is growing evidence that it is not only unhelpful, but that it's actually harmful. The British Medical Association is unequivocal in it's position, and has issued a statement in response to the government's consultation: "The BMA believes the practice of LGBTQ+ conversion therapy is unethical and damaging, with no clinical benefit to those subjected to it. As such we hold a clear policy position that this practice should be banned." Yet still, this harmful practice goes on. There's an online petition to write to your MP about this. It's quite easy to do.
If you are in a Civil Partnership or same-sex marriage and your partner dies, you’re entitled to a survivor’s pension from your spouse or civil partner’s occupational pension. However, if you're a same-sex couple, workplace pension schemes only have to grant survivor’s benefits to you based on your partner's contributions from 2005 onwards, meaning you might be entitled to less money than heterosexual couples. If same-sex couples want to have children, access to IVF is not equal across the UK. For example, in some areas of England, same-sex couples may have to pay up to £25,000 before accessing NHS-funded IVF, whereas in Scotland, all couples can access funded fertility treatments if they meet the nationally agreed NHS access criteria (introduced 1 April 2017), including same-sex couples.
A divisive topic in the media at the moment is the debate and discussion about trans women. There are many angles being taken, and much opinion being shared, from the world of sport, to politics and people in the public eye. I'm focussing on just a few here. In my book, published in November 2023, I discuss an episode of BBC1’s Question Time which was aired in early 2023. A woman in the audience had this to say to trans woman India Willoughby who was on the panel: “We don’t allow men into women-only places for a good reason. There are good men and there are predatory men. We should not allow trans [sic] into female spaces. There are trans and there are predatory trans and that’s a fact. Women have to be safe. Women and children have to be safe (Applause). There’s nothing on their head to say whether they’re predatory or not, same as looking at a man. In my opinion they are still men. In my opinion you can’t change sex. That’s my opinion (Applause).” When this profound level of ignorance goes unchallenged, I despair. Instead of an informed debate about how the needs of trans women can be met, we got that. This, like “vox-pop” and reality shows, where ill-informed personal bias wins out over intelligent, evidence-based discourse, is cheap and lazy programming, and it highlights that something dangerous is going on.
And as I finish preparing this blog on International Women's Day, India is under attack again, this time from Harry Potter author JK Rowling, who has been very outspoken about her opinions of trans women. On the media platform X, a user sent Rowling a video of Willoughby, asking if she thought "this lady should use the men's locker room?" Rowling wrote, "You've sent me the wrong video. There isn't a lady in this one, just a man revelling in his misogynistic performance of what he thinks 'woman' means: narcissistic, shallow and exhibitionist." When further questioned, "If India Willoughby is a 'misogynist' why did she become a woman? Think," Rowling replied, "India didn't become a woman. India is cosplaying a misogynistic male fantasy of what a woman is." I understand that Willoughby has now approached the police on this matter. JK Rowling has defended her comments about trans women partly by explaining that she was sexually abused. I was sexually abused too, but it didn't turn me into a trans hater.
Rowling is not the only one doing this. Trans people born male are being presented as a threat to people born female and children in our media, especially in the right wing tabloids. They are also being deadnamed - the press using their previous male name rather than their trans name. Yes, there have been a few cases where people born male and presenting as female have committed crimes against women and children. No-one can deny that. But these are rare exceptions. To imply that all trans women are potential rapists and a danger to women and children is simply outrageous. It doesn't help when our own government does so little to uphold gender recognition laws, and joins in with misgendering, as Suella Braverman did last year. Trans people committing crimes and where they should be in prison is a very complex issue and not one to which I have any answers. I'll just say this: each case has to be looked at individually. If men are indeed posing as women to carry out crimes, then that's awful and appalling. I am as sickened as anyone.
But India Willoughby and the vast majority of trans women are NOT criminals. Only an individual knows inside how they feel, how they identify. And that's fine. It's their business. How is India Willoughby harming anyone? India, like all trans people, has already gone through enough to be able to become her true self. We should be full of admiration for people who go through the pain of surgery, who are brave to socially transition and who go through legal obstacle courses just to be able to feel comfortable in their own skin. Huge thanks to Queer Chameleon for the great image (Instagram page: @queeeerchameleon).
There's a consultation going on at the moment over Government guidelines about what schools should do with children who are questioning their gender. I have taken the time to respond - it took me about three hours to fill in the vast form online. They didn't make it very easy. As far as I can see, these guidelines discriminate against young people who are questioning their gender identity, rather than offering them support and guidance at an already difficult time for them. The guidelines have been written to make life as easy as possible for the school, and are extremely biased in favour of the school, the parents and the other children; there is virtually no mention of the rights of the young person. Children and young people of all ages are lumped together; there is no difference in how a school should behave with a ten year old or a seventeen-year-old. A seventeen-year-old can legally have sex and drive a car, but according to these guidelines, has no right for their preferred pronoun to be used in school.
As Stonewall point out, "not using a trans pupil’s chosen pronouns (no matter their age) could be considered discrimination or harassment under the Equality Act 2010 as noted in the example on page 65 of the EHRC’s Technical Guidance for Schools in England."
We’re doing better than some countries. According to the United Nations, some seventy-seven countries have laws criminalising private, consensual same-sex relationships, which could result in imprisonment, and in at least five countries, the death penalty. Restrictive laws are still passed around the globe, including some in so-called developed countries; across at least fifteen US states at the moment, there are laws similar to Clause 28 that we had in the 1980s. Other countries are tightening their laws, such as Uganda Its Anti-Homosexuality Act, passed in 2023, makes it illegal to identify as gay. Ghana is the latest country to pass a discriminatory law, make it illegal to even identify as gay.
But we’re not doing very well at all compared with other European countries. The Rainbow Europe Map is compiled annually and compares the laws and policies in forty-nine countries using a set of seventy-four criteria, looking at the themes of: equality and non-discrimination; family; hate crime and hate speech; legal gender recognition; intersex bodily integrity; civil society space; and asylum. The United Kingdom has significantly dropped in ranking, moving from tenth to fourteenth place. There’s evidence that the UK is not effectively protecting its own citizens in terms of their sexual orientation and gender identity. “At a time of widespread political and media anti-trans sentiment, the British government is not moving on long-promised reforms on gender recognition and banning so-called ‘conversion therapy’ for all.”
To be silent is to be complicit. That's why I will not stop. There’s very worrying and growing evidence that hate speech and hate crime against people who don’t fit the hetero-normative stereotype is on the rise. I received hateful slurs myself while I was preparing to launch my book. The need to stand up for people who are different from oneself is as strong as ever as we teeter on the precipice of potential regression, losing some of the rights afforded to people because of who they fancy or how they identify, a status which was so bravely fought for. We cannot take for granted that the current rights and freedoms of LGBT+ people in this country are a permanent fixture. As for ending the hate, that seems a long way off. So, we have to unite against the haters. In the 1980s, my gay friends called me a "fag hag." Over 40 years later, I am an ally. Always have been, always will be. The battle goes on.
Parts of this article are based on issues I discuss in my book.
Bent Is Not Broken. Buy the eBook (various platforms) or get the paperback on Amazon via:
To read more blogs about about LGBT+ culture and history, and to find out more about the author, head to www.bentisnotbroken.com
Reference: Patrick Strudwick (2017): Another Conservative Candidate Has Links To "Gay Cure" Organisations. Buzzfeed Website.
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