Tag Archives: LGBTQ+ rights

Rebuilding the trust of the Queer Community will be a long road. Yet, it is one we have now begun.

I have written before about how the Party’s reluctance to meaningfully challenge the regressive trend of queer rights in the UK has resulted in a loss of trust from the trans community, pushing many dedicated and experienced activists to join the Green Party. But, as the response from the Party to the EHRC Code of Practice has shown, there is potential to turn around this regressive trend. The Party likes to talk about our outstanding record on standing up for queer rights – from abolishing Section 28 to being the architects of the legalisation of gay marriage – and whilst our momentum has slumped recently, the leadership’s response to the EHRC code shows a welcome turn in the right direction.

With this in mind, I have some suggestions for the Parliamentary Party on how we can play out part in resetting to the pre-2025 status on queer rights, and how we can go further. Britain was once the best in Europe for LGBTQ+ rights, and we can take that place again.

• Our MPs have 4 slots available to them from this Sessions private members bill ballot. One of these must be allocated to a bill that changes the law to make the Equality Act’s definition of sex trans inclusive, as well as removing transphobia (gender critical beliefs) as a protected belief. The UK’s system of gender recognition must also be repaired, de-medicalised, and further empowered to ensure a genuine legal threat exists against those who would endanger trans people by outing them.

• Consensus must be reached on the approach to protecting and supporting transgender children. We know that the suicide rate is rising and is under-reported. We know that the puberty blocker ban is wrong, having been widely discredited by global medical bodies. It’s time for our MPs to take the evidence-based approach, to dismiss the Cass Review for the unscientific shambles which it is, and advocate for a return to affirmative and clinician-led healthcare.