I’ve seen a lot of media coverage reporting on the content of the UK government’s long awaited and expectedly terrible guidance regarding trans people in schools, but not a lot of talking about the raw language of it. The blatant transphobia of not giving trans kids the slightest dignity in the school environment is unquestionably worthy of all the scorn it has received, but the precise phrasing that reveals how truly hateful our government are, and that needs to be exposed and dealt with.
I could start with the obvious critique: the government don’t appear to know what trans people are. This might seem like an impossibly low bar, and yet section 4 of the guidance document (which discusses language and terminology) includes this baffling point: “We have not used the term transgender to describe children. Under UK law children cannot obtain a Gender Recognition Certificate and therefore cannot change their legal sex.” In other words, trans kids can’t possibly exist because in order to be trans you must have a gender recognition certificate. However, it turns out that only around 12% of the adult trans population in the UK have a GRC, so it stands to reason that whether someone has a GRC or not is not a useful metric for determining their status as a trans person, whatever their age. Who did the research that found that stat? None other than the UK government themselves.
Beyond how transparently and obviously wrong the “guidance” is, this is what I find truly galling. They’ve constructed a metric for determining people’s “transness” that not only doesn’t make a lick of sense in practice, but actively contradicts their own research. Being ignorant is one thing, but being this dumbfoundingly stupid in the name of hate is something else entirely.
Perhaps predictably, the stupidest part of the guidance is section 6.3 which discusses pronouns. I know we like to joke about conservatives coming across like they’re ‘scared of pronouns’, but never before have we been presented with a better example of that in actual reality. I’ll start with the most blatant and monstrous contradictions. The section opens by letting schools know that they are free to deny any child’s request to change pronouns, but ends with the assertion that the “bullyingofanychildmustnotbetolerated.” What that should say is that the bullying of any cis child will not be tolerated, as the wellbeing of trans kids is framed firmly as a secondary issue, if it’s even considered an issue at all.
But here’s the quote that really cemented my view that conservatives are legit scared of pronouns: “Even in the exceptional case where safeguarding requires a school or college to take an alternative approach, schools and colleges should exhaust all other options, such as using first names, to avoid requiring other individuals having to use preferred pronouns.” You read that right. The guidance suggests that even if schools need to take an “alternative approach” (and by “alternative approach” what they mean is simply not misgendering trans kids), one of the options that should be considered is using no pronouns to refer to the student at all. I fully respect that there are people out there who genuinely and sincerely prefer to be referred to with no pronouns at all, but when a literal government is so determined to make trans kids’ lives a living hell that they suggest this as a possible solution to the problem, it becomes clear that no one behind this guidance has a single clue what they’re talking about.
I can easily go on. Section 4 describes gender identity as “a contested belief” and goes on to describe social transition as “not a neutral act [that] can have formative effects on a child’s future development.” Like... yeah... of course it can... that’s kind of the whole point, although the assertion that social transition for trans youth is “not a neutral act” is absolutely not the scientific consensus. It’s made all the more egregious by when socially transitioning is mentioned in the document it is sometimes written in quote marks, as if they’re not 100% sure if it’s real or not.
Three days after the publishing of the guidance, the BBC reported that, according to a leaked document, legal advisors informed the government that advice could put multiple parties at a “high risk of a successful legal challenge.” The government, motivated clearly by nothing but transphobia, published the guidance anyway, and everyone in the country with more than five and a half functioning brain cells collectively facepalmed into oblivion. Wilful transphobia is inexcusable on its own, but the negligence, while it might be something we are used to from this government by now, still triggers feelings of visceral disgust for which there is virtually no comparison.
The one positive that can be taken going forward is that the age of the Tories’ stronghold on the British public is finally going to be coming to an end in the not-too-distant future. Not saying things are going to be all the way better under Labour (Keir Starmer is particularly hopeless when it comes to trans rights), but at least they stand a chance at building a better country for trans people than we have currently. For at least a shot at that future, we just need to hang on a little bit longer. I know it’s been tough, but we will get there. Never stop fighting. We have come way too far to give up now.
Comments