Across The Pond

We are not the only place where we are feeling the backlash from getting our right, trans peroplein Britain are also struggling to keep their rights.

Inside the Poisonous British Fight Over Transgender Acceptance
Transphobic commentary in the British media has reached fever pitch, as the public consultation process over the U.K.’s Gender Recognition Act nears its Oct. 19 end date.
The Daily Beast
By Samantha Allen
October 17, 2018

In 2014, the United Kingdom topped the Rainbow Index, an annual ranking of LGBT equality published by a European human rights group.

As of May, the UK has fallen to fourth place.

To understand why, one need only consult the many broadsides being issued against transgender people in the British press, as the government weighs reforms to the 2004 Gender Recognition Act, a piece of legislation that allowed those who transitioned from one gender to another to apply for a certificate that formally certifies the change.

The months-long backlash to the idea of reforming the GRA was one of the only negative factors that the European branch of the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association cited in their evaluation of the UK for the Rainbow Index this May.

So where is the opposition coming from?

But fears about GRA reform aren’t confined to the press, either: As The Sunday Times reported this past weekend, Conservative MPs in Parliament would be overwhelmingly opposed to making changes to the GRA that would bring the UK’s policy in line with countries like Norway and Ireland, which both allow citizens to declare their gender with minimal gatekeeping.

Oh gee…it’s the conservatives! No surprise there. They are always targeting minorities.

LGBT rights groups in the UK have been wearied by the incessant attacks in the press since the consultation was announced. With headlines like "Children Sacrificed to Appease Trans Lobby" and "This Transgender Madness Is Now A Danger To Women," columnists have been laying into the transgender community as the GRA brings the topic into public view.

Laura Russell, Head of Policy for the organization Stonewall, told The Daily Beast: “There have been daily articles and social media threads that question trans people’s right to exist,” citing the recent slip in the UK’s ranking on Rainbow Index.
[…]
Perhaps nothing encapsulates the state of transgender equality in the UK better than that: A groundbreaking step forward followed by backlash. Whether the UK will be able to keep pace with other countries on LGBT equality, it seems, will depend in large part on whether it is able to move more steadily toward transgender acceptance.

It seems like around the world as the economies falter do income inequalities we are becoming the scapegoats for the economic worries.

Like a magician’s sleight of hand the conservatives are trying to distract people from the real problems by accusing us of being predators.

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The Pink News reported…

Metro newspaper runs full-page ad attacking transgender rights reforms
By Nick Duffy
10th October 2018

The Advertising Standards Authority is to investigate whether a full-page ad in UK newspaper Metro opposing transgender rights reforms has broken advertising standards.

Wednesday’s London edition of the free-sheet newspaper carried a full-page ad from the group Fair Play for Women referencing the government’s consultation on gender recognition reforms.

The ad questions whether “someone with a penis is a woman” and refers to transgender women as “male-bodied people.”

The ad’s publication comes in the final days of a government consultation on proposed changes to the 2004 Gender Recognition Act that would streamline the process for trans people to gain legal recognition as their chosen gender. The public consultation ends on October 19.
[…]
A transgender Metro reader, Katie, told PinkNews of her shock at seeing the ad when picking up the newspaper on Wednesday.

She said: “When I opened my copy of Metro this morning on the way to work, I was shocked and dismayed to find they’d published a full-page ad by an extremist, transphobic political group, which was full of misinformation and scaremongering about trans women like me.”

Sound familiar?

It is just like the ads running in Massachusetts, full of hate, fear and lies.

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