It’s July, and Pride season is in full swing: the London LGBT Pride march took place on Saturday; Oxford Pride was a couple of weeks ago; Manchester Pride is yet to come. This year’s Prides coincide with an accelerating movement towards the legalisation of equal marriage in the United Kingdom; the Home Office’s consultation has recently ended, and it looks as if this government may be the one which finally ends civil marriage inequality. Equal marriage has been central to many mainstream LGBTQ campaigns in recent years; I personally believe that it has been emphasised to such an extent, perhaps, that its achievement will lead to a misleading sense of completion for the movement. With that in mind, it’s vital to consider the directions LGBTQ campaigning in the UK should take both during and after the fight for full equal marriage.
First, we should not forget the “T” in LGBTQ. This is forgotten far too readily, both within and without the movement. Trans* people (covering transgender, transsexual, genderqueer and other gender-variant people) face problems which variably both overlap with and differ from those which confront lesbian, gay and bisexual people. Transphobia is endemic in our society. Just a few months ago a Paddy Power advert was released which derived its entire “humour” from the idea of distinguishing “real” women (i.e., those who identify with the gender they were assigned at birth) from trans women. Trans* people have the highest suicide rate in the LGBT community, and the highest murder rate – yet organisations such as Stonewall actively exclude them. Stonewall describes itself as a “lesbian, bisexual and gay” charity. This is viciously ironic, considering that the Stonewall riots of 1969 had trans* people at their heart. Then you get newspapers, relying on Stonewall reports, assuming they’re in some way covering trans* people; a recent Guardian article wrote “…more than 1,600 lesbian, gay and bisexual (LGBT) young people….”. Well, no. That “T” means something. And it’s time the movement remembered that, and focused on it.
Second, our movement needs to recognise that homophobia, biphobia and transphobia start young, and once rooted are not always easy to dislodge. A recent Stonewall study claims that 55% of lesbian, gay and bisexual young people have received homophobic or biphobic bullying in school, and a shocking 96% have heard derogatory expressions for LGBTQ people bandied around in the classroom and social settings. I was saddened, though unsurprised by these findings. Children of only eight or nine at a fencing club I used to attend joked about being gay – I say “joked”; it was made abundantly clear by them that being gay was not a thing which it was desirable to be. Trans* children also suffer; the school years tend to be the years in which the gender binary is rigidly enforced, and any perceived deviation from gender assigned at birth can have sometimes awful consequences. The solution? Education. It is less than 10 years since Section 28 was repealed in England and Wales, and some teachers are still under the impression that teaching about homosexuality, bisexuality or being transgender is illegal. This needs to change.
Less specifically, but with equal ambition, the LGBTQ community in the UK also needs to look outward to places where, for instance, homosexual activity still carries the death penalty, and countries where there are other legal oppressions. I would also like to see more acknowledgement of sexualities other than “gay” and “lesbian”; many, if not most, bisexuals and pansexuals are unhappy to be placed under the “gay” banner incessantly. Issues faced by bisexuals are sometimes different from those faced by gay people and lesbians, and the LGBTQ movement needs to acknowledge that. It is important as well to look at how issues of race and class, for instance, affect the LGBTQ struggle.
Equal marriage is important, and has a great deal of symbolic value. This Parliament will do great service to the LGBTQ community in passing the Bill. However, its achievement will by no means be the achievement of equality. Never stop fighting.
Simone Webb is President-Elect of Oxford LGBTQ Soc.
