On the 20th of December, I sat down in the Scottish Parliament viewing gallery watching Scottish democracy at work. Almost every MSP sat in the chamber preparing to debate one of the most disputed issues of the last five years - reforms to the Gender Recognition Act.

Between striking nurses and ambulance workers, twelve or more hour waits in A&E, and patients getting passed from service to service with no actual care provided, a lot of people are seeing what a non-functioning National Health Service can look like. A sight we are all to familiar with when trying to access trans healthcare on the NHS.

Self ID in Finland is on the horizon so we asked a Finnish trans writer to tell us about it and the wider context it exists in. Vilja Heikkilä writes;

Under this government, every day existing a trans person is a trans rights protest, a protest that we will live our lives, be our true selves, and never give up despite their attacks on us writes Owen Hurcum

On the 22nd of December, after 7 years of intense toxic debate, the Scottish Parliament finally voted through the Gender Recognition Reforms bill. Since then the UK Government has outlined two plans to undermine Scottish gender reforms. Both plans have massive ramifications and will fail.

To say that the NHS is in crisis right now would be something of an understatement. Writes Alexis Chilvers as part of our push to raise the voices of trans people on trans healthcare in the UK in 2023.

The Office for National Statistics has released data from the 2021 census which for the first time ever includes statistics about the numbers of trans and non-binary living in England and Wales. Here Tom Pashby takes a look at the transgender and non-binary census data;

“everyone is talking on the scene” - What does the success of Kim Petras and Sam Smith say about the UK's attitude towards trans people? Oscar Rees writes;

As a Black trans person and long-time resident of San Francisco, I was excited for the opportunity to review Miss Major Speaks. While I haven’t had the honor of meeting Miss Major Griffin-Gracy in person, I have met and worked with many trans folks whose lives she has touched, several of whom are named in the book’s Acknowledgements.

Our first #TransAwarenessWeek piece is from Carrie Marshall who writes on the need for trans rage after our community was deliberately held back by societies and governments.

During the Conservative Party conference held in Birmingham this year, former leadership candidate and MP for Portsmouth North Penny Mordaunt was presented with the award for ‘Ally of the Year’ by the Tory LGBTQ+ group called the LGBT Conservatives.

With all the talk of chest binders after mainstream media took aim at them and Mermaids UK we are seeing the same pattern. The voices of those actually affected by the issues are not being heard. Correcting that for Trans Writes is Keith Ramsted with his chest binding story about the need for harm reduction;