Opinion

Trans people live in diverse communities, intersecting ethnicity, age, disability, religion and sexuality. This is not news, but the Office for National Statistics released fresh data comparing the gender identities of people in England and Wales with key demographics which were recorded in Census 2021.

Rachel Pollack, widely known for her Tarot reading and comic books, passed away on April 7th 2023. We wanted to honour her life and commissioned this piece from a friend of hers in her memory. Roz Kaveney writes;

"We need to talk more about the ideology which Posie Parker tried to import at her Let Women Speak event in Victoria, Australia", writes LilahRPG - who was part of the counter protest.

Helen Webberley, the doctor behind GenderGP, has been ruled fit to practice medicine and can return to work, according to a judge at the Royal Courts of Justice last week. This marks the end of a seven year battle between Webberley, the General Medical Council (GMC), and other professionals involved in trans healthcare and the regulation of healthcare, with gender affirming care at the heart of the matter. 

Most readers will probably be aware of the situation at the moment in Uganda, where under the influence of American far-right so-called Christian groups, the government has enacted a law criminalising all LGBT people. But the story on the ground of the Uganda LGBT ban is much darker. Jenny List from Trans Rescue writes;

Times' hypocrisy: praises testosterone patch for menopausal women, yet demonises its use for trans people. Question media's double standards.

"As I led the first ever all trans masc football team in Europe onto that pitch to thunderous applause, all my worries melted away. It didn’t matter what the score was; it didn’t matter if I left the field covered in mud and smelling like the Year 9 boys PE changing room. We made history here."

On #TransDayOfVisibility we wanted to do our extra best to give the spotlight to the least visible members of the transgender and gender diverse communities around the world. Thank you to Michael for reaching out and writing this piece on culture specific identities they titled "What an Indigenous person would like the queer community to know":

We soft-launched Trans Writes on #TransDayofVisibility in 2022 to an honestly incredible and overwhelming reception. Today we say Happy 1 year of Trans Writes and have a quick look at the work we've achieved.

As I touched on in the article marking JK Rowling's wacky weekend, the author has once again leaned into using crime related statistics to support her bigoted nonsense. But does it? Lets take a look inside JK Rowling's latest transphobic argument;