Tag: Nadhim Zahawi

If you are transgender and despaired at reading all this, I can only apologise. However, as a community, we will get through it. We are being made the focus of the tory leadership race to distract from the real societal problems such as the cost of living crisis because they have no solutions. The Conservatives have been in power for over a decade, these issues are of their own making. Transgender people existed long before they were elected, and we’ll be around after they leave government. We will win.

I see this for what it is, a cynical political move designed to support the (now successful) ousting of a crap Prime Minister by those like Mike Freer. It has nothing to do with constituents, supporters, LGBT+ people, diversity or Margaret Thatcher's evil bones. It has everything to do with playing the game and making sure there's still a Tory party after the end of all this scandal. All so they can all keep their nice cushy jobs blowing smoke up each other's arses and paying lip-service to their job titles.

The evidence is clear, UK transphobia is ramping up its efforts in targeting trans youth in particular. I spoke with numerous children's charities month ago who told me they were "not prepared" to give comment on these issues because its a sensitive area which they need to get it right on.

Trans Action Warwick regard this protest as a success. They say they achieved their aim of disrupting the event, using it to make a statement that we need to oppose transphobia and those who weaponise it against us. They believe we can’t gain liberation by attending and asking "difficult questions" alone and that doing so risks legitimising the answers and normalising the negative way transphobes talk about trans people.

The Conservative government in the UK are determined to push forwards on using transgender people as a wedge issue in order to distract from their incompetence. They are fanning the flames of the culture war so that you forget the thousands of our family members who died alone and in agony as they lapped up the luxuries in parties while paying their mates millions of your money to invariably do a terrible job of providing basics like PPE to hospitals.

Put simply; GRC or not, the law states that discrimination against transgender people is not lawful in the vast majority of circumstances. (Which I only add because single-sex exemptions exist, but have never been tested in law)

I do not care to weigh in on the discourse surrounding single-sex schools in general, but I am telling you that in my experience at an all-girlls school I was not protected from sexism, gender conformity, or transness (even before this became the boogeyman in the UK). Teaching LGBTQIA+ topics is an absolute must in helping equip students to understand and protect themselves from the experiences such as mine.

According to Zahawi; “Parents have to be front and centre of this. And that is my message to the front line is to say: you have to involve parents in this. You have a duty to safeguard those children and parents are very much part of that”.