Weaponising Bigotry: the government's next attempt to boost popularity
Approval ratings for Boris Johnson’s government remain low, with 63% of adults saying he is doing “badly” as Prime Minister, 53% disapproving of the Government's record to date and the Chancellor's personal popularity tumbling by 24 points since the Spring Statement, on 23rd March.
This week, the Cabinet Office is turning to transgender rights in a transparent attempt to gain support through whipping up prejudice and inflaming stigma.
After significant pressure (following a leaked plan to drop the new legislation), the government made their long-overdue announcement to ban conversion therapy. This came with a significant caveat announced on Transgender Visibility Day: transgender people are excluded. Whilst practices to change a person’s sexual orientation will be outlawed, attempts to change people’s gender identity, despite being branded as “unethical and potentially harmful” by NHS England, will remain legal.
As a result, the Scottish Conservatives diverged from Westminster voting for a full ban on conversion practices, the Welsh government have condemned the move calling it a “grievous and shameful break of trust”, the government’s LGBT+ adviser for workplace equality has quit and the government’s international LGBTQ+ Summit Safe To Be Me has been axed as sponsors and more than 100 LGBTQ+ groups pulled out.
As if the government’s anti-trans message wasn’t strong enough, this week Johnson weighed in on the complex and nuanced discussion around trans women competing in sport. Whether it’s framing his views on sport around protecting women, or U-turning on the conversion therapy ban under the guise of protecting vulnerable young people, Johnson’s approach is certainly not one of protection - but of exclusion and marginalisation. There is a major difference between safe healthcare provision and diagnostic periods for young people versus attempting to change someone from what they are, which is the aim of conversion therapy. Trans people are especially vulnerable to these dangerous practices, with the government’s own statistics finding that they are almost twice as likely as LGB people to undergo conversion interventions.
If Johnson’s true intention was protecting vulnerable people, discourse would focus on tackling gender-based violence, finding the best ways to encourage and coordinate trans participation in sport (trans people are perpetually underrepresented), tackling inequitable access to healthcare (particularly impacting trans people) and combating harmful stereotypes which portray trans people as a threat. Tackling gender-based violence is especially important for the trans community who experience extremely high rates of abuse, with 41% of trans people experiencing a hate crime or incident because of their gender identity in the last 12 months (despite hate crimes being significantly underreported, disproportionately so in the LGBTQ+ community).
With mounting pressure on 10 Downing Street - around the cost of living crisis, Partygate, skyrocketing Covid cases and criticism over the Home Office’s bureaucratic system for Ukrainian refugees - Johnson seems to be using trans people as a political pawn to rally support amongst the anti-trans movement as local elections approach.
From a man who opposed “gay men in the military”, compared Muslim women in hijabs to “letter boxes” and “bank robbers” and has written in the Telegraph about “tank-topped bum boys”, personal prejudice is hardly surprising. But a politics which turns on the marginalised, attempts to deepen divides and leaves people vulnerable to dangerous conversion practices is a very toxic politics indeed.
#BanConversionTherapy protest Sunday 10th April, 1pm, 10 Downing Street. More info here. You can also write to your MP.