What the news weekly 03-04-22

My god it’s certainly been a week. And what a week it has been. I think I’ve aged 10 years in the space of 7 days. The news has mostly been dominated by the EHRC endorsing some shit. But before we get to that, let’s recap the events of Monday.

I don’t think I established last week that with this weekly recap, this has a UK based focus, so if you see a lack of US based news, that is why. 

Monday

Research from LGBT+ young people’s charity Just Like Us found that 96% of young (17-25) lesbians are supportive of trans people 

To start the week, we have some allyship! On Monday, news came out of a survey of 3600 adults aged 17-25, which found that a whopping 96% of lesbians were supportive of trans identities! This of course comes as a relief for many. It proves that orgs like the LGB Alliance and the more recently formed Lesbian Project represent nothing but a minority view that does not deserve the influence it has had on UK politics.

TSN calls out institutional capture of the EHRC

But that wasn’t the only news from Monday. I suppose some accidental foreshadowing for Tuesday… 

It pointed to the EHRC’s appointments system and how it was weaponized against the trans community. 

While TSN did an excellent piece, one point that they missed was that EHRC’s funding is secured and allocated by the government. This means that as well as the leadership being controlled by the government, it is held to ransom too. That needs to change as well. 

Swimming England bans trans woman from woman’s races 

Swim England Transgender and Non-binary Competition policy

Following up from that… Swimming England announced a ban on trans women from the “female” category..

Reactions were filled with disappointment, including Mermaids who called for the decision to be reversed. 

Mermaids cited their own recent research, which found that 79% of trans youth felt their gender identity was a barrier to taking part in physical activity and sports.

People stealing LGBTQIA books from shelves of libraries

Libraries issued with instructions for securing buildings 

Recently, Irish libraries have been told that they need to secure their buildings as protestors have been stealing LGBTQ+ books,

More churches call for dropping conversion therapy bans,claiming it will “criminalise Christians” 

Scotland: Church groups attack conversion therapy ban (thepinknews.com) 

Hot off the heels of the Scottish Government’s attempt at gender recognition reform, they are now working on their own devolved conversion therapy ban. And with that, certain Scottish churches will lobby and spout hateful crap. 

I don’t often speak of my faith, but these so-called “Christian” institutions who call for this to be dropped, to me should never be named “Christian”; they speak of hate and not God’s love. And they do not speak on behalf of God, they speak the opposite of God’s will. 

Drag queen Jinkx Monsoon to appear in a major role in the new series of Doctor Who!

Doctor Who on Twitter: 

So with Pete MacHale and Yasmin Finney, now we have Jinkx Monsoon (they/them) coming to the fore too! And with Russell T Davies at the helm! This is going to be one hell of a series. And I think we are all hyped for this. 

Tuesday

Now for the big news story of the week…

Tuesday is the day the EHRC responded to Kemi Badendoch’s request for them to provide advice on how to define Sex under the equality act. And as you have guessed, it did not go well… 

The EHRC just said that allowing barring trans people from spaces and services is worth considering 

There will be an explanation in the article above. 

But this rightly attracted a lot of criticism and led to a petition raising over 100,000 signatures in 3 days, asking the government not to change the Equality Act. 

This particular story is still developing, so it will be interesting to see what happens in the next few weeks.

The ECHR says Trans parents can be deadnamed and misgendered on their child’s birth certificates in Germany. 

European Court of Human Rights disappoints trans families:

In two recent court cases, two trans parents had their deadnames and previous gender recorded instead of their current names and genders, in their child’s birth certificate. Despite the fact that they had their genders changed before the child’s birth.

Protect Trans Kids poster appears in new Spiderman trailer. 

In the latest Into The Spiderverse trailer, it can be seen partway through that one of the characters appeared with a poster on their wall saying “Protect trans kids’ ‘. Always good to see this sort of thing in films.

Wednesday

Labour Welcomes a review into the Equality Act

Labour welcomes UK Equality Act review (archive.is)

On Wednesday, a Labour spokesperson said in response to the Government’s announcement: “Clarification is a good thing, we will look closely at what’s brought forward”. 

Now if I read through the lines, they didn’t technically support defining sex as biological sex, just that the term sex needs to be clarified. But if they do that, that is a very middle of the road approach, and if anything still shows a complete abandonment of the trans community. Because even if things are clarified, the EHRC said taking away trans people’s rights is “worth considering”. That in itself should receive opposition. But Labour didn’t choose to oppose that, did they? 

Trans Rights organisations meet the EHRC leadership after disastrous guidance to the government.

Trans Actual on Twitter:

So, in this meeting with groups like Translucent and Trans Actual, the EHRC came out with all kinds of crap and also admitted it lost the trust of the trans community. 

This shows they know that what they advised was bad, would cause massive suffering Leading to thousands of trans people living in fear. And chose to go ahead with it anyway. 

Thursday

International Asexuality day!

Stonewall on Twitter: “Happy #InternationalAsexualityDay! 

And on Thursday it was International Asexuality Day! Always love to give visibility to our ace pals. Plus, I love the shortened version of the word Asexual to be Ace. It’s an awesome name. You could say they Aced the name. 

Unfortunately with the ace community they are too often ignored or actively erased. So in the tweet above, there should be a shit ton of resources in how best to support our Ace pals.

Teaching unions want more drag! 

Teaching union calls for more drag events in UK schools

In a recent conference at the NEU, a motion passed calling for the NEU executives to publicly support these initiatives and encourage a more inclusive atmosphere to schools. Quite in contrast with what is rumoured for the government’s latest guidance on trans kids. 

Friday

Baroness Falkner responds to criticism of guidance she issued

‘It’s distressing to be called transphobic scum’

One takeaway that many people didn’t really pay attention to was the fact that this challenged Falkner on the independence of the EHRC and how it’s role was to not get embroiled in politics. I hadn’t seen this line of questioning towards the EHRC leadership before. And with TSN’s recent postings about it, and an increased focus on it, I would say it is a very good change in messaging that reached the Times. That shouldn’t be ignored. 

Saturday

Chris Tyson from MR Beast comes out as Gender non conforming.

Chris Tyson opens up about gender journey 

To those under the age of 30, this may not seem to be that big. But this is fucking massive. 

Sunday

Humza Yousaf to announce plans for court action against the section 35 order

https://www.heraldscotland.com/politics/23443075.humza-yousaf-announce-court-action-gender-bill-veto/

I can only bet this is going to be the main story next week, unless the tories do something more dramatic or evil. 

Conclusion

It’s been a very busy week and with that, lots of news. This is one of the longer recaps I’ve done. And I even had to take out some stories due to how much had happened. Fingers crossed it is an easier week next week.