If you live in the United States, you’re probably familiar with our homegrown culture war over trans issues, pushed primarily by Christian activists of the far right, which has resulted in a slew of anti-trans laws in various GOP-controlled states, with hundreds of further bills under consideration already this year. Across the pond, the U.K. has had its own version of this anti-trans “backlash,” characterized by constant discussion of, and attacks on, the trans community in its news media. Anti-trans rhetoric is so common in the U.K. that Great Britain has been nicknamed “TERF Island” (with TERF short for trans-exclusionary radical feminist, a type of anti-trans activist) among trans people.
So it was surprising, then, to witness the British prime minster make a mildly transphobic comment earlier this month and find himself met with intense criticism from the press and the public. What was different in this case? And does it suggest anything encouraging about shifting opinion in the U.K.? You’ve got questions, we’ve got answers.
So what exactly happened here? The PM said something bad?
Ahead of an anticipated general election in the U.K. later this year, the current prime minister, Rishi Sunak, of the Conservative Party, is under heavy fire for a “gibe” he took at the leader of the opposition over the definition of the word woman. On Feb. 7, Sunak joked that the opposition leader, Keir Starmer, couldn’t consistently define a woman, a jab at his support for trans rights. While, again, this sort of rhetoric is entirely commonplace in U.K. politics, the public reaction this time has been overwhelmingly negative, with calls for Sunak to apologize and numerous op-eds expressing disgust with Sunak’s behavior. The reason? Sunak made the comment on the same day when the mother of a murdered transgender girl was visiting the House of Commons.
This seems simple enough. Sunak is under fire for making a snide transphobic comment. Transphobia is wrong, and the right-thinking citizenry of the U.K. is outraged that a political leader would engage in it, right?
Right! Welllll… Not really right at all, actually. In fact, this scandal is brain-meltingly confusing even for transgender people in the U.K.
PM Sunak accused Labor’s Starmer of “breaking every single promise he was elected on” and then proceeded to list the supposed broken promises. The list included things like pensions and tuition fees and ended with the “gibe” that Starmer had even done a U-turn on “defining a woman.”
It’s worth noting that Sunak has repeatedly attacked the trans community in very similar terms, often even being more direct. For example, he recently posted, “A man is a man and a woman is a woman—that’s just common sense” on Facebook on Dec. 4, apropos of nothing. While this sort of gratuitous taunting of the trans community for no good reason has been decried by queer folks in the U.K., it has never been seen by the larger public as a national scandal, nor have similar comments by previous Tory prime ministers (nor ones from Labor politicians, which we’ll get to in a moment).
Ah, gotcha. Sunak and other U.K. politicians are transphobic all the time, with little outcry. Well, what was different about this time?
This time, Esther Ghey (pronounced “Jai”) was visiting the House of Commons to watch the session and meet with Starmer about improving the safety of young people, particularly trans youth, in Britain.
OK. Why does that make a difference?
Esther Ghey is the mother of Brianna Ghey, a 16-year-old trans girl who was brutally stabbed to death, in a park, in broad daylight, by two classmates in February of last year. The killers were a girl she believed to be her friend and a boy who’d shared violent fantasies with the other 15-year-old. In court, prosecutors showed how they plotted Brianna’s murder in a series of text messages that included incredibly transphobic comments, including discussions of Brianna’s genitals and whether she’d “scream like a man or a girl” when they killed her. On the day of the murder, they lured her to a park and killed her, stabbing her 28 times before running away, with each child ultimately pointing fingers at the other.
The case and the subsequent trial, conviction, and sentencing of the two teenage killers has resulted in sensationalized wall-to-wall coverage in the U.K. media for the past year. Meanwhile, Esther Ghey, who always supported her daughter in life, has spoken about her frequently, praising Brianna’s school for supporting her social transition, saying how much she appreciates the outpouring of support from the LGBTQ+ community, but also speaking with empathy for the parents of her daughter’s killers.
Apparently, the presence of the mother of a murdered trans teen when Sunak made his comment is what made this a scandal.
It almost sounds like the scandal wasn’t Sunak’s transphobia but his poor timing?
It certainly feels that way to the U.K.’s transgender community, which is struggling to understand why the relentlessly transphobic U.K. press and polity are suddenly displaying shock and outrage over a, let’s be honest, fairly mild transphobic comment of the type that’s been repeatedly made by members of both major parties.
To complicate things still further, it turns out Esther Ghey had not even arrived at the House of Commons at the exact time of Sunak’s comment. However, both Starmer and Sunak believed her to be in attendance, and Starmer immediately drew attention to her (presumed) presence by shaming Sunak for taking such a cheap shot when Esther Ghey was visiting.
Hang on, back up, BOTH major parties? I thought for sure that Labor was the good guy in this story.
Perhaps the most ironic part of this whole thing is that Sunak’s gibe about Starmer’s flip-flopping on this issue wasn’t even really inaccurate. Starmer has distanced himself from Labor’s previous position, which supported streamlining legal document changes for trans people in the U.K. (a process that has been labeled “self-ID” and misrepresented as having something to do with women’s safety by the likes of J. K. Rowling).
Starmer even kowtowed to the brigade of anti-trans activists who demand that every politician define the word women by saying that “a woman is an adult female.” This is a string of words demanded by anti-trans activists as a kind of litmus test because they think it leaves out trans women from the definition, and they count it as a victory when a politician parrots it.
This is a weird episode but mainly depressing. Surely there must be something positive about the U.K. press or the wider public finally recognizing a transphobic comment as a bad thing?
Yeah, the politicization of the murder of an innocent 16-year-old is not a fun subject. But there is one somewhat encouraging development coming out of this fracas.
While trans people are understandably feeling a bit of whiplash at the moment, the harsh public response to Esther Ghey being (kind of) present for a transphobic comment by a politician could indicate that Brianna’s murder has diminished the public appetite for open transphobia from U.K. politicians. It’s even possible that Brianna’s death has finally humanized transgender girls in the eyes of the press and the public as being vulnerable and in need of protection.
For a while, the U.K. press consistently downplayed the role of transphobia in Brianna’s killing, instead focusing on the most lurid details of the murder. However, when the killers were sentenced, both the judge and the prosecutor in the case finally named transphobia as a motive in the murder, with the prosecutor explicitly calling it a hate crime.
It’s tragic that the death of a teenager would be required before people in the U.K. recognized the way widespread transphobic messages can warp the minds of unstable people, helping them convince themselves their trans victims are something less than human. However, to have this brutal transphobic killing take place with no such reckoning would be an even greater tragedy.
