Labour: Let's Hate Trans People Permanently

Kids are going to die. Adults, too.

Trans kids ARE cool as fuck. They’re also getting metaphorically kicked in the teeth by literally millions of Brit voters and all the politicians. Can I say, “Fuck Labour!” now?

Jo Maugham of the Good Law Project in the UK, an organization which works to promote various progressive causes in courts and legislative processes but which has taken a particular interest in UK treatment of trans people, reports that Starmer has done what I expected Starmer to do. He’s made it clear that he intends to ban puberty blocking treatments permanently.

While many people (including myself) have called out the Tory hatred of trans people, a few (including myself) have been banging on about how Labour might be better on some issues than the Conservative Party, but on trans rights and health care, Labour and the CUP are in lockstep. Both hate our guts.

The courts may yet rule — somehow, my understanding of courts’ authority to overrule Parliament in the UK is weak to non-existent, though that may be because the authority is weak to non-existent — that the ban on puberty blockers for trans use without an accompanying ban on puberty blockers for others constitutes a form of illegal discrimination. Maugham said it this way:

The “emergency ban” here is one we’ve discussed before. Under health and medical safety regulations, the Minister for Health (until recently Victoria Atkins) is allowed to immediately place a three-month block on any particular drug, though the ban cannot last longer without subsequent legislative approval in Parliament.

Some people assumed that when the conservatives lost the July 4 election, that the incoming Labour government would end the ban. But as I have also written, the Labour Party’s “Shadow Minister for Health” AKA “Shadow Health Secretary”¹ endorsed the idea of a ban before the election. While there’s always some uncertainty as to which campaign promises will receive follow through after an election is over, I’ve been saying for some time that these melon-fucking turnip twaddlers fully intended to harm trans people.

And so they will.

Not long ago, a young trans adult killed themselves on the grounds of a UK health clinic that treats gender dysphoria. He had attempted to get care as a teen and was distraught at its ongoing lack even as an adult. While there is no such thing as an uncomplicated suicide, it’s unreasonable to think that the lack of care played anything less than a very large role in this person’s death.

And yet the needle moved not at all. Hilary Cass covered up how suicides increased as care decreased, both Labour and the Tories nominated her for a peerage for her “service,” Atkins installed a temporary ban on much of trans youth care, and now incoming Prime Minister Starmer is pledging to make one of the key pieces of that ban permanent.

In the absolute best case the UK’s anti-trans care era will resemble Ireland’s anti-abortion era, and we’ll see more and more trans people die from Britain’s national political hostility until some physically attractive and socially generous dentist dies in a particularly cruel way, the news manages to get hold of it, and after a couple years’ organizing the populace votes that maybe doctors providing health care isn’t an entirely evil thing.

But make no mistake, the UK hasn’t been on the “best” path for quite a while. This is only going to get more ugly for quite some time, and any resolution isn’t yet foreseeable.

1. A person appointed by a party out of power to respond to the governing party’s policies in a given area is a “Shadow Secretary” or “Shadow Minister”