-In the last few years, trans people in Britain
have faced an increasing hostility
from the British press,
and a series of court cases and government decisions
which have threatened their rights in law.
I wanted to find out why Britain
seemed to be so transphobic right now,
so I asked three prominent British trans people.
-Hi there. My name is Juno Dawson.
I'm the author of the new "What's the T?"
and "This Book is Gay."
-My name's Freddy McConnell.
I'm a trans man and a father,
and I'm a writer and a journalist.
I brought a court case in 2018 to try to be registered
as father or parent on my child's birth certificate.
At the moment in the UK,
trans men can only register as mother.
-Hi, my name is Azekel.
My pronouns are they/them,
and I am founder of Black Trans Foundation,
and we provide free therapy for black trans people in the UK,
and I'm also a sociology student in my final year at uni.
-So I'll just ask you just off the bat,
how do you think that transphobia in Britain
got to this point,
and what is it like to be trans in Britain right now?
-So, right now in the UK,
it's really stressful to be trans.
It's very disheartening and alienating and confusing,
I guess, also because, you know,
we haven't always had this transphobia problem.
There hasn't always been a moral panic
happening with regards to the existence of trans people.
-Even in the six years since I came out,
you know, I've seen the tone get distinctly worse.
-I think the British public is very afraid of difference,
because if you look at British history
and if you look at the press in the '70s and '80s,
it was the same articles for gay and lesbian people.
And I think that -- I know this is quite cliche,
but history really repeats itself,
which is why it's very terrifying
to be a trans person in the UK.
-It's hard to overstate quite how much the British press
fixates on trans people these days.
Every week there are new stories in major British newspapers
claiming that there is such a thing as a trans lobby,
which they claim is silencing its critics,
threatening the rights of women and girls,
eliminating the existence of lesbians,
or even endangering children.
-The scary thing is, you know,
a lot of the most vocal transphobes in the UK are,
you know, the academics or journalists or writers,
so they can word their transphobia very eloquently
and very poetically.
-There's often a cycle on a weekly basis
where the Sunday papers will have a big news story
about some new terrible thing
that trans people are doing or --
and so you kind of, like,
gear up to it mentally and you know it's gonna come
and you know not to go on Twitter on certain days.
It's like, really, in a way dictates
some of the stuff that you do.
-And so, you know, people in suburbs and middle England
who have never met a trans person,
who have never thought about tans people
are being told almost daily by the newspapers
that they're consuming that trans people are a concern
that they should be concerned about.
-Transphobia in Britain has found a home
not only among conservatives, as in the United States,
but even among those who would otherwise describe themselves
as feminists,
like "Harry Potter" author JK Rowling,
or even people who write
for liberal publications like The Guardian.
-So, these are feminists who don't believe
that trans women are women and they don't believe
that trans women have a say in the feminist narrative.
And I think that's just a case of they are trying to protect
and defend this idea of women,
but this idea of women only includes one type of woman,
and what is your feminist --
and I'm not just talking about it excluding trans women.
It excludes black women.
It excludes disabled women.
It excludes queer women.
It excludes the varying experiences of what it is
to be a woman
because you are not this one type of woman.
And that's why that kind of feminism is so dangerous,
because in the name of progress and equality and rights,
it actually oppresses and excludes everyone
who doesn't fall into that category.
-This constant negative media attention
to trans people reached a new peak
when the government proposed reforms
to the Gender Recognition Act in 2016.
The GRA was originally passed in 2004,
and it allowed trans people to change their legal gender
and get a new birth certificate.
The GRA was seen as the gold standard
for trans rights at the time,
but today, British trans people and LGBT campaign groups
say that it's overly complicated and outdated.
For example, it requires trans people to submit two years
worth of evidence to an anonymous panel,
including evidence of medical treatment
and a formal diagnosis of gender dysphoria.
In 2018, the government decided to hold a consultation
to find out if the public thought
that trans people should just be able
to self-declare their gender on a legally binding form,
removing the need for a formal diagnosis and panel approval.
-And basically, when talks started about that
and that process started, it was fairly quickly picked up
by people who are very much against trans equality
as a kind of "in," I suppose,
to attacking the rights that we had secured in 2004.
-The process to legally change your gender
in the UK is archaic.
It's outdated, it's humiliating,
and it views changing your gender
as a medical condition or psychological disorder.
-Despite the fact that a majority of the general public
were found to support self-declaration,
the government backtracked
and decided to only implement minor changes,
and the rights of non-binary people,
those who neither identify as a man nor a woman,
has still never even been considered.
-So essentially, I am still invisible in this country.
I can't change my gender to non-binary,
which is what I am.
-In the last few years, trans people have faced more
and more legal and political hurdles.
In December last year,
the High Court of Justice of England and Wales
ordered that children under the age of 16
should no longer be allowed access
to so-called puberty blockers,
hormones which temporarily prevent the onset of puberty,
which allows trans teens to have more time
to consider their options.
This has brought England and Wales into line
with several American states like South Dakota, Texas,
and Alabama, where Republican legislators
are seeking to block access
to puberty blockers for tans kids.
-Very, very few under-16s
are referred to the gender service anyway,
but, you know, those kids who thought they would soon
be getting hormone blockers
and have probably been really hanging on to that reality
have just been told, "Oh, actually, no,
we're not allowed to give you hormone blockers right now."
So it's a really, really scary time,
and even as a trans adult,
you recognize that the courts have such power
to make these changes.
You know, it's quite scary stuff that you start fearing,
well, what if tomorrow a judge in London
decides that I'm not allowed medical treatment?
-How do you hope that Britain moves out of that toxicity,
and how do you hope the future looks for trans people,
and how do we get there?
-There are millions of ordinary Brits
who support trans equality, who might know a trans person,
or if they don't, would support trans equality
if they were just told the simple truth
and if they were allowed the opportunity
to get to know a trans person just as another human being.
Perhaps not in real life, but, you know,
on the telly, on the TV.
Like, if people had those opportunities,
I think that would go a long way to countering the negativity,
'cause at the moment, that's all there is.
-I don't know why my existence bothers people so much,
but if we're not looking at the British press,
because the British press can be very questionable,
if we're looking at the British public,
I do believe that they can change.
I do believe that there
can be adequate support for trans rights.
I think it just takes education.
-You know, it's my hope that trans people will continue
to be visible,
and people will be able to make up their own minds
about trans lives through seeing incredible role models.
And it sounds banal, but my biggest hope
is that people will just get bored,
because do you know what, being trans is really dull.
You know, I'm gonna go take my dog for a walk,
and tonight we will watch TV like everyone else.
You know, I will speak to my mum on Sunday
and make a roast dinner,
and that's what trans life is like.
You know, there is no agenda.
Period.