The gender wars are being fuelled by a Tory government – don’t let infighting destroy the LGBTQ+ community’s greatest champion
The UK’s national LGBTQ+ charity, Stonewall, has recently been accused of advocating for trans rights. Six years ago, there was another “Stonewall question”, but the issue wasn’t whether the organisation should be advocating for trans rights, but instead why it wasn’t.
For those of us who remember these fights, it’s discombobulating to witness a reframing of Stonewall as a sinister organisation that sneaked trans rights on to its agenda when nobody was looking. The very opposite was the case: it was hard won. Many petitions were circulated, letters written and debates had. The inclusion of trans men, trans women and all transgender people eventually followed in 2015.
Finn Mackay is the author of Female Masculinities and the Gender Wars and is a senior lecturer in sociology at the University of the West of England in Bristol
