‘Now more than ever, solidarity with the LGBTQ+ Asriel Wilde

Perhaps a few years ago, the prime minister’s statement would have been correct. Until 2015, the UK was consistently ranked by the Rainbow Map as being the best European nation for LGBTQ+ rights. However, by 2020, it had fallen to 9th place. By 2021, it had entered 10th place. This year, it has fallen to 14th place. The UK has allowed itself to enter a freefall while allowing many European and South American countries such as Brazil, France, Norway, Argentina and Cyprus, the latter of which has taken the UK’s spot as the best European country to be LGBTQ+, to steam ahead of it through implementing policies such as the right for transgender and gender-diverse people to self identify, a policy which the UK shelved in 2020 under pressure from ‘gender-critical’ activists. Additionally, in 2021, the UK shelved its proposals to ban conversion therapy for transgender people, a barbaric practise considered in some circumstances to be akin to torture by the UN.

What is particularly scary is how the anti-trans rhetoric of the 2020s mirrors the anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric of the 1980s. Margaret Thatcher’s now-infamous 1987 speech in which she declared “we are teaching children they have an inalienable right to be gay” during which she announced her proposal to introduce Section 28 is mirrored by a speech by Suella Braverman, the home secretary, in September during which she criticised the teaching of trans issues in schools. She also criticised schools that allow trans people to socially transition by using their preferred pronouns and adopting the uniform that makes them most comfortable. Tavistock and Portman NHS Trust, the only site in the UK with a gender identity service, has been accused by the press as “transing the gay away”. Trans identities are often portrayed as a fad or a phase as opposed to an innate aspect of a person and the government’s own National LGBT Survey found that only 9.4% of transgender people identify as straight.

This artificial attempt to sow division within the LGBTQ+ community is not without consequence. A recent YouGov poll has shown that support for trans rights has been eroded since 2018, and police forces across the UK have identified a 56% increase in hate crimes against transgender people between 2021 and 2022, the largest jump out of any of the protected characteristics. The NHS, under pressure from the government, has recently drafted tighter restrictions on gender-affirming care for young people in the UK, suggesting that identifying as transgender is just “a phase”. The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism (JCEM) found that only 8% of trans people choose to detransition and of those the majority only choose to do so temporarily.

This faux panic around causing harm to young people through ‘unquestioning’ promotion of ‘trans ideology’ is often centred around the premise that affirming trans identities, particularly through medical intervention, is often irreversible though this is not the case. People under 18 cannot undergo genderaffirming surgery in the UK and puberty blockers are only given to young people after years of intensive therapy during which all other options are explored. Hormone replacement therapy is only given to people over 16, and even then, only after even more extensive therapy.

Stonewall has found that two in five trans people in the UK believe that they have been hate crimed, and two in five trans young people have attempted suicide. One in eight have reported being physically attacked by colleagues or customers at work. Additionally, a 2020 Galop poll found that 80% of trans people had experienced a hate crime in the previous twelve months, demonstrative of an alarming increase in anti-trans hate crime perpetrated by individuals who are bolstered by increasingly divisive rhetoric from those who are supposed to protect us.

This highlights the importance of effective allyship with our community. We make up around 3.1% of the UK’s population, and the proportion of trans people is even slimmer. In college, we make up only around 7.4% of the student body. We can’t win this fight on our own. We have already made the case that transphobia very much does exist, and it seems to be getting worse. Trans people have existed for thousands of years, and no amount of discrimination will change that. YouGov has found that a majority

of Britons are sympathetic to trans issues, and it is probable that the trans panic will one day blow over. However, for a community which has proven to be one increasingly prone to cheap political point scoring and inflammatory jibes, and a community in which a majority of its members have experienced hate crimes, abuse or discrimination, it certainly feels as though things are about to get worse before they get better.

Phae Inçledon

Fight Club is a skilfully crafted short novel by Chuck Palahniuk, and is a masterclass precedent for transgressive literature, exploring the life of a man who develops a second personality* – Tyler Durden to escape the draining, capitalistic, and repetitive routine he is entrapped in, working in a blue-collar job and suffering with insomnia. The novel went on to be adapted into the 1999 David Fincher film featuring Edward Norton, Brad Pitt and Helena Bonham Carter, as well as being considered one of the largest, most significant, staples of pop culture in decades. Though Fight Club is often attributed to being a virile critique of corporate America, through masculine denotations such as gratuitous violence and assertion of power, a less common albeit quite present approach is that of queer theory, as both the novel and film are intrinsically rich with homoerotic subtext from the onset.

The basis of a queer interpretation of Fight Club is grounded on the significance of fighting - the physical, and perhaps emotional, intimacy attributed to fighting shares a substantial likeness to sex; perhaps serving as a cautious, pseudo-sexual tactic employed by The Narrator due to his inability to pursue a nonfictitious homosexual relationship. The Narrator’s (or ‘Tyler's’) myriad of sexual innuendos are only apparent when looked at through this approach, such as instances where Tyler’s implements the rules of ‘only two guys to a fight’, and ‘no shirt, no shoes’, which are largely suggestive to facets of engaging in sex. Additionally, the secrecy of these fights, echoed in Tyler’s rule of ‘Do not talk about Fight Club’, addresses and mirrors how a closeted gay man may be unable to disclose any details of his sexuality.

Moreover, it can be inferred that Tyler is the physical manifestation of The Narrator’s desires, ‘all the things you wish you could be – are me’, Tyler is depicted to be attractive, successful and outgoing – greatly contrasting The Narrator’s introverted and withdrawn disposition, as it can be observed he has no preexisting friendships prior to Tyler’s appearance, only exacerbated by his struggles with insomnia. And while this could largely be interpreted as The Narrator’s own contempt for himself taking a tangible form, this envious perspective is greatly overshadowed by what can be understood as Tyler being The Narrator’s ‘ideal man’, the product of his own internalised standards for what a man, or rather a partner, should be.