As Labour targets trans rights, Scotland can do better

The National

20-07-2025

Some 38 years on and some other questions spring to mind. Firstly, were Labour really that fun in the 1980s? I wish I'd known her.
And – more depressingly – was all that progress so fragile, so ­insubstantial, that nearly four ­decades later, instead of ­celebrating a new Labour Government as ­champions of LGBT+ rights, we must fear them?
Fear has been the overriding emotion since the General Election last year, when the least right-wing contender for Prime Minister made flip-flopping on trans rights into an Olympic sport (it must be his biological advantage that allows him to excel in that, I suppose).
Since Labour took office, those fears have proven well-founded.
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From pushing full steam ahead with the Tories' efforts to strip back trans ­healthcare, to Keir Starmer's statements about trans people's right to access ­services based on their gender identity, it quickly became clear that any dream of a reprieve from regression would remain just that.
And now, 25 years after the Labour/­LibDem coalition at Holyrood repealed Clause 2A – which barred ­teachers from 'promoting' ­homosexuality in schools – and 22 years after Tony Blair's Labour government followed suit for England and Wales, Starmer's ­Labour have effectively introduced the same ­approach for transgender identity.
In new statutory guidance published last week by the UK Government on sex and relationships education, ­teachers in England are told that, while they should teach about the legally ­protected ­characteristic of gender reassignment, they should avoid using materials which 'encourage pupils to question their gender'.
That such a statement can be ­included in official guidance underlines that the same old unfounded fears about gay ­people are now being rehashed for our trans siblings.
The premise at the heart of this ­directive is that a child or young person can be ­encouraged to be transgender, just like Section 28 implied an inherent risk of homosexuality being 'promoted' to children. Welcome to the Gender Agenda, just like the Gay Agenda, except Labour and the Tories are united over it.
Let's just be clear: these are not ideas that any progressive political party should be endorsing, never mind mandating. Labour knew this 40 years ago when it came to gay people. They certainly knew it after watching the harm that Margaret Thatcher's government caused to both young people and teachers by introducing a policy predicated on these falsehoods.
So how can this same party – insofar as it is the same party – wilfully do the same to trans people now?
In the same section, schools are told to avoid materials that 'could be ­interpreted as being aimed at younger children', and to 'consult parents on the content of ­external resources on this topic in ­advance'. As with other aspects of sex and relationships education, parents have the right to withdraw children from ­lessons.
This part is familiar, not because it harks back to decades past – although it might – but because this is also the policy regarding sex education here in Scotland.
Of course, Scotland has also ­introduced LGBT+-inclusive education across the ­curriculum, so it should not be possible to prevent a child from learning about trans or queer people at all. However, the assumption behind this parental rights approach is worth examining because it has taken centre stage in recent debates – and Scotland is far from immune.
Amidst the moral outrage and proliferation in conspiracy theories of recent years about the supposedly shocking materials children are being exposed to in schools, the number of parents in ­Scotland ­withdrawing their kids from sex ed has quadrupled in the last five years.
When those figures were reported in April, the Tories commented in ­support of parents' right to pull kids from these lessons, while Alba's deputy leader Neale Hanvey blamed the Scottish ­Government's 'gender policy ­difficulties' and its 2021 schools' 'sex survey' for the spike.
But why should we accept that parents have an absolute right to control what their children learn? There are many ­subjects on which we simply wouldn't ­accept that. For example, if a parent ­believes the Earth is flat, should they have a right to pull their children out of classes that teach otherwise?
It's one thing when a handful of ­children are withdrawn from lessons for religious reasons – although I would also quibble with that – but when media-confected hysteria is driving these numbers through the roof, it might be time to look again at who we are allowing to dictate the next generation's access to ­knowledge, and why.
Although there's not much chance of that in England, where the Government's own guidance is being written to appease the fearmongers.
Within the document, schools are ­instructed not to 'teach as fact that all people have a ­gender ­identity', and to ­instead be mindful that there is ­'significant debate' around this and 'be careful not to endorse any ­particular view'.
Only 15 years from the introduction of the Equality Act – by the last Labour Government – and it's now Labour policy that, unlike the other protected characteristics, there is so much debate around trans people that teachers should present 'for and against' arguments about them to children.
Coming just months after the Supreme Court ruling on the meaning of 'sex' in the Equality Act, and the various and ­bizarre extrapolations which have ensued from that, this shouldn't be surprising.
When Starmer wouldn't commit during his election campaign to trans-inclusive policies, or to just about anything, his ­Government was hardly going to seek to upset the trans-exclusionary crowd now when support for his party is tanking.
This is what's most frightening about the Labour leadership. About a lot of political leaders, when push comes to shove. It's not that they're driven by a deeply held belief that any of this is going to make life better for women, girls, children. Nor is it that they're fuelled by a hatred of trans people.
Don't get me wrong, some of them are surely transphobic. The ease with which they've transitioned, if you will, from the role of rainbow-splashed ­allies to ­vanguards of the assault on trans ­people's legal rights alludes to underlying ­prejudices shaken free of pretence.
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Above all, though, all of the ­political ­posturing – the capitulating and ­contorting, the derailing and distorting – that has come to define this Labour Government's approach (and one day, its legacy) on this issue can be condensed and explained by one word: power.
When the tides turn, this Labour Party will do the only thing that those intent upon power and preserving their own self-interest above all else will ever do – grab a surfboard and ride the fucking wave. And rest assured, if they can do that now, about this issue, they'll do it again about the next thing, and the next thing.
But here's the catch: when it comes to vilifying and ostracising ­marginalised people, there is no sweet spot that ­unscrupulous politicians can hit to ­satisfy the agitators. A case in point: so-called 'gender critical' campaigners are still ­angry about the Labour education guidance because it doesn't go far enough.
This should be a lesson to the ­Scottish Government, present and future, while it contends with considerable pressures from those who'd like to see it turn its back on trans people. It's also a ­lesson they might reflect on when deciding whether to progress with legislation which is bound to be met with similar backlash.
You can't control the fires of hate by adding just enough fuel, or by ignoring it – you can only fight it head-on.
Rhoda Meek returns next week