- Conference
- 2022 National LGBT+ Conference
- Date
- 29 July 2022
- Decision
- Carried
Conference notes that the trans community has seen an escalation in the volume and the toxicity of anti-trans articles across all media platforms in recent years, to a level now that is almost beyond comprehension.
While the initial increase was commonly attributed to the United Kingdom (UK) wide rise in negative sentiment shown to all minority groups during the Brexit campaign, for trans people, the impact of the decision of Theresa May’s government to hold a public consultation on reviewing the 2004 Gender Recognition Act (GRA) was clear.
This proposed GRA review saw several campaign groups established with the sole aim of opposing any reform. Over the last 7 years , these groups have secured funding to lobby MP’s and prominent public figures.
According to trans activist @mimmymum, over the last 7 years there has been an average of 154 articles on trans people published every month by the United Kingdom’s media (excluding LGBT+ media).
That means there has been 13,015 articles published in the UK news media on trans topics between 2015 and 2022 and just in May 2022 there were over 16 a day.
The Daily Mail alone published 163 trans related articles during May 2022. This is in respect to a community that makes up less than 1% of the population.
Conference notes that this staggering number of articles are primarily used to generate fear, disgust and mistrust of the trans community. This consistent negative press has resulted in a false air of legitimacy to the claims of the anti-trans campaign groups who have been working to remove the rights of trans people.
They have influenced several Government Ministers and other politicians from across all parties (and in both houses) to the extent that these Parliamentarians now openly support the idea that trans people should not be given access to single sex spaces. In fact, the rights of trans people has become such a talking point for certain sections of our society that every candidate in the latest Conservative Party leadership election campaign thought it necessary to take an anti-trans stance and include this in their list of priorities to address should they become Prime Minister
Conference believes that while UNISON is a proud and passionate supporter of trans rights, we still have work to do across the wider trade union movement to combat the anti-trans rhetoric and calls on the national LGBT+ committee to:
1. Work with the national executive committee and service group executives to encourage members to enrol in UNISON’s trans ally training, which highlights the media’s role in exasperating transphobia;
2. Add an objective to the national LGBT+ committee’s trans equality campaign to combat anti-trans narratives in the media and devise a factsheet with information about what members can practically do to help;
3. Seek to work with the trades union congress’ LGBT+ committee to counter anti-trans narratives in the media.