Members of the transgender community are left feeling “scared for their safety” after Sunak targets them publicly.
Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, stirred up some controversy last Wednesday during his closing speech at the 2023 Conservative Party conference.
Sunak’s statement “a man is a man, and a woman is a woman, that’s just common sense”, has proven damaging to the transgender community and has caused multiple protests through central London in the past week.
Twenty-year-old third year student at the University of Kent, Erin, identifies as non-binary and thinks “it’s scary that the man that runs our country doesn’t agree with our existence.”
In fact, they said, “the moment I heard these words come out of his mouth, my heart dropped and all I could feel was dread for the future.”
Erin said, “It took a toll on me mentally for a while, I even cried listening to it.”
After seeing comments online, agreeing with his statements, it made them question whether to “go back into the closet” about their gender identity again, because they didn’t know what people would think or what they could do if they believe and follow “the cruel words of a bigot.”
Erin is currently the welfare officer for the University of Kent’s LGBTQ+ society on campus and said that Sunak’s statements have affected them as a group massively.
They explain how it is really quite upsetting for a lot of queer people and they think the idea of togetherness is more important for them as a society currently.
Some members of the society took part in the protest held this Wednesday outside Downing Street, fighting for transgender rights.
One of these members being Casper, a non-binary student that has been a part of the LGBTQ+ society at the University of Kent for two years now.
Casper said people brought their anger and their sadness but were largely anti-violent and just asked for recognition and respect.
They also said “people shouted, cried, came out and declared their love”, which made them tear up.
After these statements come to light last week, Casper told us, they didn’t leave the house or their bed for days and turned what was a bad week, worse.
They added they “would start crying out of nowhere, I guess in pure despair.”
Casper urgently calls for people to reach out to members of the transgender community as they told us they “really just needed someone they care about to tell them it would all be okay.”
Erin states, “something needs to change” and thinks “it is absolutely disgraceful and disheartening to hear our Prime Minster refer to transgender and non-conforming identities like this.”
They go on to say they are unsure what this means for the transgender community but know that it’ll make them scared for the future under a conservative government, because they are uncertain what their next steps in concern to this are.
First year student at the University of Kent, Jessica, is a transgender woman that has been on hormone replacement therapy for two and a half years.
She is part of the LGBTQ+ society within the University which aims to support members of this community and bring everyone together by creating a safe space for them all.
She said she tries to avoid discussing transgender topics outside of that society, however, found that “the outright hatred displayed by Sunak towards people like me, has made it harder for family members to downplay my fears and worries about the future.”
Not only this, but she feels “the worst it yet to come”, as she explains that the government is laying the groundwork for an attempt to rewrite the Equality Act 2010 to make the legal characteristic of ‘sex’, no longer legal but sex assigned at birth.
Jessica said, she understands the public’s knowledge of a transgender woman is that of a “hairy, tall beast in a skirt” but can confirm that this is less and less the case as younger generations of transgender people start hormone replacement therapy earlier.
However, her worry after Sunak’s statements, is that there might soon be a law banning this therapy and making living in public much more challenging for transgender people.
She said, “For me, the only way forward is through representation and transgender people just being able to openly exist in society, which changing the Equality act could jeopardise.”
Another transgender woman, that does not want to be named, studying at the University of Kent spoke to us about how Sunak’s statement really made her feel.
After seeing these comments spread over the internet, she said, “It threw me into a massive spiral of emotions; hatred, anger, sorrow and depression and it’s truly making me scared for my safety.”
She claims that his remarks have “just signed a waiver for all transphobes to attack transgender people; because if he can publicly do it, they can too.”
And even states that she knows other transgender people who have been made to feel suicidal and thinks there shouldn’t be this “taboo” over stating comments like this.
As a transgender woman, the pain caused is “immeasurable”, and she said the will to keep going was fading.
However, she said that seeing various posts online, such as, TikTok, YouTube and social media and posts, directly from influences and celebrities standing up for the transgender community, gave her hope again.
And that at the end of the day she just wants equal rights;
“We just want to live; we’re not harming anyone.”