Why has the Transgender community been left behind? Rampant increase in transphobia and the role of the media
On September 21ST 2023 Elizabeth Clery and the National Centre for Social Research (NCSR) published a report entitled ‘BSA 40: A liberalisation in attitudes?’. Within this report the overall findings were mostly expected, the British public was becoming more liberal in its views of Same-Sex relationships, Sex outside of marriage and of single-parent families. Surprisingly however, British attitudes towards those within the Transgender community had dropped rather drastically in the last number years. It is findings like this that make it essential to investigate why Transphobia is on the rise.
Examining the figures of increased Transphobia
Clery and NCSR’s report presents the following statistics, 64% of those questioned described themselves as ‘not prejudiced at all against people who are transgender’, this is a decline of 18% from 82% in 2019 (Clery, 2023). As well as this, only 30% of those questioned believe that those who are Transgender should be able to have the ‘sex on their birth certificate altered’, down drastically from 53% in 2019 (Clery, 2023). This illustration of an increase in transphobia is not merely isolated to Clerys report. In the National hate crime report for England and Wales, published every year by the Home Office, it is shown that in the years 2022/23 the recorded number of hate crimes targeted towards transgender individuals numbered a staggering 4,732. This figure of 4,732 hate crimes represented an increase of 11% from 2021/22 which recorded 4,262 Transphobic hate crimes and an increase of over 100% from the figure of 2,253 transphobic hate crimes in 2018/19 (The Home Office , 2023). This Data provided by the Home Office is in line with the findings of the NCSR, as it is reasonable to assume that when acceptance of transgender individuals decreases, hate crime against the group will increase.
In the period of 2021-2023 the number of hate crimes towards individuals for their ‘sexual orientation’ decreased by -6%, so why is it that while acceptance of a scope of sexual orientations increases, acceptance of transgender individuals has decreased? It may have a lot to do with the attitude of the Media.
Media and the Platforming of Transphobia
In the Hate Crimes report of 2023, the Home Office state that the rise in Transphobic hate crimes may be because ‘’Transgender issues have been heavily discussed by politicians, the media and on social media over the last year, which may have led to an increase in these offences’’ (The Home Office , 2023). It is not only the exposure of transgender issues in the media that I believe has led to the increase in Hate crimes, but rather the negative bias and spin media places on transgender issues. For example, The Daily Mail is a newspaper that proudly sits on the right on most social issues (Smith, 2017) and has consistently published negative articles regarding transgender individuals. On the day this blog was written the Daily Mail alone published 7 articles in relation to transgender issues, with headlines such as ‘’Hairy-chested, dress-wearing trans mayor of Mexican border town says they’re being ‘bullied’ …’’ (Williams, 2024). The transphobia within even the headline of this article is apparent, with the refusal to use she/her pronouns to describe the individual, and the term ‘’hairy-chested’’ blatantly defeminizing the individual. The rampant posting of transgender issues on the Daily Mail shows ‘’a rise from six articles in January 2013 to a jaw-dropping 115 articles in January 2023 (+1817%).’’ (Folan, 2023). The bias of these articles is also staggering, of the 115 transgender articles that were published in January 2023, 100 of them (87%) could be categorized as negative, compared to zero negative articles in 2013 (Folan, 2023).
It’s not just mainstream media that is guilty of perpetuating transphobia to the general public. While addressing the 1922 conservative Committee, the leader of our Government, Prime Minister Sunak was quoted as making transphobic comment ‘’Like me, you can probably see that he was trying to convince everybody that women clearly had penises. You’ll all know that I’m a big fan of everybody studying maths to 18, but it turns out that we need to focus on biology.” (Walker, 2023).
If our Prime Minister is confident in being openly transphobic to his fellow MPs while refusing to apologise and the bias negative media attention, how can we be surprised as the increase in transphobia and transphobic attacks within the UK.
Bibliography
Clery, E., 2023. A liberalisation in attitudes? – British Social Attitudes 40, London : National Centre for Social Research .
Folan, E., 2023. Welcome to Terf Island: How Anti-Trans Hate Skyrocketed 156% in Four Years. [Online]
Available at: https://novaramedia.com/2023/02/20/welcome-to-terf-island-how-anti-trans-hate-skyrocketed-156-in-four-years/
[Accessed 14 April 2024].
Smith, M., 2017. How left or right-wing are the UK’s newspapers?. [Online]
Available at: https://yougov.co.uk/politics/articles/17715-how-left-or-right-wing-are-uks-newspapers
[Accessed 14 April 2024].
The Home Office , 2023. Hate crime, England and Wales, 2022 to 2023 second edition, London: The Home Office .
Walker, P., 2023. Rishi Sunak accused of mocking trans people in joke to Tory MPs. [Online]
Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/jun/19/rishi-sunak-accused-of-mocking-trans-people-in-joke-to-tory-mps
[Accessed 12 April 2024].
Williams, M., 2024. Hairy-chested, dress-wearing trans mayor of Mexican border town says they’re being ‘bullied’ out of office and will become more vulnerable without the protection of being an elected official. [Online]
Available at: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13297695/Hairy-chested-dress-wearing-trans-mayor-Mexican-border-town-says-theyre-bullied-office-vulnerable-without-protection-elected-official.html?ico=topics_pagination_desktop
[Accessed 11 April 2024].
Brilliant use of research to preface the article. Further, there was a detailed analysis of statistics, which revealed some really disturbing facts about attitudes towards transgender people in Britain. There was a good analysis of how the media is biased against transgender people. Overall, this is an excellent post which covers a very important topic, especially when government party officials are being accused of making transphobic remarks: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-hereford-worcester-67650988
I was immediately compelled to read this blog post as the issue of both trans rights and increasing transphobia has been heightening across in both the media and politics, especially within the UK. The author has successfully used statistics to illustrate the increasing hostility that is exhibited towards trans people in the UK, especially with regards to issues such as how they can legally express themselves. I also appreciate the author of the blog post including the increase in physical attacks that trans people have faced in the UK alone, at a staggering 100% increase in just five years. Furthermore, the author of the blog post successfully delved into the role of both the media and politicians have had in villainising the trans community, especially the Daily Mail, as mentioned by the author of the blog post. Additionally, the author of this blog post has mentioned that transphobia within politicians has reached that of the Prime Minister, who in a statement, made openly transphobic comments, with little to no remorse or pushback from his colleagues. Further highlighting the overt rise in transphobia throughout British society.
This post was a really informative. I chose it because I didn’t know too much about the topic. It provided me with ample statistics and media overview concerning the rise of transphobia. Having all the statistics laid out provided a barefaced truth about how transphobic this country has become, the media using trans people as a way to get easy reads and start controversy was explained well and I found that the discussion concerning Rishi Sunak and his influence was also impactful. I would like to hear their take on the SNP approach to Trans rights and how they feel this will impact or not the British approach to legislation.,
I think you should read my reply below. There’s little about any of this that is “barefaced” unfortunately, and that’s to say nothing of “truth”.
This article posed the interesting question of if the acceptance of a scope of sexual orientations has increased then why has the acceptance of transgender decreased? The author has laid out clear data, highlighted by Clery’s report indicating this pattern underscoring the urgent need for societal change. The medias’ role in this cannot be underestimated, how they portray transgender individuals in the past has fuelled prejudiced and misunderstanding (Davidson, Farquhar, 2020). The author effectively uses the example of the Daily Mail’s theatrical and degrading coverage on transgender topics as a clear picture of how media bias can perpetrate societal intolerance. However, I provide a contrasting view in that media can also play a powerful role in normalising transgender individuals in society and providing them with a platform for their voice. For example, Neidanmark highlights the positive effect media can have on representation of transgender individuals, articles produced by the BBC and other news outlets shed positive light on the issues faced by transgender individuals and provide wider society with a deeper understanding (2023).
The previous commenters heap high praise on the unnamed author, who has succeeded in misleading them entirely.
The author fails to note that the method of recording hate crimes by the police underwent a significant “improvement” which was reflected in the results for 2021-22. This gave a 56% increase in recorded transgender “hate crimes” for that year. Curiously, the author chooses not to draw attention to this statistic, referring instead to the 100% increase since 2018.
This may be because, in the Home Office notes on the statistics for that year which explain the change, the following caveat occurs: “Police forces have made significant improvements in how they record crime since 2014. They have also improved their identification of what constitutes a hate crime. Because of these changes, police recorded crime figures do not currently provide reliable trends in hate crime. The figures do, however, provide a good measure of the hate crime-related demand on the police.”
Whether they provide a good measure of anything solid is an open question, since they now record vaxatious calls as “hate crime” whether or not it is even followed up, ie. resulting in charges and/or summons.
For those details, one has to look at the Crime Outcomes statistics from the Home Office. In 2021-22 5.5% of recorded “crime” resulted in a charge or summons. In 2022-23 this figure rose to 5.7%. A charge or summons is the very least the police or a court have to issue in order to show that a crime *may have been* committed; establish whether or not a crime *has* been committed and who is the guilty party. This is called *due process*. In bandying around these figures, the author overlooks this entirely (one might say conveniently) and misleads the reader. (Crime outcomes in England and Wales 2022 to 2023)
In 2019, IPSO published research on media coverage of trans issues from 2009-2019. The research was carried out by Mediatique. It identified a 400% increase in coverage volume within the sample publications over the five years to 2019. It found more sensitive use of language pertaining to trans issues evolving over the research period. It analysed 12,000 publications, carried out case studies (such as around Caitlin Jenner’s story) and in-depth interviews with editors and focus groups. It was robust research. It found that the meagre amount of coverage deemed “negative” occurred at a time of increased press scrutiny of proposed changes to the Gender Recognition Act 2004.
“Mediatique’s analysis showed that there was an improvement in journalists’ use of appropriate terminology during the period analysed (January 2010 – May 2019) but also a tonal change in the relevant news coverage from mocking (at the beginning of the decade) to supportive or neutral (in the mid-2010s) and, finally, to questioning (towards the end of the study period).”
(See: ‘Mediatique Report on Coverage of Transgender Issues – IPSO’ and ‘Transgender reporting in the British press: editorial standards and discursive harms in the post-Leveson era’ by Dimitris Akrivos, Journal of Media Law.)
In 2018 (ARK report finds that majority of people in Northern Ireland not prejudiced towards transgender people) 72% of Northern Ireland Life and Times survey respondents described themselves as ‘not prejudiced at all’ towards transgender people. Among the people who were strongly prejudiced towards gay people said they were not prejudiced towards trans people: “In fact, over one third of those who believe same-sex relations to be ‘always’ or ‘almost always’ wrong (38%), and over one third of those who do not support marriage equality (36%), defined themselves as ‘not prejudiced’ towards transgender people. (See: ‘The Missing T: Baselining Attitudes Towards Transgender People in Northern Ireland’ by Gail Neill and Siobhán McAlister)
Now, I’ve just done this because I had an hour to spare, but would like to suggest that what is being presented as “transphobia” is not in fact “transphobia” but a greater awareness of what transgenderism means. I say “transgenderism” to account for the ideological aspect transgender activism, which is something close to an industry now, and is remarkable for the sheer lack of actual trans people involved in it. As the Home Office itself says, the crime statistics used here do not show what the author purports. Media coverage softened from a mocking tone in 2009 to a much more respectful one in 2019, and the increase in coverage was directly attributable to policy changes.
Social attitudes were overwhelmingly positive towards trans people — even in Northern Ireland — where some homophobic survey respondents apparently had no problem with trans people.
So it would appear that the approach taken in transgenderism — ideological trans activism — is backfiring badly, to the detriment of trans people who remain a vanishing minority. Other data would appear to suggest that attitudes to gay people are worsening as a result of being “force-teamed” with trans activists under the LGBT acronym. I won’t go into the fact that if the demands of transgenderists were met, with ‘gender’ replacing biological ‘sex’ as the locus from which gay people’s rights derive, then that results in the erasure of gay people as a demographic and we get male ‘lesbians’. Neither will I go into the fact that deeply vulnerable gay and autistic kids are the ones being medicalised — rendered infertile and medicalised for life — in gender clinics, to the extent that some are calling it the new gay conversion therapy. Young gay people are being drawn to this mostly because of internalised homophobia, which the Northern Ireland stats would seem to bear out. Many bigots would rather have a straight daughter than a gay son.
And what of conversion therapy, otherwise known as conventional psychotherapy, for so-called trans kids? A ban on that means that these vulnerable, mostly gay and autistic kids do not have the chance to explore their identities because their therapists would be bound to affirm them in their “trans” identities, with the threat of legal punishment hanging over them if they carry out what they’re trained to do.
To put it bluntly, the days when any scrutiny of this monumental scandal can be dismissed as “transphobia” are numbered. The evidence is now being produced in torrents and none of it favours the transgender narrative. Activists such as the author would do well to pay attention rather than continuing to push this false orthodoxy and cooked-up narrative which is deeply harmful to the young people it affects directly, deeply harmful to the rights of gay people and deeply harmful to the rights of women. The latter took decades to win. They weren’t just given on demand on the basis of a prefabricated, top-down narrative that only appeared ten years ago.
There’s no such thing as ‘Transgenderism’ and your own bigotry is showing. I am a trans person and its blatantly ludicrous to suggest we aren’t involved in advocating for our rights.
No-one wants ‘gender’ to replace ‘biological sex’ and everyone recognises Sex & Gender are different. However its important to note that Sex is also fluid and you *can* change your sex. Its true you can’t change your chromosomes, but those are broadly irrelevant when talking about trans and intersex people. There are XY chromosomed women *who are cis* and go through their whole lives unaware of their chromosomes, for example. With endocrine alteration, blockers and surgery, Trans men and women *do* effectively change their sex.
The health needs of Trans and Intersex people will always vary from the ‘standard’ for most cisgendered people who ID with their sex assigned at birth, but they are still the sex they medically transition into.
No-one is ‘medicalising gay and autistic kids’ – its a total fallacy that Gay children are being told they are trans, or are ‘confused.’ Your Ableism is also showing here. Neurodiverse kids are perfectly capable of advocating for themselves, and in fact while many often do struggle to communicate with others, the fact they manage to regarding their gender identity is proof how important these issues are to them. If anything, Autistic children are *more* in tune with their own core self and identity than Allistic children, inhabiting themselves more fully and usually being less swayed by outside forces.
Neurodiverse kids (including neurotypical kids) are perfectly capable of advocating for themselves…
Get it? Unless you believe that only primates can be biodiverse in line with your apparent belief that only neurodivergent people can be neurodiverse.
Oh yeah IPSO report. My favourite part is when they characterise articles only giving transphobic opinions (but in quotations so there is no problem) as neutral. Or the article titled as “Lesbian tennis hero Martina Navratilova blasts trans athletes as ‘cheats’ ” is also categorised as neutral. Reading the report it seems that the only way to be characterised as negative is to use slurs.
Also if you would actually read the stuff you are referencing you would see that Akrivos is rather critical of mediatique report (especially in what it ommits, tho I think if he looked case by case he’d be even more critical) and IPSO
And what of conversion therapy, otherwise known as conventional psychotherapy, for so-called trans kids? A ban on that means that these vulnerable, mostly gay and autistic kids do not have the chance to explore their identities because their therapists would be bound to affirm them in their “trans” identities, with the threat of legal punishment hanging over them if they carry out what they’re trained to do.
So not only is your transphobic comment so fact-free that you’re relying on ableist rhetoric to make your case, you’re also completely ignoring the existence of the millions of autistic people (of all ages, not just kids) around the world who are cisgender.
On X, an anti-trans activist posted Wikipedia’s definition of what a woman is, which reads as follows: “A woman is an adult female human.”
If I could have, I would have responded, “Correct. and since they are adult female humans in accordance with their gender identity, that means trans women are women too, so thanks for finally admitting that fact.”