Over many years politicians have wrestled with how to reconcile on the one hand ensuring children whether bi, gay, straight or ace, and cis, trans or enby, are safe… with on the other the propaganda parents have received from the media – be that ‘social’ or traditional.
In the 1980s that led to Section 28, a law that sought to make homosexuality a thought crime and to prevent discussion of its very existence. To an audience who had been lied to that homosexuals were predators and paedophiles by the press that was an easy message to sell. Yet a peculiar one: that homosexuality is both so obviously awful that people should be protected from it, yet also that it is so appealing that if you admit it exists they will all want to try it. As so often propaganda depends on no-one logically thinking what they are told through.
Bisexuals were caught up in the web of lies and hate too. Manchester city council for example took the stance that admitting our existence would somehow incite people to become gay, with bisexuality as a kind of ‘gateway drug’. The hysteria whipped up over many years previously over HIV and AIDS made it all the easier to sell these lies. The press and many politicians pretended Section 28 was there to protect children, when every MP supporting it absolutely knew they were voting to do kids harm.
Mirroring that 80s hysteria has been the incitement of hatred of transgender people over the past decade. It has cost lives, yet corrupted press, politicians and courts have seen to it that those whose actions lead to those deaths almost always go unpunished. And just as Section 28 formally targeted gay and lesbian people but also hit and harmed many bi, trans, straight and cis people, the incitement of hate against trans people has harmed many bi, gay, lesbian, straight and cis people.
The government’s proposed new guidance for relationship, health and sex education in schools takes us back down that same path. It seeks to make being transgender a thought crime, just as section 28 did with homosexuality.
Section 36 similarly polices thoughts and language. Schools will not be allowed to accurately and honestly explain transgender people’s lives, and will be obliged to teach things everyone knows to be untrue about sex and gender to preserve a delusional and anti-biological binary. Under the proposals unveiled this week, schools will teach that black is white and there are no hues of grey, and society will be left to pick up the pieces of the children and families whose lives that breaks.
Section 28 did not stop any child from being bisexual, or gay or lesbian. It did stop them being able to understand their own feelings, stopped teachers being able to name and explain those feelings, and enabled bullying and victimisation in schools and on the streets. Section 36 of the new code is a deliberate and specific duplication of that climate.
Just as we stood firmly against Section 28, we reject and abhor this similar attack on queer people. Those who rule over us can and should do better by our children.
