Britain felt like a safer place to be trans in the nineties, says UK’s first transgender judge

21 comments

1. I agree.

   Can’t we just go back to the 90’s and be done with it.

   Preferably around 95′ – 96′ when Blur V’s Oasis was at its peak.

   Thank you.

2. That was because people treated it for what it was. A group of people who had gender dysmorphia. Now we’ve got a group of bullies who want to find an excuse to be bigoted.

3. Probably because the trans activists weren’t pushing it as hard back then. They’ve pretty much ruined it for real trans people.

4. I think at that time people were unaware trans people existed.

   Cross dressers and drag acts yes, but those were normally behind closed doors or private clubs.

   I had two third hand accounts of trans men in those years, one in the paper where they were painted more as a predatory lesbian who wanted straight women.

   The other was a guy on a course my mum was on who, on the last week, showed up as a woman. The guys were not sure at first if a woman had been in the gents, or if a young guy wanted to be a woman and pulled it off well. Turns out they were born a woman and something happened between class that they “gave up on the idea” I didn’t get the full picture as my mum didn’t have the full picture.

   So in film and TV it would just be a character meets a cross dresser not a trans woman (save for the Crying Game)

   See trainspotting for the trans panic side and crocodile Dundee for it’s played for laughs. Crying game cast a woman and I never heard of sleep away camp and the end till the film was ages old, but that was a nut job aunt at the root of it.

5. I was born in 1980. There were trans people and drag artists in the city I grew up in. Nobody gave a shit. Somewhere around the mid-noughties radical activists started screaming about how all straight people despise anything different to them, and everything became polarised. Shame really.

6. It really does feel like society has been seriously regressing over the last 10 years and its just depressing to see

7. wasnt it more trans medicalist policies then vs trans gender policies today?

8. It’s not a coincidence. Attacking the most vulnerable in society – sex workers, trans people, migrants etc is a starting point on a well worn path. Up next are the gay community, those with disabilities, including autism and the rights of women (abortion, contraception, the right to vote). Then it’s healthcare, the media, the judiciary and the electoral system. Most of this is already happening in the US and will be here shortly.

   What won’t be attacked is wealth inequality, the obscenely rich and the concentration of power in the hands of the very few. The 90s, in retrospect, were close to idyllic.

9. Yeah because the internet didn’t exist and people didn’t get bombarded by the loud crazy minorities opinion.

10. I happily support trans rights but I am also pretty tired of hearing about them to some extent. Trans people are no more of a threat than they were a decade ago, yet for some ‘unknown’ reason they are now made out to be a mix of predators in waiting and a group hell-bent on indoctrinating children via their agenda. The right wing media, American Christian groups and JK Rowling have whipped people up into a frenzy on a topic that is a complete non-issue for almost everyone. The majority of people do not really have an opinion on trans people but have been told they really need to care about a small percentage of people they never really gave two thoughts to. It is sad that people do not realise they are being manipulated.

11. What metrics is she using to make that statement

    > That was the Nineties – we didn’t really have any rights, but there was less of a climate of fear

    Was it actually safer or did people just feel safer? Does being online where the most hateful people can be the loudest voices effect people’s feeling of safety?

    Was part of feeling safer was how so few felt comfortable enough to come out? Meaning they felt safer but locked into hiding their true selves?

12. I used to say ‘it’s not that bad, it’s just the media’, but now people are openly doing nazi salutes. I’m scared what’s next. What do we do? We can’t arm ourselves, and we can’t protest hate itself. It feels like there’s a million insidious tentacles worming their way into our society and allowing little pockets of hatred to fester and grow

13. Those of us who are old enough, were certainly aware of transsexuals. A big thing to remember is there was no social media back then so any agenda being pushed never reached anyone who wasn’t already involved in the issue.

14. I’d quite happily go back to any time before internet ubiquity. 95-2005 would be fine, beyond that things get quite shitty.

15. To be honest I think this is a mix of things.

    More awareness that trans people are a thing. You can’t be angry at something you don’t know existed.

    Social media is also playing a part. Creating echo chambers. Places that allow you to share any opinion. But also I do think how people react to when a person says something can also not be helpful. People often react to (understandably) this stuff with rage. But I think a lot of these people who get this anger are not far down the rabbit hole. And we can either help them out or push them down. I think the current reaction pushes them down, especially when there are others further down pulling them down, being kind stuff so they see one side as angry and mean and the other as nice and friendly.

    I also think that people are also just more happy saying things out loud they would not before. Before Brexit it did look like the UK was going towards being a more welcoming place. Then Brexit happened. I think before we just shamed people to shut up not change their opinions.

16. In the 90s it was “that’s a bit weird but ok, live and let live”.

    In the 00s and 10s rights got formalised, and that was generally ok.

    Recently you have high profile cases of trans women who are obviously not the same as ordinary women (not really sure how to phrase that but you know what I mean) intentionally putting themselves into sensitive female spaces, like rape crisis shelters (that’s what really kicked it off I believe), and then citing the formal rights to claim it was ok. A lot of people were like “no, hang on, women’s spaces are important and should be for women, you’re taking the piss” and that’s why we’ve seen a backlash against trans rights.

    Some religiously backed groups have got hold of that backlash and used it to push their own agenda, and you can probably put the reinterpretation of the Equality Act down to that, but it didn’t come out of nowhere, and there’s good reasons why the majority of the public are on board with the new interpretation.

17. I remember a trans woman won big brother. maybe around 2005? 06? think if that series was airing now there’d be the usual types saying she shouldn’t even be in the house at all. no way she’d get to the final group.

18. Consider what changed. From trans women being *trans* women , there was a demand of presumption that they should be just *women*- no different *at all* from women born female. And not dependent on any physical investment in hormone treatment, let alone surgery but purely personal affirmation. And just as women born female have been told for centuries what it means to be a women by *men*, now they were told be women born *male*. Polling suggests that women born female were supportive of those who had undergone surgery sharing single ‘sex’ spaces but not necessarily those who just affirmed their gender. Then you have the idea that *anyone* who does have a concern about this is pretty much a genocidal trasnsphobic. Could that be at least part of the reason for push back? Along *I have no doubt* with religious and political groups exploiting the whole situation for their benefit.

19. The 90s was a golden era in a lot of ways, partly because we were a little ignorant to a lot of the issues we’re now facing, but also because the western world was in an economic and social bubble. We had money, we had fun, we had new ideas, we had hope

20. A bit of hyperbole always helps make a point, but as terrible as 2025 is for trans people in the UK, I’m sure the 90s were not particularly great either. I suppose the best moment there’s been for trans rights is some point in the 2010s.

21. Almost like the hardcore campaigners who tried to police language and enforce behaviours, as well as accept transition on the flimsiest of justification, might have put people’s backs up

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