The struggle for LGBT rights: Are we there yet?
We’ve come so far in terms of LGBT rights, but the battle’s not yet won, writes James Dawson…
Last week, Stonewall celebrated its annual awards ceremony for the last time. The tenth anniversary saw trophies given to the ‘best of the best’ winners from the last decade, including Dan Gillespie-Sells, Sarah Waters, Lord Alli and BBC sitcom Boy Meets Girl.
Stonewall Chief Executive Ruth Hunt described how the last ten years have seen unprecedented change for the LGBT community, with many considering the advent of ‘gay marriage’ the last bastion of the rights battle. With this in mind, Stonewall are resting the awards and pursuing other avenues to celebrate ‘every LGBT person’.
Our community, with the help of campaigners like Peter Tatchell and Stonewall, won an equal age of consent; legal protection at home and work; marriage equality and the right to foster and adopt children. BBC2’s London Spy and Boy Meets Girl and Netflix originals Orange is the New Black and Sense8 almost incidentally depict LGBT characters, while Hollyoaks took the Stonewall award for twenty years of LGBT intrigue.
In terms of rights and representation, we’ve never had it so good.
So is this it? Is it finally time for embattled and exhausted thirty and forty-somethings to hang up their fightin’ boots and join a generation of post-AIDS twinks in blissful ignorance of ‘the struggle’?
Arguably, that’s what our forefathers fought for. What was the point in activism if it wasn’t to create a future where LGBT people could relax and enjoy the same privileges as straight people? This week sees the publication of The Independent on Sunday’s Rainbow List – 101 influential members of the community. When that list started as The Pink List in 2000, there were but 50 names on the list. In 2015, the cup positively runneth over with powerful, out, proud LGBT people in politics, the media, the arts, the charity sector, medicine and education.
Is this the promised land?
No, of course it isn’t. Now, more than ever, is a time to be alert. For one thing, the apparent equilibrium could well be short-lived. Sometimes – and for evidence see Russia and India – gay rights slide backwards. With the government seemingly hellbent on scrapping the Human Rights Act – a bill which could, theoretically, protect all of us – the future doesn’t look perfect. Rights, our rights, will always need defending. Now is not the time for smug apathy.
Furthermore, while 2015 may well be borderline utopian for wealthy, healthy, white gay men, those of us with privilege owe it to those who fought for it to play it back. There are still a plethora of battles that need to be fought.
Let’s talk about ‘intersectionality’. As well as being gay, any one of us has a raft of other identities. Disabled gay people’s benefits are massively under threat once Disability Living Allowance is scrapped. Gay people from ethnic minorities are underrepresented in the media. Gay people from some religious backgrounds face persecution and exclusion from their communities. Gay women are subject to the same problems as all women – lower average pay, fewer positions of clout in industry, and relentless media misogyny.
That’s all before I even get started on the seventy-eight territories around the world where LGBT people don’t possess the basic human rights that we enjoy in the UK. Crikey, even part of the UK doesn’t have equal marriage, which I personally think is outrageous.
I would suggest, in very broad strokes, the L and G are doing rather better, societally speaking, than the B and T corners of our community. Let’s not forget Stonewall, a charity named after riots started by trans people, only began defending the rights of the trans community last year. Bisexual representation in the media is limited at best and understanding within and outside of the community is woefully poor, marred by hackneyed jokes about those ‘greedy’, ‘indecisive’ bisexuals.
2015 was a pioneering year for trans visibility post-Jenner, but there is still a widespread media fixation on genitalia (yes, you, Channel 4) and, as referrals for under-18 trans people skyrocket, brace yourself for a backlash of epic proportions. I personally live in fear of the day the NHS says it can no longer afford to fund my own gender reassignment. OK, I live in fear for the NHS, period.
On that topic, let’s discuss HIV. Is this the final stigma to smash? I thought we were getting there until The Sun, in its wisdom, this week launched a grossly tasteless campaign against an HIV positive actor who will singlehandedly kill Hollywood. Or something. The article blithely side-stepped any truthes about living with HIV in 2015. No mention was given to Truvada or undetectable viral loads. The unfortunate data leak at the 56 Dean Street clinic this year highlighted that many people still fear for their careers and reputations should their HIV status be made public. How is that happening outside of 1987? There’s clearly still work to do.
Perhaps it’s also time to look outside of our bubble. Beyond the LGBT community, there is a world and it’s a world that’s suffering. Global warming, overpopulation, poverty, disease, collapsing global economies. Which of these horsemen do you think will spare G-A-Y Late?
We, as individuals, mustn’t be so short-sighted and selfish as to think ‘I’m OK, and that’s all that matters.’
Because, here’s the truth, we might not be OK. Since This Book Is Gay was released a year ago, I get letters every single day from young people terrified and sick to their stomach at the thought of coming out. Yes, still. Their fears are the same fears we had: the fear of rejection; the fear of violence; the fear of isolation. Living free from fear is the ultimate heterosexual privilege, and one that we have not yet achieved. Not even close. If you think homophobia and transphobia are things of the past, you’re deluding yourself.
Now is not the time to put our feet up. Yes, activism has brought us eons from where we started but there is still so far to go. While twelve year-olds still think there is something to fear for being L or G or B or T, we need Activism: The Next Generation. A new breed of internet savvy teenagers fight for ‘social justice’ and we should join them. We need to safeguard the rights we have and create a world in which no-one even has to ‘come out’ any more because straight and cisgender are no longer the automatic assumption. Only then will we be truly equal.