Campaigners lament ‘disproportionate and distorted’ UK election coverage of trans issues

Polling by More in Common last week found ‘the debate about transgender people’ was the top issue the public felt politicians were talking too much about. Photograph: Murdo MacLeod/The Guardian

Politics is unavoidable for the transgender and non-binary young adults Oscar Hoyle works with, he says. Many of them will be voting on Thursday for the first time. “They’re forced to engage from a young age because they’re scared about their future.”

Hoyle runs Blossom, a nationwide support service for LGBTQ+ members of gen Z, whose experiences and challenges have been described as “political footballs” in the run-up to the UK election.

“This is their first or second election and all feel absolutely hopeless about both the major parties [the Conservatives and Labour],” said Hoyle. “For the first time, young people I’ve spoken to are considering voting for the Lib Dems, because they are openly supportive, as well as the Greens. But I also know a lot are planning to spoil their ballots.”

While questions about trans-related issues have threaded through the six-week election campaign – with party leaders repeatedly asked to define what it means to be a woman and give their stance on women-only spaces – in the past few days there has been even more focus.

Labour’s plans have come under particular scrutiny after an intervention by the Harry Potter author, JK Rowling, who wrote in the Times that she would “struggle to support” the party and accused Keir Starmer of “abandoning women” with concerns about the impact of trans rights reforms.

Much of this is reflected – or distorted – through mainstream and social media coverage, and these young voters are highly media-literate, says Hoyle.

“But that doesn’t make it easier – in the past week I’ve had young people in tears because they can’t open social media without seeing horrible transphobia, and we’ve definitely seen an increase in attendance at our groups because people need a place to escape.

“But you can’t put the blame all on media because first it has to be said to be reported. A lot of this is politicians being really irresponsible in how they talk about trans lives.”

The sense of a disproportionate focus by politicians and the media on trans issues during this election is something that campaigners, support organisations and individuals raise time and again.

“I never hear about the gender debate on the doorstep,” says Steph Richards, who runs the advocacy organisation Transluscent and is also a Labour party member, campaigning for the party in Portsmouth.

“The issues that the public want to talk about are the state of the NHS, sewage, immigration – there’s a huge amount of racism out there, more than transphobia.”

Richards points to polling by More in Common conducted last week which found that “the debate about transgender people” came bottom of the topics most likely to impact voting intention and top of the ones the public feel politicians are talking too much about.

Nevertheless, Richards described her personal experience of the campaign as “bloody awful”. “I knew that this was the Tory strategy – Lee Anderson [former deputy chair of the Conservatives who defected to Reform in March] trailed it, but it’s horrible to have your existence constantly undermined and it’s always the same question: ‘what is a woman?’”

Richards is optimistic about Starmer’s defence of the Equality Act – “I agree we need single sex spaces but the act works perfectly well as it is” – and the party’s pledge to introduce a trans-inclusive ban on conversion practices.

But she is concerned that the proposed reforms to gender recognition “will swap one bad system for another” – Labour’s plans will maintain the requirement for a medical diagnosis, which many find intrusive.

Liz Ridgway, a personal trainer who went through the two-year process to apply for a gender recognition certificate, wants the next government “to engage and find out what our needs are”.

“Gender recognition is nice to have but it’s not a priority for a lot of trans people. For me the number one is healthcare – waiting lists are phenomenally long.”

Ridgway also mentioned Labour’s invitation to meet Rowling and discuss her concerns. “When I heard that JK Rowling was speaking to Labour I thought ‘why are they not speaking to trans people?’”

The writer and campaigner jane fae said: “I do have a lot of suspicion of Labour,” pointing to comments by the shadow health secretary, Wes Streeting, welcoming the government’s ban on puberty blockers for under-18s and treating trans women on separate hospital wards.

“In order not to be outflanked by the Tories, Labour have outflanked themselves, playing to the gallery and formulating policy without having any trans people in the room,” fae said.

Fox Fisher, an author, film-maker and co-founder of Trans Pride Brighton, reflected this frustration too, saying: “Trans people are yet again being used as a political football – and Labour has been pulled into this pointless culture war about trans rights. The framing of how trans rights are discussed is completely off, and entirely focused on people who aren’t trans, who are discussing trans rights with other people who aren’t trans either.”