Section 28 and Equality Act 2010
What is Section 28?
Section 28 was an oppressive law that was introduced in 1988 by the then conservative government of Margaret Thatcher. This is a brief description from Wikipedia :-
“Section 28 or Clause 28 was a legislative designation for a series of laws across Britain that prohibited the "promotion of homosexuality" by local authorities. Introduced by Margaret Thatcher’'s Conservative Government, it was in effect from 1988 to 2000 in Scotland and from 1988 to 2003 in England and Wales. It caused many organisations such as lesbian, gay, bi-sexual and transgender student support groups to close, limit their activities or self-censor.”
This is the reason why hardly any LGBT+ people trust the government and police. I have yet to hear 1 trans person saying this stopped them coming out as trans, only delayed them coming out.
My history with Section 28?
Although I knew something was different when I was the age of 5, I didn’t know what it was at the time. I thought, as I was attracted to both men and women, that I was bi-sexual. I still had a feeling though that something was still wrong, like I should be a girl. I tried to suppress it as I was brought up in a conservative family and couldn’t find anything in the Library about it as a 13-15yo I had no clue where to start looking. There was no internet at the time either.
I made the mistake of joining the Army at the time, only to find out that when I joined the Army that it was illegal to be LGBT+ while serving (This got dropped in 2001). Lucky as I was very good at pretending to be a man, and was attracted to women as well, so got away with it.
In some ways I still do pretend to be a man as I did it for over 45 years ! ! It’s hard to break the habit.
It wasn’t until I left the Army in 2001 that I found out what Transgender was. Thanks to the sigma attached to Transgender people, and LGBT+ people in general I still did not come out.
Equality Act 2010 - The bedrock law.
The Equality Act was passed in 2010 by the Labour Government of Gordon Brown. This act, still the bedrock of LGBT+ rights in the UK, changed everything. Where is what Wikipedia says about it :-
“The Equality Act 2010 is an Act of Parliament of the United Kingdom passed during the Brown ministry with the primary purpose of consolidating, updating and supplementing the numerous prior Acts and Regulations, that formed the basis of anti-discrimination law in mostly England, Scotland and Wales; some sections also apply to Northern Ireland. These consisted, primarily, of the Equal Pay Act 1970, the Sex Discrimination Act 1975, the Race Relations Act 1976, the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 and three major statutory instruments protecting discrimination in employment on grounds of religion or belief, sexual orientation and age.”
This changed everything in the UK For LGBT+ people. They finally had a law that protects them against discrimination, bullying and everything else that goes with being different to the “norm”, though I use that lightly as to me being transgender is normal.
I would say this needs updating to reflect modern times as it does not cover some of the LGBT+ community like agender and others.
I can finally start to be my true self.
Although it took me 11 years after the Equality Act 2010 to finally be truthful to myself and come out, I have never been happier in myself. I hear this a lot from LGBT+ people who were brought up under the shadow of Section 28. It has not once stopped people from coming out, eventually, just delayed it.
We can never again allow a law to oppress a minority community like Section 28 did. All it does is delay what people will eventually do, and bring distrust from those people to the government and the people who enforce the law, the police.
Section 28 was an oppressive law that was introduced in 1988 by the then conservative government of Margaret Thatcher. This is a brief description from Wikipedia :-
“Section 28 or Clause 28 was a legislative designation for a series of laws across Britain that prohibited the "promotion of homosexuality" by local authorities. Introduced by Margaret Thatcher’'s Conservative Government, it was in effect from 1988 to 2000 in Scotland and from 1988 to 2003 in England and Wales. It caused many organisations such as lesbian, gay, bi-sexual and transgender student support groups to close, limit their activities or self-censor.”
This is the reason why hardly any LGBT+ people trust the government and police. I have yet to hear 1 trans person saying this stopped them coming out as trans, only delayed them coming out.
My history with Section 28?
Although I knew something was different when I was the age of 5, I didn’t know what it was at the time. I thought, as I was attracted to both men and women, that I was bi-sexual. I still had a feeling though that something was still wrong, like I should be a girl. I tried to suppress it as I was brought up in a conservative family and couldn’t find anything in the Library about it as a 13-15yo I had no clue where to start looking. There was no internet at the time either.
I made the mistake of joining the Army at the time, only to find out that when I joined the Army that it was illegal to be LGBT+ while serving (This got dropped in 2001). Lucky as I was very good at pretending to be a man, and was attracted to women as well, so got away with it.
In some ways I still do pretend to be a man as I did it for over 45 years ! ! It’s hard to break the habit.
It wasn’t until I left the Army in 2001 that I found out what Transgender was. Thanks to the sigma attached to Transgender people, and LGBT+ people in general I still did not come out.
Equality Act 2010 - The bedrock law.
The Equality Act was passed in 2010 by the Labour Government of Gordon Brown. This act, still the bedrock of LGBT+ rights in the UK, changed everything. Where is what Wikipedia says about it :-
“The Equality Act 2010 is an Act of Parliament of the United Kingdom passed during the Brown ministry with the primary purpose of consolidating, updating and supplementing the numerous prior Acts and Regulations, that formed the basis of anti-discrimination law in mostly England, Scotland and Wales; some sections also apply to Northern Ireland. These consisted, primarily, of the Equal Pay Act 1970, the Sex Discrimination Act 1975, the Race Relations Act 1976, the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 and three major statutory instruments protecting discrimination in employment on grounds of religion or belief, sexual orientation and age.”
This changed everything in the UK For LGBT+ people. They finally had a law that protects them against discrimination, bullying and everything else that goes with being different to the “norm”, though I use that lightly as to me being transgender is normal.
I would say this needs updating to reflect modern times as it does not cover some of the LGBT+ community like agender and others.
I can finally start to be my true self.
Although it took me 11 years after the Equality Act 2010 to finally be truthful to myself and come out, I have never been happier in myself. I hear this a lot from LGBT+ people who were brought up under the shadow of Section 28. It has not once stopped people from coming out, eventually, just delayed it.
We can never again allow a law to oppress a minority community like Section 28 did. All it does is delay what people will eventually do, and bring distrust from those people to the government and the people who enforce the law, the police.
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