Being trans in Britain takes “you’ve got to laugh or you’ll cry” to new, nightmarish levels. Before I come across all Rishi Sunak, rest assured I’m not being flippant: I don’t mean “laugh” as in anything is remotely funny. I mean like when your jaw is slack and you scoff slightly, as if you can’t believe something you’ve just heard. The scoff is actually a panicked bid to rebut the “something” and, at the same time, there’s terror in your eyes. That kind of laugh.
Hearing that our prime minister had insulted trans people to score cheap political points did not surprise me (nor does the lack of self-awareness it takes for Sunak and the business secretary, Kemi Badenoch, et al, to level the same accusation at Starmer). To be honest, it wasn’t even a surprise that it might have happened in the presence of the mother of a murdered trans girl. I cannot imagine it surprised any trans person who’s lived in Britain during the past six-odd years of relentless, coordinated, cynical and very loud attacks, not just on our legal protections but our very humanity.
