Trans Strike Back!

Temperance and Cas are co-founders and organisers with the activist group Trans Strike Back, formed in 2024. They spoke to Kelly Rogers.

On the cover of the last issue of Women’s Fightback (#32) is a photo of a London protest, from April last year, which we purchased from ShutterStock. The protest, it turned out, had been organised by Trans Strike Back, and the individuals front and centre of the photo were Trans Strike Back members and supporters. With placards in the background that read “WAITING LISTS KILL” and “I STAND WITH THE TRANS COMMUNITY”, it seemed an appropriate image for an issue that spoke extensively about the devastating impact of the new Labour government’s policies on trans people. We printed the magazine and fly-posted hundreds of A3 posters around south London to promote its launch.

Cue a very polite email from Trans Strike Back: “As you can imagine, it was a bit of a surprise to see it in the street,” they wrote. And so, by way of this happy accident, Women’s Fightback and Trans Strike Back came to be in touch.

Trans Strike Back was formed in February last year, when the Tory government issued notice of a ban on puberty blockers for trans youth. In March 2024, NHS England removed puberty blockers from routine treatment offered to children with gender dysphoria. In May, following the Cass Review, the Tories introduced their emergency ban. Following Labour’s election, Health Secretary Wes Streeting wasted no time announcing plans to make the ban permanent.

NATIONAL CRISIS

For Temperance, the attacks on trans healthcare heralded disaster: “These kids were only just learning to trust a very, very damaged and underfunded system. This will be devastating for trans youth and their mental health.” Research published in January this year, cited by the charity Mermaids, studied the experiences of nearly 4,000 trans young people who spoke to their GP about wanting to transition between 2011 and 2021. The research found that more than half of young people who spoke to their GP about being trans had a record of anxiety, depression or self-harm before the age of 19. Approximately 55% of trans youth aged 17-19 have a mental health disorder, compared to 17% of all young people of the same age.

“But it’s not just about trans youth – it starts with the kids, but they’ll eventually come after all people that identify under the trans umbrella.” Already, trans adults face significant discrimination in employment, housing and are almost three times more likely to live in the UK’s most deprived areas.

For Temperance, one of the biggest issues facing the trans community is violence, especially against trans women of colour: “Trans women of colour experience the highest rates of domestic abuse, violence, and murder. It’s part of a much bigger picture of the normalisation of aggression towards women of colour in general.”

Last year, the Labour government declared Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) a “national emergency”, following a report by the National Police Chiefs’ Council. The research found that at least one in every 12 women will be a victim of VAWG every year, equating to approximately two million victims (and the actual number is likely to be much higher).

For Temperance, there’s an elephant in the room: “The rates of domestic abuse have been declared a national danger, but the fact that most of those women are women of colour – that they’re not all white – isn’t being spoken about.” The End Violence Against Women Coalition has found that Black and ethnic minority women and girls are not only at higher risk of domestic violence than white women, they are also more likely to be abused by multiple perpetrators, and to stay in abusive situations for longer.

There is currently little reliable data regarding violence against trans people in the UK and, according to the Office for National Statistics, “it is not possible to identify transgender victims in current homocide statistics” because “the sex of the homicide victim is determined by the police force that records the crime.” But research from other countries backs up Trans Strike Back: violence against trans people, and trans women of colour in particular, is a hidden reality.

For Cas, education is key. “We need to start educating people at a young age about gender-based violence, hate crime, domestic abuse. There’s a line there about what age we can start those conversations, but it needs to be something that people are aware of. I went a progressive school and I didn’t have any talks on the LGBTQ community or solely focused on diversity and feminism and racism or homophobia until I was 13, 14, 15. But the earlier that people are made aware of these things – that would be a good start in combating and breaking down prejudices, which are ultimately the source of discrimination and violence."

But the tide is turning against trans-inclusive education, too. Only two months on from Labour’s election victory, the Department for Education re-affirmed guidance introduced under the Tories, which calls on schools to out trans or gender-questioning students to their parents, and to seek parental consent before allowing a student to socially transition or switch pronouns.

That Labour has turned so categorically against the rights of trans youth, has left Trans Strike Back feeling understandably bitter. “We are outcasts, essentially, and very ostracised,” Cas says. “We’re continuing to exist, continuing to make our existence known, and fighting for recognition because, although the government has changed, we’re still here fighting the same fight.”

WE’RE NOT ALONE

Although Trans Strike Back was set up at a particular moment, to fight a particular policy, its overarching purpose is much bigger. Cas was “roped into” Trans Strike Back by their friends, Temperance and Lee (the final Trans Strike Back co-founder). “I realised it was a space in which I felt comfortable and safe, seen and heard,” they say. “That was something I wanted to continue to create."

“We think it’s really important to show trans people that we’re not alone, that we have a public voice,” Temperance says. In order to amplify that voice, the Trans Strike Back organisers seek to be as transparent and inclusive as possible: “We do everything legally,” Temperance explains. “Safety was a really big factor behind that. We never want to put anyone at risk and we want people to really feel like they can have a say over how we work as a group.”

“Ultimately, we aim to come across as real people,” Cas says. “We’re not some omnipotent organisation. It’s just us, and we’re trying to create a community.”

Trans Strike Back is a small group, but a lot of their efforts are devoted to lending support to other initiatives. One example is Trans Kids Deserve Better (TKDB), a coalition of trans children that has been making headlines in recent months. TKDB’s website sets out their mission: “We're young people just like any others, we want to be treated with dignity, age alongside our peers, and move through the world as we are, not as others tell us we should be.” In July last year, they occupied NHS England’s headquarters in protest of the puberty blocker ban. A few weeks later, they occupied the Department for Education, calling for their right to safe and inclusive education. In October, they released 6,000 crickets into the national conference of the transphobic LGB Alliance. “At the moment,” Temperance says, “we’re mostly working behind the scenes. We’re supporting them as much as we can; a quiet voice behind some of what they do. We’re offering a place to talk, and a community, and trying to give out little bits of education when we can.”

Temperance and Cas, both on the cusp of adulthood, see Trans Strike Back as offering an important space for trans youth at a difficult moment in their lives. “If you look at TKDB, they’re kids,” Cas says, “and there are other organisations that are for adults. But we’re teens – we’re not quite children, and we’re not quite adults. We’re young, but we want to be an older-sibling figure to TKDB and other trans children. We’re heading into adulthood – which is terrifying – but we’re going into it as a community.”

Follow Trans Strike Back on Instagram: strikeback2024