GAY TIMES Magazine

20 January 2023

This year marks the 20th anniversary of the repeal of Section 28. An abhorrent law brought in under Margaret Thatcher’s Tory government in 1988, it banned all teaching – or even the mere mention – of LGBTQ+ identities, experiences and history in schools under the guise of ‘protecting impressionable young children’. The repeal of Section 28 was long and challenging, with LGBTQ+ people being used as a political football by right-wing commentators spouting dangerous misinformation on how learning about LGBTQ+ life would somehow ‘brainwash’ young people to believe they are themselves part of the community. Ultimately its repeal did lead to more openly LGBTQ+ people, but not through falsely persuading them to identify as something they are not. Rather, over time people began to feel more safe and accepted about living openly, and gained a better understanding of their gender identity and sexual orientation through increased visibility, representation and education. LGBTQ+ people exist and it’s a part of them from birth, not through social conditioning. It’s wild that this fact even needs to be stated in 2023, but recent events continue to expose right-wing ideals as dangerously regressive, toxically ill-informed and, all too often, ruthlessly cruel. What this decision has done is set a tone for the work we, as a community, have to do in the years ahead. It has lit a fire; one that, with all our might, we must take forward and resist patriarchal structures that continue to target marginalised communities in order to uphold their own position of power. They’ve been coming for our trans+ siblings for some time now, and you’re naive to think that they won’t come for the whole LGBTQ+ community soon. Standing firm together has never been so crucial. We’ve come too far for our rights to slip backwards, but we have some way to go to meaningfully move forward. It’s going to take a lot of action and energy and it cannot – should not! – land on the trans community alone to fight back. Section 28 was a long and dreadful period, leaving a dreadful stain on British history. Section 35 threatens to repeat that all over again. But history has taught us that humanity – empathetic, progressive and inclusive humanity – wins out in the end.