UCU does excellent work through our LGBT+ members’ standing committee and equality committee in support of our members. In the last few years, UCU has launched a charter for LGBT+ solidarity, developed new CPD and webinar series to both educate our members and branches, and brought insights from struggles outside the union to our members. Our union has been a leader among UK Trade Unions in developing clear, unequivocal policy in support of trans and non-binary people and in solidarity with our international siblings.
Several trans UCU Left members have written about the fight for trans rights. As well as our internal policy and educational work, and wider engagement with TUC and political announcements, we need to do more to concretely integrate opposition to anti-LGBT+ discrimination in our national and local campaigning and bargaining work.
Despite the leading work within UCU on trans and non-binary inclusion, there remains a persistent and loud minority of those who try to bend the principle of academic freedom to excuse their exclusionary views and deny the humanity and rights of our trans and non-binary siblings. Defending free speech and academic freedom — which has been critically important in the last months with blatant state and college attempts to silence solidarity for Gaza (whether made by academics, or anyone else) — also means being clear about challenging people who express discriminatory views and claim ‘academic freedom’. We oppose anti-semitism whoever expresses it, and we oppose anti-trans views for the same reason.
We all have the right to hold beliefs about gender. That does not give anyone the right to discriminate against or exclude trans staff or students. It also does not give you ‘a right to be heard’ in any specific space. Just as academics are accountable for their work, everyone is accountable for their treatment of others.
We must be clear. Transphobia and scapegoating our siblings — and trans-inclusive organisations — is not welcome in our union. Supporting and fighting for the rights of trans and non-binary people does not mean there are fewer rights to go around for others. Our siblings — colleagues and students alike — should not have to enter spaces where their right to exist or access life-changing and life-saving healthcare is mocked or denied. Nor should they have to listen to speeches that deny their humanity in our union spaces.
Over the last few years, there have been some important progressive legal changes. There have been some important wins, like the affirmation by the Ministry of Justice that the Equality Act (2010) includes protections for non-binary people, and that the protected characteristic of ‘gender reassignment’ does not require a person to be undergoing medical intervention. There was the Taylor vs. Land Rover employment tribunal ruling that states that ‘gender is a spectrum’ and that it is ‘beyond any doubt’ that non-binary people are protected in the same way binary trans people are by the Equality Act 2010.
However, the overall picture in the UK is not good. There have however been a number of legal and legislative challenges. After the Conservative Government shelved the Gender Recognition Act (2004) reforms they had promised, trans people continue to be used as a political football. The Government failed to implement a full ban on so-called conversion therapies. Anti-LGBTQIA+ hate crime – including transphobic hate crime – has continued to rise sharply in the UK. The Tories have upped their attacks on trans young people with the recent guidance to schools. We must support members in FE at the sharp end (alongside our NEU colleagues in schools) to resist this.
These backward steps, alongside the Conservatives’ illegal ‘Rwanda plan’ that we know would threaten the safety of LGBT+ people seeking asylum in the UK means that Britain no longer holds any credibility as a progressive force for LGBT+ rights on the world stage. This sits alongside worsening legislative pictures across Europe and the USA, such as Italy’s roll-back of same-sex parents’ rights, and the many ‘bathroom bills’ across the US – where student protests have been central to the resistance.
Saira and comrades joining the Trade Unions bloc at Pride in Liverpool.
Across the UK and elsewhere, LGBT+ rights, representation and liberation have become flashpoints for bigoted reactionary groups and ill-informed managers in universities and colleges. We have seen the pernicious spread of anti-trans groups in UK universities, hiding behind a twisted veneer of ‘defending academic freedom’, and concerted efforts to demonise Stonewall and have HEIs withdraw from their charter mark schemes. When students have exercised their right to protest – for example in Edinburgh – they have been accused of ‘violence’ and disciplined. More extreme reactions in the last few years include the arrest of LGBT+ students at Boğaziçi University, Istanbul in 2021, which met with international condemnation.
‘Decolonising education’ must involve decolonising sexuality and gender. We are seeing a process of recognition of diverse social, family, gender and sexual practices in pre-colonial societies, which were suppressed by the British Empire as they enslaved, transported and subjugated populations. Thus we must extend solidarity and support to our trade union siblings around the world fighting to overturn colonial-era anti-homosexuality laws. This process is happening, for example, in recent decisions in Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, and St. Kitts and Nevis. And we must practise in the UK what we advocate elsewhere. It means fighting the restrictions of heteronormativity in society, through our policy work, in our professional practice and through curricula. Whether it is advocating freedom of choice and expression, resisting interference of the State in personal lives, or advocating for same sex marriage, across the world we are witnessing a series of interconnected struggles for personal and sexual liberation, where each progressive step encourages the next. UCU has to continue to play its own part in this struggle.
Representation of trans members on the NEC is very limited and it is unclear what involvement there is of trans and non-binary members in regions and branches. It is crucial that we give our trans and gender diverse members spaces to organise, discuss and debate, in order to be involved in our democratic structures and policy making beyond contributing to members’ standing committees.
We need to ensure all branches have the support they need to build the confidence and capacity of LGBT+ members within — and supported by — the union. Ensuring all branches are able to enact the UCU LGBT+ Charter is the starting point for this, not the end point. In 2023 HESC in Glasgow voted to include fighting the LGBT+ pay gap in our national HE bargaining alongside the other equality pay gaps UCU have highlighted. It is crucial this is enacted, and LGBT+ discrimination in our workplaces is afforded equal weight in our bargaining.
Saira Weiner for UCU General Secretary 