Written by Elena Fritzsch
As our Prime Minister reminded us so succinctly with his dehumanising joke on ‘defining a woman’ in the presence of Brianna Ghey’s mother, a transgender girl brutally murdered in a recent hate crime, the Tory government continues to weaponise the lives and experience of trans people in the UK. Whilst Labour leader Keir Starmer was quick to condemn him, he hasn’t exactly been consistent in offering his support for trans rights either.
In response to this, here is a quick (and by no means summative) recent timeline of trans rights in the UK, as well as some recommendations for further reading, especially useful in LGBTQ History Month.
1951: Roberta Cowell becomes the first known transgender woman to undergo reassignment surgery in the UK.
1966: The Beaumont Society is founded – a trans support group which provides information and education to the public, as well as to medical and legal professionals. It also encourages research aimed at gaining a fuller understanding of trans identities.
1969: A medical conference, The First International Symposium on Gender Identity: ‘Aims, Functions and Clinical Problems of a Gender Identity Unit’, takes place at The Piccadilly Hotel in London.
1970: The Corbett v Corbett divorce case establishes a precedent that a person’s sex cannot be legally changed from that which is assigned at birth.
1974: Jan Morris, Welsh historian and author, releases her book Conundrum, a personal account of her transition and experience as a trans woman.
Stephen Whittle, trans man and activist, co-founds Manchester TV/TS (Transvestite/Transexual) group.
The First National TV/TS Conference is held in Leeds.
1979: The Harry Benjamin International Gender Dysphoria Association is founded, with the aim to create an international community of professionals specialising in transgender treatment. It is now known as the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH).
1987: Sandy Stone’s The Empire Strikes Back: A Post Transsexual Manifesto is published in the US, which is considered to be a founding text of transgender studies. It examined how transgender women were historically viewed, studied, and treated by the Western medical establishment.
1992: Press For Change, a key lobbying and legal support organisation for trans people in the UK, was established following a fringe meeting at the Liberal Democrat Federal Conference in 1991.
1995: Mermaids Charity is set up to support transgender, non-binary, and gender diverse children and young people in the UK.
1996: The landmark case P vs S and Cornwall County Council finds that an employee who was about to undergo gender reassignment was wrongfully dismissed. This is the first international piece of case law which prevented discrimination in employment or vocational education on the basis that someone is trans.
1999: Trans Day of Remembrance is founded in the US, and then the UK and worldwide, to remember those murdered as a result of transphobia, and to bring attention to the violence endured by the trans community.
2002: The Goodwin v United Kingdom case sees judges rule that the UK government should issue new birth certificates for trans people, and permit marriage to someone of the opposite gender.
2005: Transgender Europe is founded, campaigning for equality for trans people in Europe.
2007: ‘Engendered Penalties Transsexual and Transgender People’s Experience of Inequality and Discrimination’ is published. This is imperative in ensuring the inclusion of trans people in the UK’s new Commission for Equalities and Human Rights.
2010: The Equality Act officially adds gender assignment as a protected characteristic.
2013: The first Trans Pride event takes place in Brighton.
2018: A consultation on reform of the Gender Recognition Act receives over 100,000 responses, with the vast majority supportive of reforms that would improve trans people’s lives.
2022: The Scottish Government passes the Gender Recognition Bill, which would make it easier and less intrusive for individuals to legally change their gender, extending the new system of self-identification to 16 and 17-year-olds for the first time.
2023: Model and activist Munroe Bergdorf publishes her memoir Transitional.
Bibliography
https://www.stonewall.org.uk/key-dates-lesbian-gay-bi-and-trans-equality
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-68229785
https://www.thepinknews.com/2023/08/21/labour-party-keir-starmer-trans-rights
Featured Image Credit: Alisdare Hickson, English: On Saturday 21 January 2023, Hundreds of Protesters Marched from Downing Street to Hyde Park to Demand Real Equality for Trans People, an End to Transphobic Violence and an Immediate Reversal of the UK Government’s Decision to Block Scotland’s Progressive Gender Recognition Reform Bill Which Simplifies the Procedure for a Trans Person to Obtain a Gender Recognition Certificate, Which until Now Has Been Highly “Intrusive, Medicalised and Bureaucratic.,” January 21, 2023, January 21, 2023, https://www.flickr.com/photos/alisdare/52644056436/, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Trans_rights_are_human_rights_(UK_protest).jpg.
Retrospect Journal 
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