Young trans activists enter second day protesting at NHS England’s London Headquarters.
BY NANCY KELLEY, IMAGE BY TRANS KIDS DESERVE BETTER GROUP
At one o clock on Saturday, as the Pride in London parade was in full swing and the capital was partying, two young trans activists started climbing the front of NHS England’s London headquarters.
They covered the façade of the imposing government building with a simple message: ‘trans kids deserve better: we are not pawns for your politics.’
Twenty-four hours later and the climbers are still there, having slept the night on a slim stone ledge. Tired and dirty but determined.
“We just had the parent of a trans child come over and thank us for our work. We’re under slept and covered in grime but we can all feel the anger. We’ve been unheard for too long. We aren’t coming down.”
The Trans Kids Deserve Better group is there to protest ‘against trans children and young people being kept out of decisions that affect their lives’, against a culture war politics that doesn’t see, hear or respect them, and against the government’s use of emergency measures to end access to puberty blockers for trans children and young people in the UK.
There is no doubt that trans children and young people have been the target of a raft of hostile policy makingover recent months. The government used emergency powers to bring in a last-minute ban on all new prescriptions of puberty blockers for trans youth. They have published consultations on ‘gender questioning children in schools’ and on relationships and sex education that if implemented, would be as damaging for trans children and young people as Section28 was for a generation of LGBTQIA+ children and young people that came before them. It is no surprise at all that trans young people have felt the need to shout louder: the adult world is simply not listening.
Speaking this morning one of the activists (age 17) said: “Decisions are being taken that affect our lives without any trans people in the room, let alone trans young people. Too often trans kids are portrayed as a monolith of confused, depressed teenagers. We are denied choice and robbed of our autonomy. But we should be trusted to make the same decisions about our healthcare that all people are.
“In every other way I am trusted when I tell people what I want to do with my life. But not now. There is so much real anger out there and we hope our actions will encourage others to fight for a voice, and the healthcare and dignity that we are currently denied.
https://transkidsdeservebetter.org
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/transkidsdeservebetter/
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