Elton John and Ian McKellen lead backlash over Braverman’s call to crack down on gay asylum seekers
Elton John and Ian McKellen lead backlash over Braverman’s call to crack down on gay asylum seekers
Suella Braverman said that offering asylum to a person discriminated against in their home country for being gay or a woman was not sustainable.
Question for the UK LGBT community: This article makes it sound like the pink vote is significant to the Tories. As an American, I’m having a really hard time imagining how that comes about. I’d accuse it of being slanted, but it quotes a number of Tory MPs who are publicly and strongly criticizing the statement.
In the US, the LGBT vote is pretty overwhelmingly Democratic. There’s a small group that support republicans, but it’s very rare - to the point it’s something worthy of notice and a point of contention.
So, is the portrayal in this article accurate? What are the politics over there? I’ve been active politically since the days of ACT UP, so I know what things are like over here, but I’m completely stunned by what they’re presenting about the political alignment over there.
It was the conservative/lib dem coalition that brought in same-sex marriage, and it’s widely accepted by all political sides as perfectly acceptable. There are of course still fringe groups (usually religious) that oppose it, but that’s not restricted to one political party or another (well, it’s probably more extreme right wing than tories are at the minute). And for the most part, people ignore these (unless imo, they’ve been sucked into American talking points online) The political parties of the uk tend to be slightly more to the left than the US, and socially more left again. Gays aren’t a thing to vote on, probably the next issue is trans people though.
Consider this from they conference: London Assembly chair ejected during Braverman speech https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-66993794
Less extreme tories are well aware they’ve got a massively bigoted party that don’t represent the majority of the UK.
Is it the same story with the trans community? In the US, our current round started a few years ago with southern states doing the culture war thing with bathroom bills. Basically, we’ve been gaining rights and representation for the past few decades, but marriage equality was the main focus. We went from Clinton passing the Defense of Marriage Act which banned the US from passing marriage equality and permitting states to outlaw it, to a conservative court instituting it. We also saw a climb in support for marriage equality reach majorities even among republicans. Once they realized they lost that war, they re-aligned as anti-trans. Once they saw they were getting traction there, they’re now going after the LGBT community as a whole again.
In the US, there’s a pretty general perception that the mainstream UK is more transphobic, so is that a misconception, or does it also apply to both Tories and Labour, or is the LGBT community not in solidarity (if the Tories are transphobic but others are not, if that was unclear)?
It may be true that the UK is more transphobic, though I have no experience of the US so it's hard to compare.
It's not just right wingers who oppose trans rights. Lots of TERFs, a mix of older radical lesbian-inspired and more mainstream popular feminism (cf the Mumsnet forums). Also famous figures previously seen as socially liberal/left wing, i.e. JK Rowling, Graham Linehan, several Labour and SNP politicians.
Worth noting all these people are mostly bothered about trans women. Trans men are almost invisible in the debate. It's the usual taking points about women's safety or erasure of female identity.
Right wing transphobes are all about the 'woke mind virus' argument, whereas left wing ones more from a TERF perspective. 'Centrist' voices like The Economist have also criticised things like trans inclusion in women's sports. So yes, there aren't many mainstream pro-trans voices.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Her claim came after Sir Elton and his long-term partner David Furnish released a statement saying they were “very concerned” by her comments and calling for “more compassion, support and acceptance for those seeking a safer future”.
They were joined by acting legend Sir Ian, who told Channel 4 News Ms Braverman’s remarks were “laced with a good dollop of prejudice” and part of a tilt at a Tory leadership bid.
Ms Braverman was accused of “picking on” gay people and “throwing [them] under the bus” – with senior Tories warning that she had alienated the LGBT+ voters and revived the “nasty party” reputation.
One former Tory cabinet minister, who claimed the Conservatives had won the support of almost all gay voters after making same-sex marriages legal in 2013, told The Independent that Ms Braverman had torpedoed the party’s LGBT+ credentials.
Andrew Boff – a leading Tory London Assembly member who is patron of the LGBT+ Conservatives group – told The Independent that Ms Braverman was indulging in “dog whistle” politics to appeal to the right.
In an unusual move, the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) rebuked Ms Braverman’s speech after she claimed global leaders had failed to reform asylum rules because they fear being called “racist”.
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