‘LGBT rights are going back to the 1980s while the movement fights about gender’
politics and the media.While the issue is furiously litigated on social media, the organisation he runs, the Albert Kennedy Trust (AKT), works on the ground every day to help those whose stories are often overlooked.Trans issues have fuelled debate in activist and academic quarters for a long time but 2022 looks set to be the year it goes fully mainstream.Under Boris Johnson, the gender debate has become politicised, from the stripping of trans protections from the ‘conversion therapies’ bill, to his jibes over Sir Keir Starmer’s ‘struggle to define what a woman is’.From major sports bodies adopting new gender policies, to high-profile interventions from national figures like J.
K. Rowling, gender issues suddenly seem to be everywhere.In the meantime, a stark reality is playing out across Britain.Of the 105,000 young people at risk of homelessness, almost a quarter identify as LGBTQ+.
And trans people in that group are often the most vulnerable, Tim warns.He is speaking at the launch of a new centre in Newcastle, where around three quarters of 16- to 25-year-olds who depend on the AKT’s help identify as trans.Divisions over gender, he fears, risk the movement looking the other way amid a worrying pattern of backsliding.Tim told Metro.co.uk: ‘In Europe, the UK has fallen from being the number one country on LGBTQ+ human rights to the 14th position since 2015.‘We forget that the movement has to be unified and in some ways we are not.’He added: ‘Our LGBTQ+ house should be for everyone.
