Out in the World: LGBTQ news from Europe and Asia
UNITED KINGDOM The UK Labour Party won an overwhelming majority in national elections July 4, ending 14 years of Conservative Party rule that have been characterized by a deteriorating human rights situation for LGBTQ Britons, particularly transgender people.
But the election of Kier Starmer as new prime minister seems to have queer people only cautiously optimistic at best. While Starmer’s Labour Party manifesto pledged to improve the queer people’s rights and safety by banning conversion therapy, expanding hate crime laws, and simplifying the gender recognition process for trans people, Starmer has also spent a lot of time playing to the widespread anti-trans hysteria in Britain.
He has said that trans people should not be allowed in single-sex spaces and courted noted transphobic author J.K. Rowling. That prompted a rebuke from Darren Styles, editor of Attitude Magazine, the UK’s leading LGBTQ lifestyle magazine.
Styles had offered Starmer the opportunity to write an open letter to his magazine’s readers ahead of the election, but in an editorial, he writes that he couldn’t publish it without adding his own commentary. “But between his copy arriving, on 23rd June, and today’s publication the earth moved beneath our feet.
