The word on everyone’s tongues at present seems to be hope. This disquiets me. Nothing sings sinking ship quite like the captain asking the passengers to pray. If all the higher-ups have to offer me is hope, the holes of oppression this establishment pierces relentlessly in us threaten to sink us all. The equality for which we long appears as an island not unlike our own, drifting further into the distance.

As a miserable young teenager forced to live in a persona étranger, I dreamt of returning to the UK to transition. Even back in the early 2010s I knew things weren’t perfect, but I was not yet accustomed to being a talking point in every other day’s tabloids. Besides, I figured, it couldn’t be any worse than living in a country where my identity could easily get me killed. I hoped – and there’s that tricky word again – that most people would ignore me, let me go about my business. Yet I wake every morning pinching myself because I swear I’ve seen this story before, this government policy, this treacherous terrain. My only error was believing I had escaped it.

I may be met with incredulity when I assert that I am not in fact a pessimist, nor a bitter cynic throwing a tantrum about a law in a part of the country to which I have little connection. But this bill, this gruelling six-year process, this light at the end of a seemingly endless tunnel, was snuffed out in a few paragraphs. Years of investigation and probing questions, of poking at our wounds until they reopen were for worse than nothing. They let us believe we’d found land, then dragged us down by the anchor. 

If there was ever a good time to offer comfort to the trans people in your life, it is now. Shout with us until this government cannot sleep for all the racket, no matter how much cotton they cram into their ears. If trans people stand alone in this fight, it will be over in minutes. If you feel even the slightest bit of solidarity with us, show up. We could use the extra hands to bail out the water from the bottom of this battered boat.