Hopefully I don’t need to give you folks (another) lecture on why the gender binary is silly. Sadly, however, human beings appear to be addicted to binary thinking, and it causes them to get into all sorts of panics. One such has been playing out this past week because of this article by Lisa Diamond in New Scientist which argues against the “born this way” narrative of same-sex attraction. There’s not one, but two binaries involved here. The first is that people are either homosexual or heterosexual; the second is that sexuality is either biologically determined or not. Both of these binaries are, in my view, false.

The first one ought to be obvious, because people do identify as bisexual. Sadly this just gets people think that there are three types of sexuality — L, G and B — all of which are quantitatively different. As a trans person, I find the whole question rather silly. Many of us have sexual relations both before and after transition. Sometimes these are “heterosexual” in both genders; sometimes “homosexual” in both genders, and sometimes with the same gender either side of transition. Some of us are bisexual both before and after transition. What does this mean for our sexuality? Who knows, but I have this horrible feeling that it means we are the “wrong sort” of bisexuals, because queer politics is all about policing how people get to be queer.

The second binary is hugely political. The “born this way” narrative was adopted by L&G campaigners as a defense against the claim that being homosexual is socially deviant and needs to be “cured”. If sexuality is somehow innate then “cures” are impossible and L, G & B people are deserving of the same rights in society as straight people. Articles such as the one by Diamond inevitably attract criticism as legitimizing “cures”. But Diamond is openly lesbian. What exactly is going on here?

Color me suspicious, but part of me is not surprised to see articles dumping the “born this way” narrative now that LGB appear to be socially acceptable. I keep expecting to see something at the end of these articles that says, “so being queer is totally socially constructed, but biological sex isn’t, which that proves that the tr*nn*es are fucking perverts who ought to be forced to undergo cures.” Thankfully I haven’t actually seen one of those yet, but I’m sure I will.

Another, less paranoid, reason why we could be seeing these articles now is that magazines are looking for the next controversy in sexuality, and because the fight for same-sex marriage has been won (in the places where those magazines are published) people feel more comfortable challenging the political orthodoxy of the queer community.

Because I look at the history of queer people, I see this whole thing very differently. Whether sexuality and gender identity are ingrained or not, one thing is obvious and that is that how we understand sexuality and gender is socially constructed. Different societies understand and accept sexuality in different ways, and the same is true for gender. What it means to be a homosexual person, or a trans person, varies with social context.

In practice, more people are bisexual than are strictly homosexual (Lisa Diamond has data), and in times/places when same-sex attraction is more acceptable the number of people prepared to admit that, or to act on such desires, will go up. My guess is that more people will identify as genderqueer than will need full gender transition, and again the ability of people to engage in ambiguous gender performance is socially dependent. I also suspect that some people can and will change both sexuality and gender identity as they grow older.

So where does this leave the whole “cures” argument. Well, if we view sexuality and gender identity as each being on a spectrum rather than having gay/straight and cis/trans binaries it all makes sense. Lots of people are fluid in one or both of those areas. Put those people in a situation where their gay or trans feelings are deemed socially unacceptable and they will shrug and say, “OK, I can live with that”. However, the people on the far ends of those spectra can’t live with it (for whatever reason). If they could change, they would, because the social disadvantages of not changing are horrendous. But for them the cost of changing is worse. Those are exactly the people who are likely to end up being sent for “cures”, and that’s why the cures don’t work.

Whether this means that there is some biological component to sexuality or gender identity is irrelevant. All that matters is that people have different degrees of flexibility in these areas. Forcing the people who are least flexible to undergo conversion therapies is pointless and cruel.

Can we please stop obsessing over their artificially constructed binaries and just accept that people are diverse, and that’s OK?

I see from Twitter that this evening Sarah Savage will be on a panel about the future of Pride. Obviously that will be Brighton-specific, but many of the issues apply the world over.

As far as I see it, a public LGBT event can have three purposes.

Firstly it can be part of a political campaign, demonstrating a clear public desire for changes in the law. Most big Prides stopped being that some time ago. Trans Pride still has something of that feel to it, but if it carries on growing at the current rate then it will stop being political. In order to stay political, the event has to cater solely to people who are angry about the political issue in question.

Second the event can be part of a “hearts and minds” campaign. That’s basically what modern Prides are. They are big parties put on by the LGBT community for the entire community. That means they tend to get swamped by straight cis people, but because we put on a great party they come away loving us. That doesn’t garner support for a specific political campaign, but it is very useful for obtaining support when you do ask for more rights. I don’t think that the marriage equality campaign would have been anywhere near as successful had we not spent years convincing the general public that us queers are harmless, fun people who throw great parties.

Finally the event can be educational. The LGBT History Festival is an event of this type. While it is nice to give our fellow queers a good sense of our own history, the primary intent is to inform the public about how we have always been around, how badly we have been treated in the recent past, and how other cultures have often been more accepting of queerness.

Both the second and third purposes require that the event be swamped by straight cis people, because to a large extent they are the target audience.

Where Brighton’s Trans Pride chooses to go in the future will be up to Sarah and her colleagues because they are the people putting in the work. (Yes, I reject the “angry SJW” attitude that other people have a duty to do volunteer work in the way that I demand they do so, even though all I ever do is insult them in social media.) However, I do have some thoughts on where the trans community should be going politically.

One of the short interviews I did at Trans Pride was with one of the people on the Stonewall stall. Obviously there was very little she could say at this point. There is still a lot of work to be done to integrate the trans community into Stonewall. However, at some point they will need to choose an issue to campaign on. That will be a difficult choice.

The marriage equality campaign was hugely successful, but it has also come in for much criticism as being something that benefits mainly the well-off, socially conservative parts of the gay and lesbian communities, while doing little or nothing for everyone else. I think it has been valuable because of the huge amount of public sympathy it has won for our cause, but I also acknowledge the issues.

The question for the trans community, and our allies in Stonewall, is how to construct a campaign that has a good chance of widespread public support, but at the same time does not throw large portions of the trans community under the bus.

It is not an idle question either. When Press for Change campaigned for the Gender Recognition Act they chose to leave behind non-binary people, and conceded defeat on issues such as the Spousal Veto. They also created the Gender Recognition Certificate, which has been somewhat problematic in practice. Tactically they were probably correct to do all of these things, because the social climate of the time would not have accepted anything else, but that still leaves us with an Act that needs fixing.

I don’t think we stand much chance campaigning for better treatment by the NHS. The last thing the public wants right now is more people asking for a share of government funds. They have been thoroughly bamboozled by the austerity mantra and will see any demand for money for us to be taking money away from them. Besides, the NHS is actually doing a pretty good job of reforming their treatment of us right now. We should let them get on with it and just keen an eye on proceedings to make sure they are going in the direction we want.

Nor do I think that we can campaign effectively on the flaws in marriage law. The trouble with the Spousal Veto is that it only affects trans people married to cis people. They reason we have it in the first place is that Home Office staff got themselves in a terrible tizzy worrying about how they would feel if their own marriage partner came out as trans. We’d have the same problem with the public. Besides, it would benefit a relatively small, and fast decreasing number of people, so I don’t think it is the sort of thing to pour lots of money and effort into.

What I do think would make a good campaign is Self Determination; that is, the right for people to determine their own gender (including non-binary), rather than have to get a doctor or psychiatrist to sign off on their identity.

Several countries have already enacted such legislation. Malta was the first, with Denmark following soon after. Ireland recently adopted something similar. Italy may have a law of this type too, though some of the coverage I have seen suggests that some sort of medical treatment is still required in their case. The UK is now most definitely lagging behind the curve when it comes to trans rights.

An important part of such a campaign is that it would directly benefit those who don’t identify within the gender binary, and who have until now mostly been left behind by trans rights campaigns. Again many countries in the world currently allow a third gender identification, including India, Pakistan and Australia.

Finally this is a campaign that does not harm anyone (except people who design forms that ask for your gender, and those awful companies who insist on gendering all of their products). In much the same way as two lesbians getting married does not destroy the marriage of an heterosexual couple, so the fact that someone chooses to identify as non-binary does not cause anyone else’s gender to change. The villains in this story are the doctors and psychiatrists, and the hated Gender Recognition Panel. I suspect that a lot of people would happily support a campaign that aimed to stop these people having God-like power over trans people’s lives.

So, that’s the campaign that I think Stonewall should help us to run. But we don’t have to wait for them. There is already a petition before Parliament asking for self-determination. It has more than twice the number of signatures needed to require a formal response from the government. If we can quadruple the current number of signatures then the question must be brought before Parliament. Go and sign it, please.

Well, that was amazing. When I got to the Marlborough in the morning it was clear that there were way more people than last year. I found Roz Kaveney, and we stood on the kerb together watching the parade leave. We estimated around a thousand people, and when I found Fox to ask about numbers I learned that the police had suggested a similar number. You got a real feel of it entering St. James Street because that goes up a hill and you could see people all the way up as far as the turning where they headed off to Dorset Gardens. Presumably they stretched all the way there as well, as there was a backup while the marchers got through the gate into the park.

Of course many people didn’t go on the march, and the park was packed all day. I don’t think that they had to start controlling access, but it can’t have been that far off needing to. Hopefully today I’ll find out how many wristbands they gave out.

There were also more stalls this year, most significantly the addition of Stonewall. Their process of incorporating trans people into their organization is going quite slowly, mainly because Ruth Hunt and her team are being very sensible and are trying hard to listen to lots of people before making any moves. But change is happening, and thus far it is looking good.

As far as I know, the day went very well, though there were the inevitable angry activists ready to complain at the slightest infraction of how they think things should have been done. There was certainly a good point to be made about access to the park, but the organizers do have to work with what the City Council will let them have, and are not rolling in money.

Talking of which, there must be a question as to what to do next year, because if the event keeps growing at this rate Dorset Gardens will be too small for it then. And, as we have seen with other Pride events, the bigger you get the more likely you are to be swamped with straight cis folks wanting to benefit from the free entertainment and gawp at the queers. Brighton Pride has apparently responded by getting hugely commercial. I’m very glad that Bristol hasn’t done that, but I understand the pressures that can cause it.

While it was very heartwarming to see so many people being happy and proud of being trans, the fight is far from won. A big crowd is a sign of some social acceptance, but it won’t necessarily result in political action, nor does it mean that everyone is onside. Here are a few examples of why we still have a long way to go.

On arriving at the park I learned of yet another murder of a trans woman in the USA. That’s 11 so far this year.

On my way into town to get dinner I saw, coming the other way, a tall, well-built woman with a shaved head. Once she had passed us the people behind me (apparently tourists) started making comments about “tr*nn*es”. Given the woman’s prodigious curves, that was one heck of a transformation if she was trans, but over 6 foot tall and shaved head said “really a man” to these idiots. It is instructive to hear what people have to say about your kind when they think you are not listening.

I had dinner at the Brighton Giggling Squid, partly because I wanted seafood and partly because Kevin and I had eaten there so doing so would help him feel part of the day. The food was good (there are photos in my Twitter feed), but after I had paid the bill the waiter deliberately addressed me as “sir”. There’s no doubt this was a calculated insult. It is not as if I don’t present as obviously female, it hadn’t been an issue before, but once he had my money (including his tip) he felt free to make his feelings known. I complained on Twitter. The chain has seen my tweets because they took notice of others, but they have not responded to the complaint. That’s one restaurant I won’t be going back to. Thankfully there are many other really good places to eat in Brighton.

So yeah, there’s a long way to go. The questions we have to address are, now that we have Stonewall on board, what campaign do we run, and how do we make sure it doesn’t leave a large part of the community behind the way that the Gender Recognition Bill did?