Trans People are Shooting Themselves in the Foot & How to Fix It
An article about the state of the trans rights movement in Manchester, and how some people seem completely determined to lose their own rights. And some policies we can work towards.
CLARIFICATION (06/09/2025): A small error has appeared in that there were a few missing words from the section where I talk about the societal trauma of being trans. This is now fixed.
I really wish I didn’t have to write this article, but I am left with no choice but to write it. The trans movement in Manchester has severe problems of totally vacant leadership and queer chaotic disarray.
As you readers probably already know, I’m a transgender activist and leader of the Queer Party in the UK. For some reason, this seems to have exposed me to a ton of hate from other trans people. Why the hell would you do that?
I have found that cisgender individuals have been on the large, very receptive to my work. I have had respectful conversations, I have had tons of constructive feedback; my readers enjoy my articles and comment on them.
…and then you get to the Manchester Trans Liberation Assembly, as well as similar groups that try and do trans activism, and quite frankly, I have never seen a group of individuals so insistent on losing their own right to exist.
Which is really, really sad, because these are my people. Let’s give you a few examples of how my interactions with the Manchester TLA have gone:
When the TLA started, and the protests started, the first and second protests were quite frankly, a completely disorganised mess. Had I not worked with a team of anarchists on the ground on Friday, this protest wouldn’t have taken off. I want people to get better at organising protests.
On the third protest where they protested outside a closed courthouse away from the public street, the TLA refused to let me speak, on the basis of ‘not submitting my application for the speakers list early enough’ despite this working absolutely fine for the first and second protests. A compromise was offered to wait for hours to speak as a disabled person who uses a cane and is unable to stand for long periods. Really?
I have been told that ‘I have a god complex’ and ‘I am arrogant’ for trying to help. I’ve been jumped on by multiple people in conversations & my ideas have been shut down. I am simply unable to speak to the TLA without feeling like I’m screaming into the void and nothing gets done.
Despite months of being active, they have done literally nothing productive. There is currently no Code of Conduct, and the manifesto is out of date. When I offered to help draft the Code of Conduct, in order to avoid toxic politics and the fact I’m a journalist should have given some credence that I can indeed write. I was basically told to go fuck myself.
And it goes on, and on, and on. It’s not just the Manchester Trans Liberation Assembly, either. I have also had arguments with Trans Pride MCR.
I offered to speak at Trans Pride MCR several months before the pride. However, the organiser of Trans Pride MCR has simply ignored me, and proceeded to tell me it’s too late to add me in as all the timings were fixed.
The same organiser, of course, that decided to make the worst, least disruptive route around Manchester to do this trans parade, and proceeded to change the start location about five times because of fascists. As we learnt from the first protest, it is not a good idea to change location, as you are just inviting fragmentation into the movement. And that, is how the fascists can actually splinter and fracture protest groups. We can’t do this. This is dumb.
I get that there was only one trustee for a long time. But I would have been happy to volunteer as a trustee, especially that I have charity running experience, and this comes to the crux of the problem. But they never answered my request for help, and never acknowledged that fact.
And so, this is the crux of the problem. Trans people don’t trust help.
Many Trans People are Too Proud to Ask for Help from Other Trans People
For full disclosure, I am slightly biased.
I have ran a mental health charity for two years, helping trans people get out of abuse and to improve their mental health, I have worked with the Albert Kennedy Trust on their Trans Pathway Programme, I have interacted with so many trans people that have been simply wonderful to talk to and work with.
But it was also a trans rapist that raped me, and a trans domestic abuser that abused me. And it's trans people that currently are giving me most of the hate for my existence. Trans people are not necessarily one solid block of good. There's bad too.
I get it. I have CPTSD too. Being trans in this society is inherently traumatic, as I've talked about in my free to read memoir. But would you rather do something about it, and make it less traumatic? I would prefer to.
I know that some of you may take offence at my assertive tone. But believe me, that’s exactly the kind of tone we need to actually get us some rights codified in law. Because the situation is so incredibly serious that we need to do something. And I say, get some progressive trans people into power.
Don’t believe me? Just look at the Rainbow Map. The UK is now one of the the worst at legal gender recognition in Europe, since the Supreme Court ruling.
My native country, Poland, has more legal recognition than the UK. And until recently, in Poland you had to sue your parents in order to get your gender!
Poland. You know, that country that has historically had politicians try and implement LGBT-free zones.
Imagine what we could achieve if we actually stopped the pointless bickering, looked at what was going on, the wider picture, and collaborated together. I have built the Queer Party to be exactly just that, but the Queer Party alone cannot save trans people. It is trans people that need to save themselves.
It’s not hard. The whole reason why I have been able to get momentum with the Queer Party, and get the entire left interested, is because finally we have some common sense policies that the majority of the country can get behind.
I don’t attack people. I will however use strong language to call out hate. Because hate has absolutely no fucking place in queer politics. Get rid of it.
Top Five Priorities for Trans People
Universal Basic Income
I believe that the DWP should be abolished, and replaced with a Department of Universal Credit. A Universal Basic Income should be established with the following high level structure:
The admin department should be responsible for verifying that the person exists, lives in the UK, and is eligible to receive benefits. The department also has discretionary power to refer any case to a investigative department should the income be abused on a technical level (i.e. trying to claim twice, etc). The income will be universal i.e. everyone can receive it, including homeless people and foreign nationals, and the Post Offices can be used for serving people who don’t use tech. We should also renationalise the Post Office. It’s clearly struggling.
The amount I propose would be that the income is tied to the 50th percentile of national earnings, with Manchester and London weightings of 10% and 15% respectively. The national weekly median is £728 a week, so you end up with an effective income of £1,456 a month as a base. A worker earning minimum wage at 37.5 hours a week will earn £1,721.87 a month. I think £1,456 is a reasonable minimum to support a human being living in Britain. You can’t survive on £316.98 a month if you’re under 25.
In regards to disabled people, I propose that an additional amount is given. I believe that should be a bespoke package for each disabled person in the assessment, with a minimum benefit floor of £412 a month, which is the current rate for Standard Mobility & Daily Living Allowance. The existing child allowances on Universal Credit will be kept, and the two-child cap should be scrapped, because it causes massive poverty.
In this system, we phase out Housing Benefit. I believe that Housing Benefit is unfortunately a tool where private landlords are simply able to exploit rents as far as they can go, but also I believe that people should be able to choose where they live within reason, and not be forced into unsuitable living situations. In the long-term, this will be resolved by the construction and addition of more social homes to the housing stock.
Equality Act 2026
I believe that this needs to be codified in legislation. Right now, the single biggest thing that is protecting all of us, is the current Equality Act legislation. And it’s not strong enough.
I would like it to be codified into law that every person in the UK has the right to self-determination, no matter who they are. Even the UN says this is important for human rights.
As a result, the Equality Act 2026 would allow for self-identification for trans people. We already allow people to change their names through a deed poll, including sex offenders, and we already have systems in place to stop the abuse of this system.
I propose that it should be as simple as a statutory declaration to change gender with a solicitor, and anyone is able to make that statutory declaration at any time, even foreign nationals. Anyone can also rescind this declaration at any time. There will be no restrictions, aside from people who have been successfully convicted and are serving serious crimes, such as rape, sexual assault, and fraud. The local police will need to informed about the change of gender in these scenarios.
This piece of legislation would require any sex data for anyone in this country, to be stored in a secure location. This effectively would move the gender field to a special category of GDPR data. The Data Protection regulations will also have to be updated.
This legislation also should codify non-binary people in law (so you can declare your gender as non-binary), as well as intersex individuals. This will give this group legal recognition against discrimination.
An explicit protection for all groups with protected characteristics for the right to receive medical treatment that is appropriate and proportional. A right in legislation for trans, non-binary, and intersex individuals to request and receive gender affirming hormonal treatment as needed from the NHS, with all hormone treatment to be made part of MedEx, and therefore free. As most trans people have to take these hormones their entire lives, it makes little sense to make them pay. It’s not really optional.
Implement Proportional Voting
One of the biggest challenges to break the Labour/Tory stronghold is that our voting system simply does not lead itself to coalitions.
Proportional voting works in Europe. Both Germany and Poland use it. And it allows us to do great things, such as left-wing alliances. A common worry is whether this will get Reform into power. This concern is justified, as indeed the far-right party Alternative for Deutschland in Germany has 21% of the vote share, and therefore the opposition to the government in Germany.
But is this actually a problem? After all, this surely means that the system is working. The right wing gets to challenge the left-wing, but has to do so in a way that is respectable. In other words, a far-left governement and a far-right opposition would get nothing accompolished. The system is designed here to stop extremism by design.
It doesn’t seem to limit economic growth or social progress either. Germany is one of the most progressive countries in Europe. After all, they literally host BDSM parties in public in Berlin. And Poland is growing extremely quickly, at 3.2% in 2025 Q1.
First Past the Post is not fit for purpose. It produces unrepresentative governments over, and over again. I agree with Andy Burnham, the Greater Manchester Mayor. And unfortunately, the two main parties really don’t want you to change this system. So let’s pressure them.
Council Tax Reform
If there is one subject in this country that is seen with complete distain, it would be council tax.
It seems so bloody arbitrary. You pay taxes depending on how much the rented house you live in was worth in 1991? And why does someone in Stockport in a modest 1 bedroom converted maisonette pay double the council tax than a three bedroom house in Manchester? (this literally happened to me)
This can’t go on unless we want every council in this country to go bankrupt.
Tie council tax to income after a certain income, e.g a household that earns above £50,000, with higher allowances in London and Manchester., Of course, this system will also account for kids and people with disabilities, by excluding the household from the tax if children under the age of 18 or disabled people are present. I believe we should use the same criteria as the mentally impairment criteria, but I would change ‘mentally impaired’ to '‘severe mental illness’ for more up-to-date 21st century wording.
We should do do a rebanding for the country, as the bands are clearly incorrect now for many places. Bands and discounts should be standardised across the country, and every council should have bands A-H across a national banding framework. This would make it easier to compare council tax between boroughs. There may indeed be some councils where the higher banded properties do not exist, and in those cases, the central government would provide extra funding.
Some of the money raised in this process can be put towards council household funds and council tax support to help the poorest. This solves the immediate council underfunding problems, too. It could also be put towards building social housing that is actually affordable, which is a real problem currently.
My longer term idea is a property tax paid by landlords on the m² of the property in addition to a percentage of income. Councils should decide how much council tax to charge and where, but there should be a legally mandated minimum floor to discourage councils such as Westminster from undercharging tax and then funding formulas for councils from the national government need to be revisited.
I'm aware that the longer term idea suffers from a particular problem that the New York Housing Authority has, mainly a big bill from the government for its own housing. To avoid this situation, social housing providers should not pay these taxes. This probably would be covered through the process turning council tax into a progressive tax plus a few other tax changes, such luxury taxes on yachts and supercars, a wealth tax for assets above £10m owned at home or at abroad, and public tax returns (with redacted addresses) like how they do it in Sweden.
Make Employment Work Again.
The UK is one of the worst countries in Western Europe for workers’ rights.
My policies for making employment work would be to:
Introduce a French-style Right to Disconnect. Workers should not beforced to work outside of their regular hours, unless they consent to it, and get paid at least a Real Living Wage for doing overtime. Currently they only get have to get at least minimum wage.
All office workers should be allowed to work from home. All workers should also be offered the option of four day weeks (where feasible) as they are proven to work, as well as true flexitime options which would help disabled people like myself, as we can’t even get Access to Work. Fund that too.
Introduce mandatory 45 minute rest breaks for any work day that lasts more than three hours. Currently, the standard in law is 20 minutes if they work for more than six hours a day. This disproportionally impacts poorer workers and leads to low efficiency in low paid work.
Change the self-employment start-up period on Universal Credit to 24 months, and disregard any earnings made completely in the first 12 months. Currently the system assumes you are earning minimum wage after 12 months. 12 months is not a lot of time to start a business, especially as it takes usually 2-3 years for small businesses to become successful.
Every workplace with more than 50 people must employ a mental health worker as part of Occupational Health programmes. This must be someone who is trained to deliver basic counselling as well as Mental Health First Aid. This would put pressure off the NHS, which is struggling with waiting lists and underfunding, as well as mismanagement.
Fix education. More funding for local libraries. Position the UK as the first country with an ethical AI framework and therefore a place to do business. Ignore Guardian editors that don’t have a clue - do in fact send more kids to university as well as all the other routes such as degree apprenticeships. And finally, ensure that every important town in Britain has a crisis cafe like the one in Manchester where people in emotional need can go, staffed with NHS workers, as a new mental health community model. And we make sure we never let the suicide hotlines ever run dry of funding ever again.
I’ll write more policies in the coming days. They’ll be available on the Queer Party website as soon as I get round to it. Stay tuned and subscribe.
Conclusion
This is a difficult post to write, because many of you are my friends, and many of you I highly respect and love. However, you have to also realise that politics is the way that we get power and therefore, change. You don’t have to necessarily agree with my politics. However, I do demand a basic level of respect and decent behaviour between all of us. We are ultimately all trans people fighting for the same goal.
I will not accept trans people who are conservative or medicalist. These people stand in the way of progress. I also do not accept trans people who are assimilationists, unless it’s for health or practical reasons. If you have the ability to help the trans movement, help the trans movement. But simply yelling at people who are trying to help just adds to polarisation.
I will not be rejoining the Manchester Trans Liberation Assembly. I do not think that the TLA is fit for purpose. I do believe a new association is needed.
Oh, and I have also enabled the subscriber chat now, so feel free to comment in there as well. I’d love to see what the community thinks about my policies.
