Trans youth occupy Department for Education in new protest: ‘We will have our dignity’
Trans Kids Deserve Better have occupied the Department for Education’s Westminster headquarters. (transkidsdeservebetter/Instagram)
Trans youngsters have occupied the Department for Education (DfE) in London in a protest calling for better education and rights for trans people.
14 activists from the Trans Kids Deserve Better network have occupied the DfE in Westminster, to demand “the right to a safe and inclusive education, and the rights of trans youth and adults”.
A flyer posted on Instagram by the group says: “We deserve respect in education and in all other areas of life. We will have our dignity and so will you.”
The network is also calling for autonomy of their own decisions about social transitioning, priority over their own comfort and safety, protection from all forms of transphobia, respect of their identities, and trans inclusion in education.
The protest follows health secretary Wes Streeting extending the form Conservative government’s controversial emergency ban on puberty blockers for trans youth, which he defended, in part, by referring to the Cass Report, which advised scrutiny of the medication.
Trans Kids Deserve Better activists are also rallying against the DfE’s draft Gender Questioning Children guidance which the network says, if implemented, would “potentially violate the Equality Act and harm a whole generation of trans and non-binary children,” Freedom reported.
In July, activists from the network occupied a ledge at NHS England’s headquarters in central London, with a simple message that trans kids deserve better. A transgender teenager who joined the protest later urged prime minister Keir Starmer to “stop weaponising” trans youth.
They told PinkNews at the time that they had had enough of politicians using transgender youngsters to score political points.
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