Your Party needs to fix up its transphobia problem sharpish
Your Party hasn’t announced when its planned conference is set to take place, and questions are inevitably swirling over its party positions – particularly on transphobia. MPs Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana have said that the policies of Your Party will be decided by the public at this planned conference:
At this conference, you will decide the party’s direction, the model of leadership and the policies that are needed to transform society. That is how we can build a democratic movement that take on the rich and powerful – and win.
The statement and the reputations of both MPs make it safe to assume that the party will confront the corporate class, support trade unions, and dismantle anti-immigrant structures. However, the longer it takes to get to this conference, the longer potential supporters spend with the uncertainty of not knowing what will happen with certain policy directions.
Both Corbyn and Sultana have been rare shining lights in British politics over the last few years. At the Canary we’d love nothing more than for whatever Your Party becomes to be successful. We have the same values, the same politics, and the same goals.
So, when we say the following it’s in the spirit of wanting to work together to have better futures for the people that have been abandoned by mainstream politics: Your Party has a transphobia problem brewing and it must be addressed.
Your Party’s brewing transphobia problem
One associate of Your Party in particular, Adnan Hussain, MP for Blackburn, has come in for well-deserved criticism of his transphobic stance. Days ago, Hussain tweeted:
It has become a transphobic talking point to consider trans people a threat to cis women’s spaces. Hussain’s easy agreement with this moral panic is extremely worrying. And, when asked if he considered trans women to be women, Hussain responded:
They're not biologically women, hence trans-women.
— Adnan Hussain MP (@AdnanHussainMP) August 31, 2025
In fact, Hussain also claimed that:
Whilst Mothin Ali was discussing queer rights in general, Hussain’s response is worrying in light of his other transphobic comments. And, importantly, Hussain is wrong that Muslims tend to be socially conservative. Perhaps because he has chosen to be a landlord and real estate mogul, his circle of Muslims is correspondingly socially conservative. The notion that Muslims tend to be socially conservative is a lie that is hauntingly in-step with Western stereotypes of Muslims as regressive and backwards.
Whilst certain schools of thought within Islam are of course socially conservative, it’s a joke to think of the majority of two billion Muslims worldwide as such. Muslims come with all manner of political positions – socialist, liberal, conservative, and so on. And, perhaps to Adnan’s surprise – some of us are even trans!
The bottom line here is that whilst Hussain may consider himself to have leftist politics, it feels disingenuous for him to position an “authentic” space for Muslims as one that does not stand in solidarity with trans people. And, it feels degrading to have to explain over and over again that trans people shouldn’t be hounded out of public society, and that Muslims are not all socially conservative. But, this is what we’ve been dragged to do over and over again by successive moral panics.
Punching down
Hussain’s comments are especially infuriating and saddening in light of the commonalities between trans people and Muslims.
Both groups have been furiously maligned by bigots whose opinions are given more airtime than any others.
Both groups are considered enemy others who can infect and intrude upon safe spaces.
And, both groups make up a very small part of the UK population. As of 2025, Muslims make up about 6% of the population. When asked in the 2021 census if the gender someone identifies with was the same as the gender assigned to them at birth, only 0.5% of people answered “no.” The latter statistic in particular is the first time the census asked anything about gender identity, and as such is not a wholly accurate picture of the population.
However, the point is that despite making up such a small part of the population, Muslims and trans people have been given wildly undue coverage in public discussion of their existence.
It is a dangerous and deeply distressing time to be trans in the UK. It is crushing to have to regularly point out that trans people are amongst the most vulnerable people in society. We tend to have terrible job opportunities, face harassment in public spaces, have woefully inadequate healthcare options, and much, much more. The fact online conversations about transphobia are often dominated by white and middle class people is another difficult reality. When it comes to sweeping moral panics, differences that make up trans communities – like race, religion, class, and more – are trampled upon and lost in the eagerness of transphobes to dehumanise us as a broader group.
Our position
Zarah Sultana has made a statement in recent days, reading:
Trans rights are human rights.
Your Party will defend them — no ifs, no buts.
And I won’t let anyone, whoever they are, get in the way of this fight.
Solidarity always 🏳️⚧️
— Zarah Sultana MP (@zarahsultana) September 4, 2025
Jeremy Corbyn has made similar statements in the past:
I am really saddened by the level of vitriol and hatred being directed toward the trans community.
We are losing our common humanity. How hard is it to treat people with kindness and respect?
Trans people are human beings — and they deserve to live in dignity.
— Jeremy Corbyn (@jeremycorbyn) April 17, 2025
But, given the plan for Your Party is for members to decide policies together, this is no guarantee that the party will firmly reject the vicious transphobia the UK is becoming famous for. After all, in their statement announcing the venture certain policies were clear.
Their position on immigration, corporate wealth hoarding, and trade unions are explicitly mentioned in the statement. So, some policies are not up for debate. That makes sense, because Your Party has two notable leftist MPs at the helm. So, why not make it part of the announcement statement that transphobia is firmly rejected?
As we wait for more details of the party to emerge, it’s only natural that those who want the new party to succeed want to make sure that all of us will be included in a vision for the future.
The bottom line for the Canary is that we have always supported the rights of trans people, and we always will. We see fighting transphobia as central to our purpose as we do shining a light on Israel’s genocide in Palestine, calling out the DWP’s demonisation of disabled people, and supporting grassroots politics.
We firmly believe that any party who claims to represent the most marginalised and vulnerable people in society must include trans people in their vision of the future.
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It is unsurprising to see that the establishment forces (MI5, MI6, Special Branch, CIA, Mossad) are working hard, as usual, to cultivate the Trans-Rights argument to divide and divert the Left from central issues.
Like the anti-Semitism scam, the right-wing will cultivate Trans Rights as the “Emperor’s Clothes” in order to impale the Left on a spike that they will be easily led to.
I see it all around me.
I see the SWP put Trans Rights front and centre of their political program.
They are unwittingly (or wittingly) sowing the seeds of sectarian division – as they always do.
Look out for the signs.
Don’t be afraid to be call out the Emperor’s New Clothes.
The trap is being carefully-cultivated – Just for you.
Yup.
Why isn’t “Their own safe spaces” good enough? Do they want to be safe, or to impose on others? I considered transitioning over a decade ago – were I a top athlete, there’s NO WAY I would have demanded inclusion in women’s sport, because I still would have the natural physical advantages of being born male. It would be *cheating*.
EVEN IF I considered myself female in every way that mattered. I would still be a trans-woman.
This is why an increasing number of people are turning away from Transrights. There is no recognition of the POV of others. No, this isn’t like “Racism”. “Race” is a nonsensical idea used to justify European genocidal empires. A penis is a biological fact.
Calling that “Transphobia” is rapidly becoming the same as calling someone “Anti-semitic”.
The last time I pointed that out on the Canary, the post was deleted, and I cancelled my subscription immediately in response. I strongly advised a retrenchment and some humbleness, before MY transfriends start getting assaulted on the streets in reaction to this intransigence and maximalist behaviour.
Well, where are we now? Have matters improved since?? Or is it just getting worse, Canary?
There is NOTHING WRONG with having safe spaces for transwomen, a Hater would say they don’t need any publicly-funded safe spaces. This is an ALLY ffs.
Take a step or two back, and wait for the older people to die. You don’t have the RIGHT to tell traumatised women that a penis-wielder is safe when they question that.
This maximalism is losing you friends and allies at an alarming rate.
You already have the GPEW, be happy with that. Don’t rip apart Your Party as well. If you not only end up getting my transwomen friends assaulted, but also destroy the country’s last, slim chance to get rid of Starmer/Reform, I wish there was a Hell that you could burn in.
Very well put.
Thank you, I could not have put it better.
One of the key problems here is the failure by too many to recognise that death and taxes are not the only constants of life.
Because it does not matter what aspect of human existence is considered, there will always be the constant of someone, some group or sub-group taking advantage to the point of what is known in industrial parlance as ‘kicking the arse out of it’.
And this is why society has rules to protect the cohesion of society and the different as well as common interests of everyone. It is why we have speed limits on the road; age restrictions on the purchase of certain products, voting, joining the military etc; due process standards and principles (remember them?) involving substantive and objective based evidence; and many other such examples.
Screaming the word “anti-Semite” or “transphobe” at anyone who raises any questions is the very antithesis of the Class Politics which is sorely needed in this developing ‘new’ party.
Which brings us to the second key problem.
“The insistence on the primacy of subjective based individual/group narratives over testable evidence based objective social reality, because objective society does not exist, only the subjective feelings and narratives of the individual and the group, has familiar echoes.
It should do because this is the narrative of “no such thing as society, only the individual and the family” philosophy of Thatcherism.
An approach which should be anathema to any political or social based group, organisation or institution claiming to be progressive or of the left. It is divisive and represents an extremely effective divide and rule Class based attack using the disguise of left/progressive labels. Salami slicing groups in society which do and should have more in common with each other in a hierarchy of oppression sold as “progressive” by identity politics.
Driving a coach and horses through the principle of equality in terms of objective treatment and approach in favour of subjective — ie selective — judgement based on identity and where that subjectively manufactured identity is located within that hierarchy of oppression pecking order and rejecting outright any practical notion of a wider society.
Randism on steroids. The rallying cry was once ‘No Pasaran.’ Today it is ‘No Reciprocation.’ Thatcher’s no such thing as society coming home to roost in a cuckoo that pretends to be ‘left’ and ‘progressive.’”
“Thus arises an intriguing ‘binary’ relationship between extreme individualistic subjectivism and extreme state authoritarianism. Assertion of non-negotiable pseudo-sacrosanct narcissistic power is common to both. Objective law as irreducible sphere of reality is subverted by arbitrary personalism. Might determines right. Autocracy of self-ID is mirrored by autocracy on high.”
Fearghas MacFhionnlaigh
https://davehansell.substack.com/p/joining-the-dots
“If the political left genuinely seeks to be taken seriously in terms of doing the business, it needs to engage with these realities in a mature and grown up manner, rather than operating as though it were in a school playground.
Continuing to drive out and isolate significant sections of its own base using this rebranded reactionary philosophy as the core of its project will only serve to further fracture and fragment both its activist and wider supporter base in a society those making the most noise clearly, like Foucault and his contemporary acolytes among them, don’t accept exists.
Ordering people on pain of every form of ostracism, backed by Establishment Institutions and Corporations, to ‘wheesht for Thatcherism’ is not and never will be a successful or winning approach.”
There are a lot of very capable people, with a whole lot of experience and expertise in doing the business, who have signed up for information of this project who are watching and waiting to see whether this will represent a return to class based politics or more of this Thatcher/Rand Sovereign Individual purity spiral approach. If it is the latter, a very large proportion of those who are presently on the database will no longer be available, and the Establishment Oligarchy will remain tin the driving seat.
Canary with its MI5 agenda of misogyny.
Men, however they identify, ARE a threat to women’s and girls’ protected, SINGLE-SEX spaces. Men should stay out of them. There is no evidence that “gender” transition changes male offending patterns or their often predatory and objectifying attitudes towards women and girls.
Calling people “transphobic” because they see the need for women’s safe spaces, or because they feel that men in women’s sport is cheating, is as ridiculous as calling someone anti-Semitic for objecting to the murder of thousands of people through bombing and starvation.
In the same issue that Rachael Swindon has defended Jeremy Corbyn for saying he is not anti-Zionist, we have this hate filled article directed at those who don’t follow ALL of the so called “trans rights” dogma.
Trans rights activists are reminding me of the most vitriolic of Zionist in their lies, anger, hatred and absolutism.
So – The Emperor really is naked.
Dare to say it !
When trans rights were front and centre of Scottish politics it allowed the right wing Starmerites in. This is the same tactic. The British have a horrendous view on toilets. Loads of Brits will go to France and happily share toilets for everyone. I took a party of schoolchildren to a French school on an exchange. The French school toilets were shared not just by girls and boys, but by staff as well. … And as for men relieving themselves at the side of the road ….. Let’s be honest, we as a nation have unhealthy hang-ups.