Note: This essay is being produced during the middle situation of the Cass Review in TERF Island. As the author editing this essay, I am ashamed of how low trans healthcare has gone, to the point where trans people are being affected and harmed in this country. Let it be known that I extend all my solidarity to all trans people as I am trans myself, so that this country can be rid of all transphobia.
Disclaimer: This essay contains transphobia and quotes from transphobic authors. If you are sensitive to this, please take caution while reading this essay.
Introduction
The title of the essay in question only gives more questions for those not too involved in transgender groups or spaces, specifically the term "TERF Island" . This is an alternate name for the United Kingdom, but with the added negative connotation to this new title. Why is this the case? This is due to being the United Kingdom being a place filled with "TERFs".
What is a TERF?
In short, TERF is an acronym which stands for "Transgender Exclusionary Radical Feminist". It is a form of Radical Feminism which excretes its most reactionary form. It removes all aspects of a real Feminist struggle (that being the dismantlement of capitalism, the patriarchy, and objectification) that which the LGBT people also benefit from, and instead offer an alternative which asserts that sex and gender are the same, and ultimately determines the sex/gender by genitalia or sex chromosomes. We will not be debunking TERFs per se as I have already made an essay analysing the LGBT question from a marxist perspective,[note 1] rather I would want to set a foothold for those people who are unaware of what a TERF is.
This essay will attempt to cover all basis of the transphobia of the United Kingdom (or so joyfully I will call "TERF Island") specifically all the transphobia lying in the National Health Service (NHS), the British Parliament, organisations not often talked about, such as the transphobia of the communist parties in the United Kingdom, and lastly, certain people or peoples who had involvement with the public conscious of the British people.
Transphobia surrounding Britain
Transgender groups did not begin entering the public sphere until around the 2000s, and even then it wasn't considered very popular as the fear of 'homosexuality' and 'crossdressing' was still within the public sphere. Nonetheless, transgender oppression exists, and it was upmost essential for transgender people to 'pass', to fit within the gender binary, and non-binary people did not had any real means to fit inside the gender binary unless by suppressing their gender. There was some improvements, such as the development of the Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS) by the Tavistock clinic in 1989, but transphobia was still in the surface, and the transgender people were oppressed heavily if they did not engage in stealth.[note 2]
However there were big improvements within the transgender people. In this case, the 2004 Gender Recognition Act passed by the British government (under Labour), which allowed people to legally change their sex with the addition of a Gender Recognition Certificate (GRC). There are problems with this idea of a GRC, but we will get onto this later. It seems the labour aristocracy has privileged the LGBT people in the first world. However this will soon to be learned, short-lived.