{"id":2009839,"date":"2026-06-25T07:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-06-25T04:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=2009839"},"modified":"2026-06-25T07:00:00","modified_gmt":"2026-06-25T04:00:00","slug":"shon-faye-i-worry-about-the-threat-of-far-right-politics-in-the-uk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=2009839","title":{"rendered":"Shon Faye: \u2018I worry about the threat of far-right politics in the UK\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>[analyse_image type=&#8221;featured&#8221; src=&#8221;https:\/\/images-prod.dazeddigital.com\/1200\/0-199-1296-864\/azure\/dazed-prod\/1440\/8\/1448023.jpg&#8221;]<\/p>\n<article class=\"main-article standard \">\n<div class=\"article-main-content article-wrapper has-media-but-its-an-image\" data-status=\"loaded\" data-primary-article=\"true\" data-url=\"\/life-culture\/article\/70521\/1\/shon-faye-the-transgender-issue-fifth-anniversary-interview-2026\" data-article-id=\"70521\">\n<header class=\"article-header has-portrait-image no-media\">\n<div class=\"wrapper dg-max-width\">\n<div class=\"inner\">\n<figure class=\"main-img has-figcaption\" data-img-aspect-ratio-type=\"portrait\" data-img-aspect-ratio=\"0.67\" data-template=\"Standard Article\"><span class=\"has-css-custom-props image-container\" data-aspect-ratio-type=\"portrait\"><span class=\"preserve-aspect-ratio\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"shon-faye-1744378944474\" class=\"img\" height=\"1942\" src=\"https:\/\/images-prod.dazeddigital.com\/1280\/azure\/dazed-prod\/1440\/8\/1448023.jpg\" width=\"1296\"><\/span><\/span><figcaption class=\"img-caption\"><span class=\"inner\"><span class=\"credit\">Photography Sophie Davidson, courtesy <span class=\"nowrap\">Shon Faye<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<aside class=\"meta\">\n<div class=\"inner\"><time datetime=\"2026-06-25T07:00:00+00:00\" class=\"timestamp\" title=\"25 June 2026\"><span class=\"month\">June<\/span>\u00a0<br \/>\n<span class=\"day\" data-day=\"25\">25,<\/span>\u00a0<br \/>\n<span class=\"year\">2026<\/span><\/time><\/div>\n<\/aside>\n<div class=\"titles\">\n<div class=\"tags\">\n<div class=\"sections\"><a class=\"category vertical - life-culture\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/life-culture\">Life &amp; Culture<\/a><br \/>\n\/<br \/>\n<a class=\"series\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/q-and-a\">Q+A<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"standard-tag-container\"><a class=\"standard-category\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/life-culture\">Life &amp; Culture<\/a> \/<br \/>\n<a class=\"standard-series\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/q-and-a\">Q+A<\/a><\/div>\n<h1 class=\"title\"><span>Shon Faye: \u2018I worry about the threat of far-right politics in <span class=\"nowrap\">the UK\u2019<\/span><\/span><\/h1>\n<div class=\"standfirst\">\n<h2>Five years since the publication of The Transgender Issue: An Argument for Justice, the bestselling author reflects on the state of trans liberation in <span class=\"nowrap\">the UK<\/span><\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<p><time datetime=\"2026-06-25T07:00:00+00:00\" class=\"timestamp\" title=\"25 June 2026\"><span class=\"month\">June<\/span>\u00a0<br \/>\n<span class=\"day\" data-day=\"25\">25,<\/span>\u00a0<br \/>\n<span class=\"year\">2026<\/span><\/time><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><time datetime=\"2026-06-25T07:00:00+00:00\" class=\"timestamp\" title=\"25 June 2026\"><span class=\"month\">June<\/span>\u00a0<br \/>\n<span class=\"day\" data-day=\"25\">25,<\/span>\u00a0<br \/>\n<span class=\"year\">2026<\/span><\/time><\/p>\n<div class=\"providers\">\n<div class=\"contributors\"><span class=\"contributor\" data-contributor-role=\"Text\"><span class=\"contributor-role\">Text<\/span><a class=\"contributor-name\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/user\/EliCugini\"><br \/>\nEli Cugini<br \/>\n<\/a><\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/header>\n<div class=\"article-body-container\">\n<div class=\"article-body wrapper\">\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html\">\n<p><span>In the midst of the pandemic, a slew of anti-trans books came out within months of each other: polemics about shadowy cabals propagating \u2018transgender ideology\u2019 or the \u2018transgender craze seducing our daughters\u2019. I remember how unnerving it felt to see such sinister and inflammatory ideas being considered worthy of respect, and how comparatively rare it was to see trans people granted a platform to write at length about trans politics for the general public. But there was at least one major exception: Shon Faye\u2019s <\/span><em><span>The Transgender Issue: An Argument for Justice<\/span><\/em><span>, a sharp, rigorous, historically informed dissection of contemporary anti-trans oppression and an argument for dismantling it, rooted in the need for both economic liberation and bodily autonomy.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Five years on, ideas of transness as a contagion, a conspiracy, and\/or an undesirable element are still entrenched in UK media and culture. Things have gotten considerably worse, materially and rhetorically, for trans people in Britain. Alongside this, escalating far-right racism and worsening economic conditions have made <\/span><em><span>The Transgender Issue<\/span><\/em><span>\u2019s left-wing structural argument \u2013 that we should go beyond attempting to win on the terrain of representation and focus on wider left-wing organising \u2013 even more prescient. The book, which is being reissued with a substantial new foreword ahead of its fifth anniversary, has lost none of its power and relevance, though its original hopes for what a Labour government might provide have been spectacularly disappointed. Given the ground trans people have lost since its original publication, it\u2019s a useful text to revisit when thinking about where we go next.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><em><span>Dazed <\/span><\/em><span>talked to Faye over Zoom about the changing political landscape in the UK, the politics of visibility, and where the trans left should focus its energy now.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<figure class=\"inline-img expandable dev-view-hide\" data-img=\"5bf7c01e-c2a3-481f-a21c-b47300f1efcc\" data-src=\"https:\/\/images-prod.dazeddigital.com\/652\/azure\/dazed-prod\/1440\/8\/1448025.jpg\" data-img-aspect-ratio-type=\"portrait\" data-img-aspect-ratio=\"0.65\"><span class=\"has-css-custom-props image-container\" data-aspect-ratio-type=\"portrait\"><span class=\"preserve-aspect-ratio\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"71x3cbBxoWL._UF1000,1000_QL80_\" class=\"img\" height=\"1000\" src=\"https:\/\/images-prod.dazeddigital.com\/652\/azure\/dazed-prod\/1440\/8\/1448025.jpg\" width=\"652\"><\/span><\/span><figcaption class=\"img-caption\"><span class=\"credit\">Penguin<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html\">\n<p><strong>What\u2019s on your mind right now, as the reissued version of <\/strong><strong><em>The Transgender Issue <\/em><\/strong><strong>is coming out? How has your understanding of the political landscape changed since it was originally released?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span><strong>Shon Faye:<\/strong> I\u2019m thinking more concertedly right now about the general threat of far-right politics in the UK. I worry that what\u2019s happening in Belfast right now [we conducted this interview during a days-long campaign of right-wing loyalist violence in Belfast, mostly directed against people of colour] is a foretaste of what could come if we continue on a far-right trajectory. When I originally wrote the book between 2018 and 2020, Reform UK didn\u2019t exist. And now we\u2019re staring down the barrel of the prospect of its gaining power. Hopefully that won\u2019t come to pass, but we have to be realistic that there\u2019s a very real chance of that. And we have to think about what that means for all minority groups, for migrants in particular, for people of colour, and for trans people as well, because trans people have been earmarked in quite a big, public way as a target group by the right. So that\u2019s on my mind. When I wrote the book, and when it came out, I didn\u2019t quite feel the same immediate fear about the prospect of a very, very right-wing governing power in the UK.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>The foundations we were working with then were different; the Tories weren\u2019t as openly antagonistic as they are under Badenoch, and Labour were seen as having the potential to make things better. People seemed more willing to think in terms of a horizon, a better future that might open up, even if things get worse first. Whereas now, a lot of the trans people I know in the UK talk about the future, and they end their sentences with \u2018until 2029.\u2019\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span><strong>Shon Faye: <\/strong>Things have gotten much harder for trans people in this country, even before we consider the precise threat of what a Reform government would do to us, and the difficult thing is that cis people are only partially aware of why. Cis people who are loosely aware of \u2018trans issues\u2019 in this country will likely be aware of the Supreme Court ruling, for example, and the segregationist policies around that. But it\u2019s also important to think about the ways that things have gotten so much harder for trans youth, and the attacks on trans healthcare, for trans youth and increasingly for trans adults as well. That\u2019s also making people feel precarious and like trans life in the UK isn\u2019t really viable.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html\">\n<blockquote>\n<p><span>The explosion of visibility doesn\u2019t protect us from harassment in public spaces; it can even make it more likely<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html\">\n<p><strong>There\u2019s this aggressive backlash happening against prior attempts to normalise us, this attempt to stymie our free movement and existence in public space, which you address in the book as working on both an interpersonal and a state level. But at the same time, there are more of us than there\u2019s ever been. It\u2019s strange seeing a campaign against us being allowed to participate in public life when you can\u2019t go into a big supermarket, or a club, or walk for more than half an hour through a major city centre without a high likelihood of seeing a trans person.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span><strong>Shon Faye: <\/strong>Yeah, that is absolutely true. And I\u2019ve witnessed that shift in my own lifetime, working in the 2000s, before the explosion of trans visibility in all senses of the word. I remember when trans people just weren\u2019t really spoken about except as objects of ridicule on late-night television. And there\u2019s a mixed blessing to that. The explosion of visibility doesn\u2019t protect us from harassment in public spaces; it can even make it more likely. There\u2019s a more common cis fantasy around \u2018transvestigation\u2019 now, where trans people are supposedly everywhere and are supposedly obviously trans and clockable, but are also tricksters who are trying to deceive\u2026 that being such a mainstream idea is quite new, and I think it\u2019s directly related to the disproportionate amount of coverage that trans people get in mainstream media.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>Increased visibility has certain benefits; when sympathetic or powerful people come out, that may create a vested interest in their powerful friends. But then the growing numbers also have negative effects re: people focusing more on what to spot, developing more caricatures, developing a growing sense of threat. And for the most radicalised people, suddenly everyone is trans, and it\u2019s infecting everything, and nothing can ever be good or normal again unless we \u2018return\u2019 through some kind of spectacular violence.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span><strong>Shon Faye: <\/strong>This is quite a common historical trope, and the group changes and the target changes but the overall cycle doesn\u2019t. All of this is a form of propaganda, some of which the mainstream media participates in, and some of which is done through blogs and Substack and social media. It\u2019s fascinating to me that in the past year, the BBC\u2019s editorial guidance has shifted in such a way that as soon as you say \u2018trans woman\u2019, there has to be a clause after that says, \u2018who is a biological man, biological male.\u2019 And same with trans men. They state that someone is trans and then they need to provide this kind of exposing alternative definition. Ideology and propaganda are being used to entrench a suspicion around the very concept of transness itself.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html\">\n<blockquote>\n<p><span>Trans Kids Deserve Better have had some pretty good ideas about protest compared to us adults<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html\">\n<p><strong>What can even be done about transphobia in the UK press, at this point?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span><strong>Shon Faye: <\/strong>The anti-trans issue in the press is symptomatic of a wider issue with our press in general. One of the things I\u2019m proudest about in <\/span><em><span>The Transgender Issue <\/span><\/em><span>is that it has a very anti-capitalist, socialist lens, and I think in the UK, media is broken because of the interests that it serves. The editorial and journalist class here almost all come from a small group in the British caste system who tend to know each other and to be very connected to those who hold power. If I\u2019m being honest, I don\u2019t think there\u2019s anything you or I or any ordinary trans person can actually do about the press on a pragmatic level. I think press harassment of trans people is now deeply entrenched; I don\u2019t think it\u2019s going anywhere. Ten years ago, there was a lot of emphasis from trans organisations on media reform and targeting the media, and that if we could engender more sympathy and respect from the media that it would improve things, and the situation has actually deteriorated a lot in the last five years. It\u2019s a losing battle.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>I think trans people are better off in 2026 pragmatically redirecting our energy away from the media. I think it\u2019s good to target and put pressure on institutions to take trans-inclusive stances, and to encourage protest and direct action where appropriate. Trans Kids Deserve Better, for example, have had some pretty good ideas about protest compared to us adults, in terms of where we should be prioritising change. We can take cues from history here, from the Lesbian Avengers protesting Section 28 by interrupting the evening news. But I don\u2019t think the press should be a primary target of activism. I think we\u2019re better off focusing on building power where we have power, which is often within wider LGBT communities and within social justice movements.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html\">\n<blockquote>\n<p><span>I\u2019m in the business of being a persuasive writer, and trying to create a greater societal understanding of trans people<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html\">\n<p><strong>I wanted to ask you specifically about the publishing industry, in terms of strategic activism around trans rights. <\/strong><strong><em>The Transgender Issue <\/em><\/strong><strong>is the most high-profile pro-trans book on trans rights for the general public, and it got published around the same time as a cluster of anti-trans books, which it was often placed in conversation with. And things have gotten a lot worse give years on, but I\u2019d argue that there haven\u2019t been any more anti-trans books with equivalent status published since. It feels like that movement has partially withdrawn from the realm of books, which is partly because a couple of key players left publishing, but may also speak to long-form writing suiting our purposes better than theirs.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span><strong>Shon Faye: <\/strong>The collective effect and intention of those books was to build a semblance of intellectual legitimacy for the \u2018gender-critical\u2019 movement, to establish it as a legitimate intellectual and political force. Now they have shifted their strategy towards lawfare and litigation, and that\u2019s been much more effective for them than the discursive world of books, which is why I think a lot of them have stopped publishing. Their spokespeople do better on radio and television. That\u2019s why I don\u2019t really do radio and television appearances anymore. In a very short radio or television segment, it\u2019s easier to deal in massive generalisations and in tropes and stereotypes. Trans lives are unfamiliar to most people in the UK. We\u2019re a small minority. Cis people, unless they have a trans relative or trans friend, don\u2019t have much sense of what trans life is like. It\u2019s easier to convey things in depth in a book, and that\u2019s why I chose to write one.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>But I also think that there\u2019s this widespread belief that we need to be understood by cis people in order to succeed against this huge movement to suppress our right to live in peace, and I\u2019m increasingly unsure whether that\u2019s true. I\u2019m in the business of being a persuasive writer, and trying to create a greater societal understanding of trans people. But the book argues that what we actually need to do is to form a part of stronger political communities, and to organise in a way that means that we can build strong political bonds of solidarity.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>I think we both feel some irritation that some trans people are focusing on policing their own, on defining who the \u2018bad\u2019 trans people are, and who we need to exile in order to win public opinion back. Being under threat can lead to such paranoid, short-termist thinking, rather than the patience of maintaining solidarity. I think your book is admirably patient.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span><strong>Shon Faye: <\/strong>The difficult thing right now, when we are under so much pressure, is that we want quick solutions. But building the kind of movement that we need is not going to be done in five years, or even ten. It\u2019s probably going to be done on a generational timescale. And that\u2019s really demoralising, because everyone wants to have signs of imminent hope. But I\u2019ve lost faith in the liberal model of ten years ago, where we thought that persuading those in power would be enough on its own. We\u2019re allowed to find each other annoying. But we need to be able to work together.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"newsletter-inline-last\">\n<div class=\"newsletter-small\">\n<div class=\"inner\">\n<h1 class=\"newsletter-title\">Escape the algorithm! Get The Drop<\/h1>\n<div class=\"meta-row\">\n<p class=\"meta\">Get must-see stories direct to your inbox every weekday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/privacy-policy\" class=\"meta-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><br \/>\nPrivacy policy<br \/>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"confirmation\" aria-live=\"polite\">\n<p class=\"confirmation-title\">Thank you. 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Get The Drop<\/h1>\n<div class=\"meta-row\">\n<p class=\"meta\">Get must-see stories direct to your inbox every weekday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/privacy-policy\" class=\"meta-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><br \/>\nPrivacy policy<br \/>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"confirmation\" aria-live=\"polite\">\n<p class=\"confirmation-title\">Thank you. You have been subscribed<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/privacy-policy\" class=\"meta-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><br \/>\nPrivacy policy<br \/>\n<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<div class=\"article-body wrapper\">\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html\">\n<p><span>In the midst of the pandemic, a slew of anti-trans books came out within months of each other: polemics about shadowy cabals propagating \u2018transgender ideology\u2019 or the \u2018transgender craze seducing our daughters\u2019. I remember how unnerving it felt to see such sinister and inflammatory ideas being considered worthy of respect, and how comparatively rare it was to see trans people granted a platform to write at length about trans politics for the general public. But there was at least one major exception: Shon Faye\u2019s <\/span><em><span>The Transgender Issue: An Argument for Justice<\/span><\/em><span>, a sharp, rigorous, historically informed dissection of contemporary anti-trans oppression and an argument for dismantling it, rooted in the need for both economic liberation and bodily autonomy.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Five years on, ideas of transness as a contagion, a conspiracy, and\/or an undesirable element are still entrenched in UK media and culture. Things have gotten considerably worse, materially and rhetorically, for trans people in Britain. Alongside this, escalating far-right racism and worsening economic conditions have made <\/span><em><span>The Transgender Issue<\/span><\/em><span>\u2019s left-wing structural argument \u2013 that we should go beyond attempting to win on the terrain of representation and focus on wider left-wing organising \u2013 even more prescient. The book, which is being reissued with a substantial new foreword ahead of its fifth anniversary, has lost none of its power and relevance, though its original hopes for what a Labour government might provide have been spectacularly disappointed. Given the ground trans people have lost since its original publication, it\u2019s a useful text to revisit when thinking about where we go next.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><em><span>Dazed <\/span><\/em><span>talked to Faye over Zoom about the changing political landscape in the UK, the politics of visibility, and where the trans left should focus its energy now.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<figure class=\"inline-img expandable dev-view-hide\" data-img=\"5bf7c01e-c2a3-481f-a21c-b47300f1efcc\" data-src=\"https:\/\/images-prod.dazeddigital.com\/652\/azure\/dazed-prod\/1440\/8\/1448025.jpg\" data-img-aspect-ratio-type=\"portrait\" data-img-aspect-ratio=\"0.65\"><span class=\"has-css-custom-props image-container\" data-aspect-ratio-type=\"portrait\"><span class=\"preserve-aspect-ratio\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"71x3cbBxoWL._UF1000,1000_QL80_\" class=\"img\" height=\"1000\" src=\"https:\/\/images-prod.dazeddigital.com\/652\/azure\/dazed-prod\/1440\/8\/1448025.jpg\" width=\"652\"><\/span><\/span><figcaption class=\"img-caption\"><span class=\"credit\">Penguin<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html\">\n<p><strong>What\u2019s on your mind right now, as the reissued version of <\/strong><strong><em>The Transgender Issue <\/em><\/strong><strong>is coming out? How has your understanding of the political landscape changed since it was originally released?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span><strong>Shon Faye:<\/strong> I\u2019m thinking more concertedly right now about the general threat of far-right politics in the UK. I worry that what\u2019s happening in Belfast right now [we conducted this interview during a days-long campaign of right-wing loyalist violence in Belfast, mostly directed against people of colour] is a foretaste of what could come if we continue on a far-right trajectory. When I originally wrote the book between 2018 and 2020, Reform UK didn\u2019t exist. And now we\u2019re staring down the barrel of the prospect of its gaining power. Hopefully that won\u2019t come to pass, but we have to be realistic that there\u2019s a very real chance of that. And we have to think about what that means for all minority groups, for migrants in particular, for people of colour, and for trans people as well, because trans people have been earmarked in quite a big, public way as a target group by the right. So that\u2019s on my mind. When I wrote the book, and when it came out, I didn\u2019t quite feel the same immediate fear about the prospect of a very, very right-wing governing power in the UK.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>The foundations we were working with then were different; the Tories weren\u2019t as openly antagonistic as they are under Badenoch, and Labour were seen as having the potential to make things better. People seemed more willing to think in terms of a horizon, a better future that might open up, even if things get worse first. Whereas now, a lot of the trans people I know in the UK talk about the future, and they end their sentences with \u2018until 2029.\u2019\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span><strong>Shon Faye: <\/strong>Things have gotten much harder for trans people in this country, even before we consider the precise threat of what a Reform government would do to us, and the difficult thing is that cis people are only partially aware of why. Cis people who are loosely aware of \u2018trans issues\u2019 in this country will likely be aware of the Supreme Court ruling, for example, and the segregationist policies around that. But it\u2019s also important to think about the ways that things have gotten so much harder for trans youth, and the attacks on trans healthcare, for trans youth and increasingly for trans adults as well. That\u2019s also making people feel precarious and like trans life in the UK isn\u2019t really viable.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html\">\n<blockquote>\n<p><span>The explosion of visibility doesn\u2019t protect us from harassment in public spaces; it can even make it more likely<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html\">\n<p><strong>There\u2019s this aggressive backlash happening against prior attempts to normalise us, this attempt to stymie our free movement and existence in public space, which you address in the book as working on both an interpersonal and a state level. But at the same time, there are more of us than there\u2019s ever been. It\u2019s strange seeing a campaign against us being allowed to participate in public life when you can\u2019t go into a big supermarket, or a club, or walk for more than half an hour through a major city centre without a high likelihood of seeing a trans person.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span><strong>Shon Faye: <\/strong>Yeah, that is absolutely true. And I\u2019ve witnessed that shift in my own lifetime, working in the 2000s, before the explosion of trans visibility in all senses of the word. I remember when trans people just weren\u2019t really spoken about except as objects of ridicule on late-night television. And there\u2019s a mixed blessing to that. The explosion of visibility doesn\u2019t protect us from harassment in public spaces; it can even make it more likely. There\u2019s a more common cis fantasy around \u2018transvestigation\u2019 now, where trans people are supposedly everywhere and are supposedly obviously trans and clockable, but are also tricksters who are trying to deceive\u2026 that being such a mainstream idea is quite new, and I think it\u2019s directly related to the disproportionate amount of coverage that trans people get in mainstream media.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>Increased visibility has certain benefits; when sympathetic or powerful people come out, that may create a vested interest in their powerful friends. But then the growing numbers also have negative effects re: people focusing more on what to spot, developing more caricatures, developing a growing sense of threat. And for the most radicalised people, suddenly everyone is trans, and it\u2019s infecting everything, and nothing can ever be good or normal again unless we \u2018return\u2019 through some kind of spectacular violence.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span><strong>Shon Faye: <\/strong>This is quite a common historical trope, and the group changes and the target changes but the overall cycle doesn\u2019t. All of this is a form of propaganda, some of which the mainstream media participates in, and some of which is done through blogs and Substack and social media. It\u2019s fascinating to me that in the past year, the BBC\u2019s editorial guidance has shifted in such a way that as soon as you say \u2018trans woman\u2019, there has to be a clause after that says, \u2018who is a biological man, biological male.\u2019 And same with trans men. They state that someone is trans and then they need to provide this kind of exposing alternative definition. Ideology and propaganda are being used to entrench a suspicion around the very concept of transness itself.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html\">\n<blockquote>\n<p><span>Trans Kids Deserve Better have had some pretty good ideas about protest compared to us adults<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html\">\n<p><strong>What can even be done about transphobia in the UK press, at this point?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span><strong>Shon Faye: <\/strong>The anti-trans issue in the press is symptomatic of a wider issue with our press in general. One of the things I\u2019m proudest about in <\/span><em><span>The Transgender Issue <\/span><\/em><span>is that it has a very anti-capitalist, socialist lens, and I think in the UK, media is broken because of the interests that it serves. The editorial and journalist class here almost all come from a small group in the British caste system who tend to know each other and to be very connected to those who hold power. If I\u2019m being honest, I don\u2019t think there\u2019s anything you or I or any ordinary trans person can actually do about the press on a pragmatic level. I think press harassment of trans people is now deeply entrenched; I don\u2019t think it\u2019s going anywhere. Ten years ago, there was a lot of emphasis from trans organisations on media reform and targeting the media, and that if we could engender more sympathy and respect from the media that it would improve things, and the situation has actually deteriorated a lot in the last five years. It\u2019s a losing battle.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>I think trans people are better off in 2026 pragmatically redirecting our energy away from the media. I think it\u2019s good to target and put pressure on institutions to take trans-inclusive stances, and to encourage protest and direct action where appropriate. Trans Kids Deserve Better, for example, have had some pretty good ideas about protest compared to us adults, in terms of where we should be prioritising change. We can take cues from history here, from the Lesbian Avengers protesting Section 28 by interrupting the evening news. But I don\u2019t think the press should be a primary target of activism. I think we\u2019re better off focusing on building power where we have power, which is often within wider LGBT communities and within social justice movements.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html\">\n<blockquote>\n<p><span>I\u2019m in the business of being a persuasive writer, and trying to create a greater societal understanding of trans people<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"embed-content\" data-embed-type=\"raw-html\">\n<p><strong>I wanted to ask you specifically about the publishing industry, in terms of strategic activism around trans rights. <\/strong><strong><em>The Transgender Issue <\/em><\/strong><strong>is the most high-profile pro-trans book on trans rights for the general public, and it got published around the same time as a cluster of anti-trans books, which it was often placed in conversation with. And things have gotten a lot worse give years on, but I\u2019d argue that there haven\u2019t been any more anti-trans books with equivalent status published since. It feels like that movement has partially withdrawn from the realm of books, which is partly because a couple of key players left publishing, but may also speak to long-form writing suiting our purposes better than theirs.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span><strong>Shon Faye: <\/strong>The collective effect and intention of those books was to build a semblance of intellectual legitimacy for the \u2018gender-critical\u2019 movement, to establish it as a legitimate intellectual and political force. Now they have shifted their strategy towards lawfare and litigation, and that\u2019s been much more effective for them than the discursive world of books, which is why I think a lot of them have stopped publishing. Their spokespeople do better on radio and television. That\u2019s why I don\u2019t really do radio and television appearances anymore. In a very short radio or television segment, it\u2019s easier to deal in massive generalisations and in tropes and stereotypes. Trans lives are unfamiliar to most people in the UK. We\u2019re a small minority. Cis people, unless they have a trans relative or trans friend, don\u2019t have much sense of what trans life is like. It\u2019s easier to convey things in depth in a book, and that\u2019s why I chose to write one.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>But I also think that there\u2019s this widespread belief that we need to be understood by cis people in order to succeed against this huge movement to suppress our right to live in peace, and I\u2019m increasingly unsure whether that\u2019s true. I\u2019m in the business of being a persuasive writer, and trying to create a greater societal understanding of trans people. But the book argues that what we actually need to do is to form a part of stronger political communities, and to organise in a way that means that we can build strong political bonds of solidarity.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>I think we both feel some irritation that some trans people are focusing on policing their own, on defining who the \u2018bad\u2019 trans people are, and who we need to exile in order to win public opinion back. Being under threat can lead to such paranoid, short-termist thinking, rather than the patience of maintaining solidarity. I think your book is admirably patient.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span><strong>Shon Faye: <\/strong>The difficult thing right now, when we are under so much pressure, is that we want quick solutions. But building the kind of movement that we need is not going to be done in five years, or even ten. It\u2019s probably going to be done on a generational timescale. And that\u2019s really demoralising, because everyone wants to have signs of imminent hope. But I\u2019ve lost faith in the liberal model of ten years ago, where we thought that persuading those in power would be enough on its own. We\u2019re allowed to find each other annoying. But we need to be able to work together.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"newsletter-inline-last\">\n<div class=\"newsletter-small\">\n<div class=\"inner\">\n<h1 class=\"newsletter-title\">Escape the algorithm! Get The Drop<\/h1>\n<div class=\"meta-row\">\n<p class=\"meta\">Get must-see stories direct to your inbox every weekday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/privacy-policy\" class=\"meta-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><br \/>\nPrivacy policy<br \/>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"confirmation\" aria-live=\"polite\">\n<p class=\"confirmation-title\">Thank you. You have been subscribed<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/privacy-policy\" class=\"meta-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><br \/>\nPrivacy policy<br \/>\n<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>[analyse_source url=&#8221;https:\/\/www.dazeddigital.com\/life-culture\/article\/70521\/1\/shon-faye-the-transgender-issue-fifth-anniversary-interview-2026&#8243;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[analyse_image type=&#8221;featured&#8221; src=&#8221;https:\/\/images-prod.dazeddigital.com\/1200\/0-199-1296-864\/azure\/dazed-prod\/1440\/8\/1448023.jpg&#8221;] Photography Sophie Davidson, courtesy Shon Faye June\u00a0 25,\u00a0 2026 Life &amp; Culture \/ Q+A Life &amp; Culture \/ Q+A Shon Faye: \u2018I worry about the threat of far-right politics in the UK\u2019 Five years since the publication of The Transgender Issue: An Argument for Justice, the bestselling author reflects on the state [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[226,76],"class_list":["post-2009839","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-crawlmanager","tag-dazeddigital-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2009839","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2009839"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2009839\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2009839"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2009839"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2009839"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}