Trans and British? Some advice - get a passport, or get it renewed. Do it now.

Is your UK passport in your lived gender due to expire in the next few years? Is it your only passport?

You've seen what is happening in the US. Within the appalling witch-hunt now unfolding, all trans people who are attempting to get or renew a passport in their legal gender are now being refused one - either being given one in their birth assigned sex or (say some reports) sometimes not getting one at all.

There is no sign of this happening in the UK - yet - but there are two scenarios in which it could, and if it did, it could happen very fast and with little warning. They are potentially related.

1. Trump's frenzy of hostility towards trans people in the United States and his clear, public aim of completely eliminating us has changed the game for trans people internationally. Authoritarian regimes are already cutting/pasting the language from his anti-trans Executive Orders (i.e. Kenya) whilst in the so-called Western democracies, haters of trans people are taking detailed notes. On a state level, the UK, diplomatically adrift from the EU, is now fair game for Trump with his win/lose, zero sum brand of international threat and violence.

Starmer is desperate to flatter him, to keep him onside in any way he can and to not provoke him. The evidence for this is piling up, but nothing is clearer than this hostage video of Peter Mandelson, the new UK ambassador to the US and previous critic of the psychopathic President, being sent onto Fox News to publicly debase himself in order to be allowed to take the job, presumably with Starmer's consent. (Watch him talk admiringly of Trump as a "nice man", just the day before Trump's despicable remarks following the Washington air disaster). But managing Trump will be very tough for the Prime Minister if he comes after the UK with tariffs, if Trump cuts an insane deal with Putin, or if he tries to pull out of NATO - all very possible. Starmer will find it very difficult to line up with Trump on these issues, all of which could destroy Britain economically - or even literally.

So what could the UK government throw Trump? A small, easy demonstration, that Starmer is in tune with Trump on one of his pet hatreds at least, to show good faith and at least help the mood music along?

He could throw Trump us. 

Imagine this scenario. It’s one of a number that could unfold…

A State visit. There have been some awkward topics on the table and some public bullying of the UK from the President. Starmer is keen to announce some Trump-pleasing news and change the mood music. He says that the UK government is going to change its policy (he doesn't even need to change the law) to ensure that all passports, maybe even other ID documents too, now have to be in birth-assigned sex. For 'clarification' you understand, and to 'align' with the United States. Plus also, of course, part of his government’s commitment to "protect women and girls" (from trans women, you understand, who despite the absolutely exploding incidence of cisgender male violence against women in the UK, and despite the massive rise in hate crimes directed at trans people in the UK, clearly represent the main problem). 

And there's another related event that could play into this:

2. The UK Supreme Court ruling on the For Women Scotland appeal is due in the next few weeks. If it goes against us (it likely will, because the UK Judiciary is transphobic from top to bottom - the only real question is how bad will it be), then this gives the government the perfect opportunity to make some Trump-(and UK media)-pleasing changes. If the Court's goes Full Daily Telegraph, its judgement may effectively remove much of the protection that trans women have in law in their lived gender (even with a GRC). Or the Court may bleat about a need for 'clarification' in that law (after it took in person submissions from five TERF/GC groups and zero trans, or trans-allied, groups). Either way, it gives Starmer a chance to do something to his advantage. And why not signal some likemindedness to the US President at the same time?

Remember also that the Supreme Court's ruling will appear in a climate in which, thanks to Trump, a whole new level of hatred of trans people is now a media talking point. The British GCs are excitedly circle-jerking en masse about what Trump is doing to us - they want it all here, they are influential in government and they and their newspapers (meaning almost all of them) can be expected to use the Court's judgement, whatever it is, to call for US style action against us. Many columnists, from The Telegraph to The Times to The Guardian/Observer are already filing their ‘I’m no Trump fan but he’s right about trans women’ pieces and a Court ruling would be manna from Bigot Heaven for them. 

This could all result in any manner of dreadful things from a weak, right wing Prime Minister, who is already on record for hating trans women - including, possibly, a change to your right to a passport in your legal gender. 

What does all this mean?

Of course, it IS speculation. Don't panic.

But consider getting that passport, or getting it renewed - now, ok?

We know the UK government is hostile to us.

We know it's soiling itself about how to cope with Trump v.2.

We know that things that were unthinkable just a few weeks ago in the US are now actually happening.

Your passport doesn't have to be about to expire before you renew. You can do it at any time. 

This at least means you have it for longer - and you don't run into a sudden change in government policy in the UK.

Remember, they do not need to change the law to do this, they can just announce it - it's established policy rather than a legal principle and can thus be changed with no notice, simply through a Home Office announcement.

One final point.

Even if you don't think Starmer would do this (I obviously disagree - there would be zero political cost for him in trying to please Trump with it, and that's a rare thing for him), keep in mind that Labour, on current evidence, is tracking towards losing the next election. Though, barring something entirely unpredictable, that election is still sometime ahead, Farage is now the bookmakers' favourite to be the next Prime Minister, potentially running some horrific quasi-Nazi Reform/Tory monster government.

If that happens, all hope of renewing your passport in your legal gender will vanish, fast, along with the rest of our rights.

So even if you are not buying my analysis here, and whatever you think about Starmer and his well documented transphobic instincts, it's a no-brainer to renew before the next election in 2028/9 (unless of course, the Orange Psychopath has destroyed the world and there is now no more planet to which to travel - in which case you won't need a passport at all).