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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:

Adnan Hussain tweets "I agree, women's rights and safe spaces should not be encroached upon. Safe third spaces should be an alternative option"

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:

In fact, Hussain also claimed that:

Adnan Hussain tweets: I'm following this dilemma being faced by Mothin with great interest. It's no secret that Muslims tend to be socially conservative. Is there space on the left to create a broad enough church to allow Muslims an authentic space, just as it does all other minority groups?

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:

Jeremy Corbyn has made similar statements in the past:

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.

Featured image via

By Maryam Jameela

This post was originally published on Canary.