What was Section 28 and what impact did it have?
Section 28 meant not 'promoting' (whatever that means) homosexuality, essentially in all instances because it covered not only schools but also local councils, who control everything in a particular borough. Schools couldn't teach about same-sex relationships without disciplinary, legal repercussions. Foucault would have had a field day with that one! It also meant there was no gay representation, especially of gay relationships in mainstream media, literature, film, theatre, art, books and even information pamphlets. Sex education was purely heterosexual which no gay person can identify with. Even bisexuals were affected because everything was skewed towards reinforcing ideas about them being with the 'opposite' sex not same sex. More generally, LGBTQIAPD+ education didn't exist. For instance, biology textbooks only taught (and probably still do) that there are only two binary sex categories, female and male, with accompanying drawings of only one way each sex physically should look like. That leaves out not only natural biological variations, but also completely erases intersex people who are very much part of the LGBT+ community. The I in LGBTQIA represents all intersex people, regardless of their gender or sexual identity/identities! As for trans people, they were never discussed or represented anywhere in society either. So fundamentally, Thatcher tried to completely erase the existence of the LGBT+ community and render them some taboo subject.
This appalling clause was part of the Local Government Act which became law on 24th May 1988. The Prime Minister was Margaret Thatcher who had, unfortunately, been re-elected in 1987 after conducting a homophobic campaign against Labour. Her election campaign materials included hysterical posters claiming that Labour were corrupting the young with their gay inclusivity message. For instance, a campaign poster depicted books such as 'Young, Gay and Proud' as a dreadful example of Labour's idea of state school education. (Much the same tactics were used in the last election to win against the Labour party, led by Corbyn, by scaremongering that he'll turn the country Marxist, which they erroneously conflate with Soviet Communism).
Tory Ideology
Indeed, Thatcherite rhetoric is still alive in the Tory party today. Thatcher (who asked Roger Scruton [popularistic philosopher] to come up with a Tory Ideology to rival left-wing so-called ideology, as she saw it) imagined anti-racism messages within the maths curriculum in schools (what planet was she on again?! 🔭). Similarly, Liz Truss and other Tories have a Scrutonian anti-Foucault twitch without understanding a word he wrote (Foucault was a gay philosopher). And they imagine that the school curriculum contains anti-capitalism, Left-wing ideas, and 'fashionable' social issues, including gender identity and racism. Truss thinks learning about discrimination and bias is a waste of time, be it in schools or workplace training. The repercussions of this toxic attitude is already being felt: A recent example is the BBC that has now cut ties with Stonewall and dropped their implicit bias training, which, amongst other issues at the BBC, is making LGBT+ staff feel unsafe working there and huge numbers of them have resigned. Truss also argues that it's a wonderful Tory idea to replace the legal protected characteristics system (which currently ensures basic LGBT+ and other minority rights) with some vague notion of individualism. Ironically, she seems to want to focus on levelling up class difference, which is the same focus that Marx had even though she is very against left-wing politics and thinks it's died a death! 🤔🤦 Her stance on class is also the very identity politics she maintains she doesn't like! 🤦😂
Thatcher ceased to be Prime Minister from 28 Nov 1990, after eleven and a half years (1979-1990) in power. But there seems to be a revival of Thatcherism. Who on earth wants to return to that era?! We are supposed to be making progress, not regress!
Removing Section 28
During the Labour Party being in power (1997-2010), we saw the abolition of Section 28 (2003). Considering the UK was in the EU (EC) during the time when both the Netherlands (2001) and Belgium (2003) already had same-sex marriage, it's even more surprising that it took Blair 6 years (until 2003) to scrap Section 28 so it was no longer on the statute books. The UK took until 2014 to conduct the first gay marriages!
The Conservatives returned to Office in 2010 and have now been continuously in power for eleven and a half years 2010 (May) - 2021(present day) with 3 PM's in that time (Cameron, a Thatcherite, who teamed up with LibDem's which is possibly why things were better under Cameron; Theresa May, who teamed up with the ultra-conservative DUP; and Johnson). This frequent change of PM gives the impression that we've had different parties governing when we haven't!
There was an attempt to end Section 28 in 2000, however the House of Lords stopped it, after much campaigning in favour of Section 28 by Baroness Young. This meant that it took a further 3 years and the then LibDem Deputy Leader Ed Davey (now current Leader of the Party) to push through a clause to end Section 28 in England and Wales (Scotland removed it in 2000 when they became a devolved region) and remove it completely from the statute books.
We don't want to return to Section 28 days!
I remember those days. I was already an 'out' gay (lesbian) teenager (just 14) since late 2000. So Section 28 didn't end until I turned 17 years old and had been 'out' for 3 years! I don't want a return to the Section 28 days 😠 or anything remotely like it! However, things didn't entirely improve overnight in November 2003. Kent decided to go out on a limb and invent their own regional Section 28 - WTF?! Although this couldn't be sustained, nevertheless, Kent's so-called provision message was the anti-LGBT+ rhetoric that heterosexual marriage and family was the only option for a so-called 'civilised' society. This homophobic attitude in Kent was not dispensed with until the 2010 update to the Equality Act (which includes legal protection for protected characteristics) by which time I'm a mature student at uni and a few days off turning 24!
So, although Section 28 was years ago now, life for LGBT+ people in the UK, like myself, is constantly going in fits and starts. We make a little bit of progress and then politics tries to roll back the progress already made. That's called unfair, Liz Truss!
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