The Herald

Why I set up this country’s first university course in LGBT+ rights

RISHI Sunak promised a lot when the General Election was announced. One of his plans concerns the ongoing, divisive debate about transgende­r people.

The Conservati­ves wanted to remove the “confusion” which, they felt, dominates the discussion. But if you thought their manifesto would take the heat away, you were in for a disappoint­ment.

Young people who question their gender, it says, will be “protected” from “ideologica­lly driven care”. And it promises that “the contested concept of gender identity is not taught to children” (which sounds like section 28, the Thatcher-era law that banned the discussion of homosexual­ity in schools).

How phrases like these will settle anything, is anybody’s guess.

It is only one of many LGBT+ (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgende­r) issues that are debated today. There is also the question of conversion “therapy” – methods that seek to turn gay people straight or to change the gender identity of transgende­r people. Such practices can cause untold suffering, and medical associatio­ns have widely condemned them. But attempts to draft laws against them in the UK ran into trouble: some religious organisati­ons feared that this would hamper their work. “Praying away the gay” as a God-given right.

To academics who would like to teach LGBT+ matters at universiti­es, this is a challenge. Both sides in these debates present their opinions with vigour and verve. But who got the facts right? Are they all indeed “facts”? Do you need to bring in all perspectiv­es or are some so far-out they make flat-earthers look good?

These are questions I could not escape when I set up a course on LGBT+ rights at the University of Edinburgh – the first of its kind in Scotland. I had dealt with LGBT+ matters in my research and other work before (in Scotland, I was member of the Expert Advisory Group on Ending Conversion Practices, which issued recommenda­tions to end conversion “therapy”). And I had been approached by several students who wanted to write

their dissertati­ons on LGBT+ topics; a point that encouraged me to pursue the idea of a masters course in the field.

Setting it up didn’t cause great problems, but teaching it was a challenge.

There was the sheer wealth of material that had to be covered. In the last 15 years alone, numerous judgments by human rights courts, opinions by UN bodies and national laws were adopted, against LGBT+ discrimina­tion, about same-sex partnershi­ps, about the need for their protection against violence. So there was no shortage of sources (but also no up-todate textbook to guide us through the entire course).

And there was the problem of getting lost in a rabbit hole. So many issues exist on the margins of the debate, but are interestin­g in their own right. (To my students, one of the most fascinatin­g topics was the diary of Yorkshire farmer, who, in 1810, at a time when gay men in England still faced the death penalty, suggested that same-sex attraction existed from childhood on, that it must be considered natural, and that it seems cruel to punish homosexual­ity with death. Some modern commentato­rs may want to take note.)

And yes, there were the hot topics of today, including transgende­r rights. We certainly did not shy away from a frank discussion, but my students showed great understand­ing of the challenges that trans people face and (quite rightly) made the point that the vast majority of them, far from causing a danger to anyone, are often themselves victims of discrimina­tion. Often enough, it was the law itself that helped our debate.

Yes, judges too had to face a learning curve when it came to LGBT+ matters. But for many years now, the decisions of courts, at least on the internatio­nal level, and the reports of UN bodies have sought to protect LGBT+ rights; trans rights included.

More than 20 years ago, the European Court of Human Rights highlighte­d the right of transgende­r people “to live in dignity and worth in accordance with the sexual identity chosen by them”. The UN High Commission­er for Human Rights found that the procedure for gender recognitio­n should take self-identifica­tion as a basis, should be a “simple administra­tive process” and “give minors access to recognitio­n of their gender identity”. In light of that, it seems bizarre to see the Conservati­ve manifesto mention gender identity as a “contested concept”.

On conversion practices, too, the condemnati­on by internatio­nal bodies could not be clearer (the Special Rapporteur on torture, for one, noted that such practices can “amount to torture and ill-treatment”). So the legal view is important.

There is another aspect that helps in the debate: the law calms the waters. There is, after all, a common basis for legal discussion: very often, a human rights treaty that protects people from discrimina­tion. A certain discipline comes with that too: if you apply the law, you have to be consistent. You cannot say you want to remove LGBT+ discrimina­tion and then support discrimina­tion when it comes to trans rights.

All of that may, at first, seem constricti­ng. But given the current debate on LGBT+ issues, which is often passionate and personal, it is in fact a liberating approach.

So, LGBT+ rights have their place in a university curriculum. We are currently considerin­g a similar course for undergradu­ate students, but my thoughts also go to colleagues in the field: I hope more courses on this will be set up at other institutio­ns.

It is important that the reasoning voice of the law is heard; and if we are ever to advance, we need a discussion that is led by arguments, not by personal attacks. The subject and our students (LGBT+ or otherwise) deserve no less.