Write a letter to your MP
We are running a national campaign to ask everyone to write a letter (not an email) and send it to your local MP.
Why written? Because the letter sits in the MP’s inTray and can’t be ignored, because it comes from constituent – you. It won’t go away.
A hard copy letter haunts the corner of your MP’s assistant’s desk. It is the letter that the assistant picks up and says to your MP ‘You really do need to read this. We need to know how to respond.’
Yes that means some extra effort and the stamp, but it works better than an email that gets a routine robo-answer and is instantly forgotten.
If we want to impact the discussions that are currently being had about us – but without us – then trans people and trans allies – our parents, partners, children, friends, neighbours and colleagues – need to send a paper letter that will haunt their desks.
Here is some excellent advice on how to do that from Professor Stephen Whittle. And he knows a thing or two about this, having campaigned for our community decades.
Professor Stephen Whittle’sGuide to Writing a Letter
- The benefits that have come with transition.
- Examples of what you, your friend, or family member has contributed to their workplace or society since their transition
- If you/they have obtained a Gender Recognition Certificate, then the benefits it has given.
- Were you/they able to marry a partner, able to adopt or have children without having to fight every step of the way?
- What educational qualifications or workplace training have you/they taken up since transition?
- When you/they needed hospital care, were you/they placed in a ward of your affirmed gender, without any issues arising.
- If you/they transitioned before 1996, it could include memories of what it was like to not have any rights and the discrimination experienced.
- If you/they transitioned after 1996 but before 2005, it could include memories of what was experienced as a person clearly of one gender, but constantly held by the law to be of another.
- What the impact of being excluded from loos in the workplace or public settings might be.
- Whether going shopping will become a nightmare as you fear what might happen if you’re caught short and need the loo.
- Will theatre, concerts, gigs and festivals become a no-go area, because of fears of being challenged, and who might bring a complaint because of using the loo.
- What about being ill? What would be the impact if going into the hospital meant being placed on the ‘wrong’ ward? If urgent treatment is needed, how it is all very well deciding on a single room, but as the very few are usually reserved for the dying, undoubtedly any treatment will be delayed.
- How it will feel like segregation – a form of isolation – and apartheid.
- What it feels like to be a law-abiding citizen who is policed because those who don’t know Trans people have decided trans people could be frightening sexual predators.
- I could give you lots of other ideas, but this middle section should be a life story that illustrates our successes, struggles and fears.
- It gives your MP something to talk about if they want to challenge these proposals, whenever they are raised in Parliament or at meetings of your MP’s political party.
- Ask your MP how they are going to protect you from arbitrary and discriminatory attacks on your right to peacefully go about your life – express how urgent this matter is.
- Tell your MP that you want to make an appointment to see them in their constituency surgery, and ask them to respond to you in writing within 10 days.
Other Information to help write your letter
Don't just write to your MP!
In addition to your letter to your MP, you can also send in letters to several ministers of state who have power over equality, health and justice.
Right Honourable Bridget Phillipson MP
Minister for Women and Equalities
20 Great Smith St
London SW1P 3BT
Rt Hon Wes Streeting MP
Minister for Health and Social Care
39 Victoria St
London SW1H 0EU
Baroness Jacqui Smith of Malvern
Minister for Women and Equalities
The House of Lords
London SW1A 0AA
Sarah Owen MP
Chair of the Women and Equalities Select Committee
The House of Commons
London SW1A 0AA
Joint Committee on Human Rights
Houses of Parliament
London SW1A 0AA
Baroness Kishwar Falkner of Margravine
Chair at Equality and Human Rights Commission
Windsor House, 50 Victoria Street
London SW1H 0TL
This is an ongoing effort
We are not going to influence MPs with just one letter. This is a long campaign that wil roll on for as long as needed. Once you have sent your first letter and told us that you have by emailing us here: campaigns@translucent.org.uk, we will contact you directly and support you with the full programme.
We know this means some extra effort on your part, for which we are most grateful because every action you do helps our collective goal of recovering our lost rights.
To recognize and reward you for your help, we will give you a certificate and real gifts for 10 and more mailings, and 5 or more replies from people (not just your MP!) to whom you send the letter.
Donate to the Good Law Project
Get your Cis female allies to sign the
Not in Our Name Petition
This is really important. We need all the allies we can get. This petition is about making their voices known – that they stand with us and for us. If you do anything, do this.
