Let's not forget the peaceful majority whose rights have been abused

Midday, Thursday 9^th December. Crowds of students, teenagers and lecturers, bussed in from all over the country, gather on Malet Street, at the University of London Union.

They are here because today is the day that MPs will vote on the most talked-about policy in recent months: the changes to university tuition fees. They are here because today is an historic day that will determine the course of countless futures. They are here because they believe that education is a right, not a privilege, and that it should not be turned into a commodity, available only to those undeterred by the prospect of leaving university in tens of thousands of pounds of debt.

I am a finalist; the friend I am with is a recent graduate. The cuts to education are unlikely to affect us directly, but solidarity is the word of the day. I am fairly pessimistic about the effect today’s protests will have on the government, but I couldn’t not come. We might not hold out much hope of changing anything, but we will not take this lying down.

Before we are allowed to march, there are the speeches. There are speakers from everywhere – from schools, colleges and universities, and from the unions. Some of them are minors. There is even a Booker prize-winner, Ben Okri, who reads us a poem written especially for the occasion.

‘This country has turned a corner in spirit,’ he says. ‘You are the turning of that corner.’

From Malet Street, we march the agreed route: through Russell Square, down Southampton Row and Kingsway, along Strand, through Trafalgar Square and past St James’ Park, before eventually arriving in Westminster. On the way, the atmosphere is lively, but peaceful – we walk briskly, enjoying the winter sun, waving our placards as we chant. No ifs, no buts, no education cuts! is by far the favourite. On the sidelines, people watch us go by, some of them with cameras; above us, they peer out of windows and lean over balconies, pointing and waving. We pass a man in a suit giving out ‘sweets for the protesters’.

When we arrive, things are busy and cheerful. If there is violence, we see none of it. On the northern side of Parliament Square, people are milling about, talking in groups, sitting on the ground, waiting for something to happen. There is an Italian sandwich shop open on Parliament Street with a long queue outside; on a traffic island just off the square, people are giving impromptu speeches into a megaphone. A group of percussionists with the widest grins I have seen all day forms a circle and plays samba. The closest anyone gets to doing anything illegal is shinning up a lamppost or climbing the wrought iron sign above the entrance to Westminster tube station.

The atmosphere starts to turn sour as the afternoon wears on. My friend and I wander around Parliament Square at about three: barriers have been broken down and trampled on. Walls and statues are covered in graffiti, and in the centre of the square, someone has set fire to a pair of wooden benches. At one point, there is a sudden wave of panic and people start running in all directions. I find out later that there have been clashes with police officers on horseback.

As darkness falls, we decide to go home. We came here to march, not to fight. The violence will only get worse, especially when the government announces its inevitable victory, and we want to leave while we still can.

But we can’t leave. We can’t get out. Every entrance to Parliament Square is blocked by a line of riot police, reinforced by vans and further rows of shielded officers. We approach the barricades cautiously. When will we be allowed out? we ask.

‘I’m afraid I can’t tell you that,’ says a policeman.

Eventually they tell us that the exit is at Whitehall. There they are letting people out, one by one. One by one! There are hundreds of people – thousands – in Parliament Square. But to Whitehall we go. In the smallest, tightest corner, in between a large stone wall and the iron railings of the underground entrance, people are waiting to be allowed out. The wait looks to be a long one, but we join the queue nonetheless.

We are crammed into a space that is barely more than three metres wide. People start chanting: let us out. As frustration levels mount, the possibility of getting crushed against that wall or those railings starts to seem scarily immediate. It would only take one person with a brick, or a snooker ball, or a firecracker (and there are plenty of them about) to cause someone some serious damage. A couple of metres away, on the other side of the entrance to the underground, is the empty security box that will later be engulfed in flames. I would rather be out in the open, away from this space in which we are cornered and helpless. But if we leave, it could be hours before we get out. It might be hours anyway.

But after a tense twenty minutes, they let us through. There is another line of police to get past, and then we are free.

We discover later that we got out just in time. Shortly after we leave, the police close the barricades completely, trapping the protesters, peaceful and violent alike. A little later, when I am safely at home, I receive a text message: ‘Thousands and thousands of young people, workers and lecturers have been kettled for 6 hours and up, in parliament square and now on westminster bridge for more than an hour. No access to toilets, water, food. V. cold. Please spread.’

The police, refusing to discriminate between the peaceful, law-abiding protesters and the perpetrators of the violence, punished them all, despite the fact that the vast majority no longer wished to be on the increasingly apocalyptic front line, and wanted little more than to go somewhere warm, to eat something, to go to the toilet. They were not there to cause trouble, or to hurt anyone, or to damage anything – they were there because they wanted to make their voices heard, or because they wanted to be a part of the story, or because their consciences simply wouldn’t let them stay away. By the time they were allowed to leave, shortly before midnight – twelve hours after the start of the protest – they had been denied their basic human rights for hours on end.

We must not forget this, even if fires and chaos make better television. Just as much as the surging crowds, the running policemen and that picture of Charles and Camilla, it needs to be remembered.

Born in the wrong body: living with gender dysphoria

Julia Ford: 'I've never been so happy
as I am now.'

When I talk to 53-year old Julia Ford, I have little trouble believing her when she claims to be as 'mad as a bag of spanners'. She is lively, funny and extremely talkative; our conversation lasts for over two hours. Her stories have me in near-hysterics, and even at her most serious, I never have to wait long for a joke. But a few years ago, she was so severely depressed that she was losing one or two pounds in weight a day. If I had phoned her back then, she assures me, we would have had a very different conversation.

Julia was born male, and until relatively recently was known as David. Despite having identified as female since her early childhood, she spent more than two decades in a relationship with a female partner whose children looked upon her as their father. But six years ago, her partner – the only person aware of her true gender identity – died suddenly. In the months that followed, Julia began feeling unable to continue living as a man.

When, after months of unsuccessful treatment for depression, she eventually broke down and admitted the truth to her doctor, Julia was diagnosed with gender dysphoria – the condition where a person's perception of their own gender does not match up with the sexual characteristics of their body. Some individuals identify as transgender, or gender variant, without wishing to medically change gender – they may cross dress, or take on a role traditionally perceived as belonging to the opposite sex. But in severe cases, the discomfort that arises from the condition is so extreme that the individual is left no option but to go through a process of gender reassignment, ending up with a new body and a new identity.

It is impossible to know exactly how many people in this country are living with gender dysphoria, for the simple reason that many of them keep it a secret. In a 2009 study, the Gender Identity Research and Education Society (GIRES) reported that although only 10,000 people have so far presented for treatment, a further 50,000-90,000 may yet do so. The number of people seeking treatment for gender dysphoria is rising by 15% per year, perhaps an indication that attitudes to transgender people are gradually becoming more tolerant.

According to Rory Smith of The Gender Trust, a national charity that supports those affected by gender identity issues, many of those who seek treatment go on to integrate seamlessly into the wider community. 'Most people just want to transition and get on with their lives,' he says. After transitioning, many people go into 'stealth', whereby they live as their new gender without making it known that they have gone through a process of gender reassignment (although this, Smith says, is easier for trans men than for trans women, who despite hormone treatment and voice therapy are often unable to entirely cover up their masculine bone structure or to 'unbreak' their voices).

Despite this, transphobia is still, he says, 'something that really needs to be tackled.' Since she came out four years ago, Julia has been not only rejected by the children she brought up as her own, but threatened by them. She is nonetheless admirably self-confident – and while the inhabitants of her small village were predictably shocked when she first began living and dressing as a woman, she has become a well-known and well-liked figure in her local community. Others, however, find it significantly more difficult.

'Lots of people go out at night rather than the day, which is a lot more dangerous,' she says. 'Who's going to attack you in Tesco? There are all these people who can't or won't go out – it drives some of them to suicide because they don't know who to turn to or who to speak to.' In a report by the Brighton-based LGBT research organisation, Count Me In Too, 58% of trans respondents felt marginalised because of their identity. One woman described being transgender as 'a continual process of exclusion, pain and suffering.' Trans people are over five times as likely to have attempted suicide than non-trans people, and are 'significantly more likely' to have been affected by depression, anxiety, isolation, insomnia, panic attacks and addictions and dependencies.

For all her confidence and humour, Julia is certain that continuing to live as a man would eventually have killed her. 'If I hadn't made that choice to become my real self,' she says, 'I wouldn't have survived much longer. I used to sleep with a razor blade at the side of my bed every night. I wasn't afraid of dying, but I didn't want to die, so that was why I made the decision to talk to my doctor.' Doing so, she says, 'was like someone had lifted a ten-ton weight off me.'

Nonetheless, Julia regrets waiting so long before seeking help. 'I just wish I could press rewind, go back and start again,' she says. It is by no means uncommon for transgender people to wait until later in life before coming out. Countless trans people settle down and raise families before they make their gender identity known; indeed, the median age for transitioning is 42.

'Most people hate themselves for it and hide it for years on end,' says Smith.

Today, Julia is determined to do all she can to help others struggling with gender dysphoria. 'People are ashamed of it, and you should never be ashamed of who you are. That's why I want to raise awareness ... I can't do much, but every little bit helps.' She encourages anyone dealing with a gender identity issue to speak to their doctor as early on as possible.

Julia grew up in a pre-internet society, and was forced to read the majority of the dictionary before she learned of the existence of the word 'transsexual'. But today, information and advice are available at the click of a mouse. 'Hit the internet,' is Smith's advice to people coming to terms with gender dysphoria. 'Start talking to people – even if you can't talk to family and friends, you can talk to people on forums. Look at Youtube blogs … You're not alone, and you see that if you look on the internet.' Finding out you are one of many, he says, is 'amazing'.

Currently undergoing a gruelling process of hormone treatment, Julia hopes to complete her transition next autumn. 'I've never been so happy as I am now,' says Julia. 'I want other people to feel what I feel now – I'm living proof that it's possible. All it takes is courage.'

For information and support about gender dysphoria and other gender-related issues:

www.gendertrust.org.uk

www.gires.org.uk

www.transgenderzone.com

www.beaumontsociety.org.uk

www.genderedintelligence.co.uk

Racism's last stronghold: why are Gypsies and Travellers so universally hated?

In 2006 Jon Blunkell, the Travellers' Liaison Officer at Norfolk County Council, received an email. 'Why do you pander to these pikey rats,' ranted the sender, 'when what is actually needed is for them to be exterminated like the vermin they are; you are a disgrace to every decent human in this land.'

It comes as a shock to be faced with such vehemently neo-Nazi sentiment, exposed in all its ugliness, far removed from the political rhetoric that often dilutes it. Britain has become so accepting of other cultures – relatively speaking, at least – that it is sometimes easy to forget that such attitudes are still prevalent. But discrimination against Gypsies and Travellers has been a problem for centuries, and it shows no sign of abating now.

Compared to many other European countries, Britain's record is fairly clean. But the belief that Gypsies and Travellers are all deviant, tax-evading layabouts with scant regard for the law is worryingly widespread for a country that prides itself on its multi-ethnicity.

'I don't particularly like them,' says Derek*, 'because of the mess they normally leave in the areas they inhabit, the fact they don't pay tax, they camp illegally ... why should any normal person have to pay rates … when they can just jump on a piece of land?'

What he fails to point out – and indeed, may well not be aware of – is that many Gypsies and Travellers live on clean, tidy, legal caravan sites, working as hard and paying as much in taxes as their house-dwelling neighbours. 26-year old Dina lives on a small Traveller site near Norwich. It is neat and well-kept; the interior of her caravan is spotless. It annoys her, she says, that a minority of anti-social Gypsies and Travellers give law-abiding people like herself and her family a bad name.

'We all get judged for what one set of Travellers do. It's hard. You're never going to get out of that, I don't think.

'I pay my taxes,' she continues. 'Not all Travellers are signing on. Half of us are working ... I've worked since I was 16, I've never been without a job.'

But discrimination because of her ethnicity is something Dina must put up with on a regular basis.

'If we want to go out for a night and we phone for a taxi, they say they're fully booked. They won't come down here because it's a Traveller site,' she says. Her husband was recently called a 'stinky rotten pikey' by a colleague, while her own employer claims that 'all you Gypsies are the same' and threatens to set 'her Gypsy girls' on anyone who causes her trouble.

The media does nothing to temper this kind of prejudice. Much of the coverage given to Gypsies and Travellers serves only to exacerbate existing tensions and create further stigma around an already stigmatised people. In a society obsessed with political correctness, it barely seems credible that an entire ethnic group is still hounded by the press with no fear of retribution. But headline archives reveal prejudices that simply would not be tolerated if they were targeting any other group.

'Gypsies ruined our kids' school,' claims one; 'Gypsies invade park and ride,' says another. It would be unthinkable to write 'Muslims ruined our kids' school' or 'Gays invade park and ride'. The media tries desperately to avoid making comments that could be construed as offensive to minorities, so why do libellous claims about Gypsies and Travellers appear so frequently in the right-wing press?

Part of the reason, says Blunkell, is that many people are unaware that Travellers are a recognised ethnic minority, and therefore do not realise that hostility towards them counts as racism. Another important factor, he says, is that no one is fighting their case – travelling communities are not organised to make legal defences themselves, while low levels of education mean many Gypsies and Travellers aren't aware of exactly what is said about them, and wouldn't know how to go about making a complaint if they did.

'They are by far the least educated group in society,' says Blunkell. 'A lot of our adult Gypsies are illiterate, so they don't know what is being written about them.'

Worryingly, discrimination against Gypsies and Travellers is often institutional. In 2005 the deputy leader of Dartford Borough Council spoke of his support for The Sun's aptly-named 'Stamp On The Camps' campaign, despite it having been described by one Traveller group as 'misleading, discriminatory and likely to incite racial hatred'. Many local authorities, Blunkell says, do all they can to assimilate groups of Gypsies and Travellers, forcing them into 'bricks and mortar' housing rather than providing them with legal caravan sites.

Things do not look likely to improve under the new government. While local authorities under Labour were required to provide a specific number of legal Traveller sites, the Lib-Con coalition has given district councils back the power to decide how many pitches are necessary, and Blunkell is certain that some of them will refuse to provide any sites at all – particularly since funding for doing so has been cut by 100%.

'I don't know any other sector that's been hit that hard,' he says.

But more legal sites are exactly what is needed in order to narrow the divide between Travellers and non-Travellers. Without them, Travellers are forced to set up illegal camps on private land, where their presence is usually unwanted and often prompts horror stories to be published in the local and national news. If more were able to integrate into their communities and live peacefully alongside their neighbours, the deep-set, age-old prejudice might eventually start to wane. But while the current situation continues, Gypsies and Travellers look set to face discrimination for many years yet.

*Not his real name.