Sam Smith shows support for LGBTQ+ fans as UK government ramps up anti-trans rhetoric

Sam Smith has shared a message of love and support with their UK-based LGBTQ+ fans after a particularly frustrating week for the community.

In recent days, prominent members of the UK government, like the home secretary, the health secretary, and the prime minister, have broadcasted particularly hateful comments about the LGBTQ+ community.

The comments, which have made headline news, and will likely encourage a spike in hateful behaviour across the UK, has left LGBTQ+ people, their families, and allies at a loss for words.

Smith, who has developed a strong LGBTQ+ fanbase thanks by creating a safe space for people at their concerts and being open about their own sexuality and gender identity journey, took to Instagram to offer their followers a message of hope in what has likely been a time of despair for many.

“To all trans/non-binary and gender non-conforming people in the UK right now…” they wrote in a post to their Instagram Story.

“You are not alone. Your humanity and your life MATTERS.

“Sending every one of you so much love.”

Sam’s message comes shortly after health secretary Steve Barclay outlined his plans to bring “common sense” into the NHS by removing transgender people from single-sex hospital wards and removing gender-neutral language from certain NHS platforms.

Despite major public backlash and warnings from legal experts that these new policies would be “unlawful and impractical”, Barclay’s plan appears to have to support of both Suella Braverman and Rishi Sunak.

In an interview with Sky News on Tuesday (3 October), Braverman reaffirmed Barclay’s stance, claiming: “Trans women have no place in women’s wards or, indeed, any safe space relating to biological women.

“The health secretary’s absolutely right to clarify and make it clear that biological men should not have treatment in the same wards and in the same safe spaces as biological women.”

Shortly after that, Rishi Sunak devastated the masses when he said at a Conservative Party Conference that people were being “bullied” into believing that “people can be any sex they want to be.”

“A man is a man, and a woman is a woman, that’s just common sense,” he suggested, only to be met with applause from the audience.

Hearing the leader of the UK government make such sweeping and damaging statements about an already marginalised sparked uproar, and has left many bewildered.

The British Medical Association (BMA) has warned that this sudden vitriol towards the transgender community is a “distraction” from serious NHS problems.

Professor Phil Banfield, BMA council chair said it was “beyond belief” that Barclay announced the plans on the second day of the biggest industrial action the NHS has ever seen, when his attention could have been on other issues it’s currently facing.

Additionally, there are fears that the Conservative’s sudden targetting of the trans community has the potential to increase an already-growing level of hate crime and discrimination across the UK.

According to statistics from the Home Office, 2021 saw at least 2,630 reported hate crimes against transgender people in the UK. 88 per cent of trans people have said they do not report hate crimes out of fear.