We often think of social justice as progressing in a loosely linear fashion. Granular improvements in legal rights for marginalised groups - enshrined in laws that are often difficult or impossible to enforce - cast a veneer of optimistic progress over fights for justice that are generally far, far messier than they appear. Transgender activism is exemplary of a movement whose every ostensible step forward incites waves of vitriolic backlash.

It’s a double-sided coin; on the one hand, we’re generally succeeding at increasing awareness of trans people and the issues we face within society. But a higher level of visibility, while going some way towards tackling transphobia stemming from pure ignorance, also carries a heavy price. The anti-trans movement, which has risen up in reaction to recent progress, appears to be gaining in power, and the children’s charity Mermaids UK is its latest victim.

Mermaids, a charity supporting transgender and gender-diverse children and their families, had been earmarked a £500k grant from The Big Lottery Fund, the body that awards funds raised by the National Lottery to charitable causes. This, however, was before, in the careful words of a press release from the Fund, a “range of correspondence” led them to “undertake a review” of the grant. The Fund have awarded grants to the charity before, in June of this year, as well as in 2016 and 2015. The proposed grant was, admittedly, intended to be significantly larger than these previous donations - but that’s only part of the story as to why it is this occasion in particular which has prompted backlash. Read more via Huffington Post