Russell T Davies has said gay rights are “rapidly and urgently getting worse” thanks to the rise of Reform UK and the influence of the Trump presidency on British politics.
The award-winning screenwriter, who is best known for reviving Doctor Who and writing Queer As Folk, said the LGBT community should be “revolting in terror and anger and action” in response to growing support for Reform, which has pledged to “ban transgender ideology” in schools.
Speaking to the Big Issue, Davies said: “When Queer As Folk came out in 1999, if you’d said: ‘What will gay rights be like in 2025?’, we’d have said: ‘Oh, it will all be marvellous – it’ll be sunshine and skipping down the street, hand in hand – gays, queers, lesbians, everyone.’
“And look at where we are. Things got better but now things are rapidly and urgently getting worse.
“What happens in America always happens here, and as we look down the barrel of a Reform government, we, the gay community, queer community, should be revolting in terror and anger and action.”
Reform has promised to ban what it called “transgender ideology” in schools within its first 100 days of government.
According to the party’s manifesto, its education policies include plans for a “patriotic” curriculum, tax relief of 20% on private schools and cuts to funding for universities “that undermine free speech”. It has also pledged to replace the Equality Act and said it would scrap diversity, equality and inclusion rules.
Davies also said Trump was “literally out to get us” and “would be happier with us invisible and gone, defunded, completely invisible if not biologically altered” to become as straight as him.
The Doctor Who showrunner called on the younger generation of LGBT people to organise and fight back against the rhetoric and policies that have emerged on the hard right of British politics.
“I hope they’re prepared to fight, that younger generation that has no idea how they got there. And neither should they; they’re busy living their lives. I didn’t spend my youth looking back at World War Two. But I do think: ‘Are you prepared to fight? Because a fight is coming.’”
Davies’s next Channel 4 series, Tip Toe, deals with the culture war that has radicalised some people into homophobia, transphobia and prejudice.
Channel 4 has said the show will look at “the most corrosive forces facing the LGBTQ+ community today, examining the danger as prejudice creeps back into our lives”.
Davies said: “It’s radical, it’s savage, and it’s hilarious. It is the strongest thing I’ve written. I do believe Queer As Folk, Cucumber, It’s A Sin and Tip Toe are the ones that will be on my gravestone.”
Reform UK has been contacted for comment.
Davies said earlier this year that gay society was in the greatest danger he had ever seen after Trump’s presidential election triumph. “As a gay man, I feel like a wave of anger, and violence, and resentment is heading towards us on a vast scale,” he said.
“I’ve literally seen a difference in the way I’m spoken to as a gay man since that November election, and that’s a few months of weaponising hate speech, and the hate speech creeps into the real world.
“I’m not being alarmist. I’m 61 years old. I know gay society very, very well, and I think we’re in the greatest danger I have ever seen.”
In April, he also hit back at claims Doctor Who was too woke. “Someone always brings up matters of diversity,” he said. “And there are online warriors accusing us of diversity and wokeness and involving messages and issues.
“And I have no time for this. I don’t have a second to bear [it]. Because what you might call diversity, I just call an open door.”
