Russell T Davies blames Reform UK and Trump for decline in British LGBTQ+ rights

Russell T Davies, writer of It's a Sin and Queer as Folk, has issued a stark warning about the state of LGBTQ+ rights in the UK, blaming the rise of Reform UK and the influence of Donald Trump for what he describes as a “rapid and urgent” deterioration in protections and freedoms for LGBTQ+ communities.

Speaking to The Big Issue, Davies reflected on the optimism that followed the release of his groundbreaking series Queer As Folk in 1999. “If you’d said: ‘What will gay rights be like in 2025?’, we’d have said, ‘Oh, it will all be marvellous - sunshine and skipping down the street, hand in hand - gays, queers, lesbians, everyone’,” he said. “And look at where we are. Things got better but now things are rapidly and urgently getting worse".

Things got better but now things are rapidly and urgently getting worse.

Davies pointed to Reform UK’s pledge to “ban transgender ideology” in schools as a sign of growing hostility, and warned that the UK is “looking down the barrel of a Reform government.” He urged the LGBTQ+ community to respond with “terror, anger and action,” adding: “They’re out to get us. The President of America is literally out to get us, is discounting us. He would be happier with us invisible and gone, defunded, completely invisible if not biologically altered to become as straight as him”.

He also stressed the transatlantic influence of American politics on British society, saying, “What happens in America always happens here.” Davies believes Trump’s presidency has emboldened anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric and policies that are now echoing in the UK.

His comments come ahead of his new Channel 4 series Tip Toe, which tackles the culture wars and the radicalisation of homophobia and transphobia. Davies described the show as “radical, savage, and hilarious,” and said it stands alongside Queer As Folk, Cucumber, and It’s A Sin as one of his proudest works.