Brianna Ghey was a British 16-year-old transgender girl who was attacked and murdered by Scarlette Jenkinson and Eddie Ratcliffe, on February 11th, 2023. The murderers faced a 3-week trial in December; the trial concluded on the 20th when both were found to be guilty of murder. They were sentenced on the 2nd of February 2024, the same day the press was allowed to know their names. The sentence entailed life imprisonment with a minimum limit of 22 years for Jenkinson and 20 years for Ratcliffe.

Scarlette Jenkinson had previous offences of spiking younger classmates with cannabidiol-infused edibles at school. Although Ratcliffe wasn’t a violent person before this murder, he did show a fascination towards knives, whilst Jenkinson showed interest in serial killers.

The topic was brought back into light once more on the 7th of February when Rishi Sunak joked about the “definition of a woman” in the Commons in front of Brianna Ghey’s mother. This sparked outrage as Sunak has made multiple transphobic statements in the past, including this post on Facebook on the 4th of December 2023 “A man is a man and a woman is a woman – that’s just common sense.”.

Worryingly enough, the murder of Brianna Ghey isn’t the only case of a young transgender person being attacked or killed in recent years. In the US, there has been an attack resulting in the death of a 16-year-old non-binary student, Nex Benedict. As opposed to the United Kingdom, the US has had a recent surge of numerous anti-transgender bills being proposed and passed. Currently, an estimate of 496 bills have been proposed (Translegislation.com, 2024) and as of 2024, there have been 3 passed bills. These bills usually relate to transgender children and their interactions at school.

Recent actions relating to transphobia have portrayed similar reactions from the general public compared to homophobia in the 1980s, where Stonewall followed through. History may be repeating itself.