When neither respectable protest nor threats of violence stop anti-trans campaigning, what can the trans community do? S. Lamble’s debut book, Unsafe: The Carceral Roots of the Anti-Trans Backlash, unpacks this paradox of safety. Lamble, a professor of criminology and queer theory at Birkbeck, University of London, spent decades studying and working alongside people involved in difficult cases like Stock’s. When Stock’s case entered public discourse, it immediately sparked what Lamble describes in the book as an escalation of “carceral safety politics.” Trans activists called for harsher punishments against gender-critical campaigners, who, in turn, advocated for tougher measures against trans activists. This conversation is foregrounded in a culture that uplifts figures like Nigel Farage, who actively push for harsher punishments against both migrants and trans women in female spaces. The core idea behind these messages from both mainstream trans and anti-trans activists is that punishment will lead to safety.

In Unsafe, Lamble argues that this assumption, uniting the British left and right, actually encourages trans exclusion from the start. Increasing the state’s capacity to punish will result in greater capacity for it to punish trans people. But what options do activists have without punishment? Lamble first urges readers to pause for reflection whenever the concept of safety enters the discussion. Does this form of safety mean exclusion or imprisonment? Or does it foster care and social bonds?