History is but an unstoppable march towards freedom and enlightenment. Here is what is known as the Whiggish view of history, and if it wasn’t killed off on the battlefields of the Somme, Gallipoli and Passchendaele, it surely should have perished in Auschwitz-Birkenau, Treblinka and Nanjing. Yet, somehow, even as a subconscious urge rather than a historical theory, it persists. While it is true that rights and freedoms can be won and secured through struggle and sacrifice, they can equally be sent hurtling into reverse. And that, it must be concluded, is the current threat facing LGBTQ people.

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As homophobic protesters gather outside primary schools to protest against children being educated about LGBTQ people – and succeed in stopping such lessons at one school – we have the grotesque sight of the Labour MP Roger Godsiff publicly backing them. Hundreds of Labour members have already signed a letter demanding his suspension and the party would be wise to listen to them. Labour has a rule allowing for the suspension of a member for bringing the party into disrepute; given Labour’s existential purpose is equality, surely endorsing anti-gay protests more than qualifies for bringing shame on the entire party – not least when they are publicly endorsed as a result by the fascist ex-leader of the BNP, Nick Griffin.

Yet it is our governing party that should most profoundly disturb us.

Esther McVey is a no-hoper in every sense, and her leadership bid will soon crash, but she is still likely to gain a plum job in a Boris Johnson cabinet. When she declares that parents should be able to withdraw their children from being taught that LGBTQ people exist – which is what we’re talking about here, not sex, which is all homophobes seem to think about when queer people are mentioned – it matters. It helps shift the political conversation, reopening debates that were supposed to have been settled long ago, reviving the phantom of section 28.

McVey knows her audience, of course. One poll shows that more than half of Tory members oppose equal marriage, and they are set to elect Johnson, who once compared this enshrining of equality to three men marrying a dog, and called gay men “bumboys”. This is happening at the same time as the Brexit party’s rise in the polls – topping some – with its leading light, Ann Widdecombe, saying that science “might produce an answer” to being gay. That was defended by the party’s leader, Nigel Farage, as a “matter of conscience”. Gay conversion therapy – a horror that was supposed to be consigned to the past – has been injected right back into the British political mainstream.

We live in a society in which one in five LGBTQ people report suffering a hate crime in the past year. And that’s going up, not down. In 2011-12 there were 4,345 reported hate crimes in England and Wales based on sexual orientation, and another 313 directed at trans people; by 2017-18, those respective figures were 11,638 and 1,651. It’s worth keeping in mind that many queer people do not report the hate directed at them: official figures capture but a tiny fraction.

When a lesbian couple were beaten up on a London bus in a homophobic and misogynistic attack, and then a gay woman and non-binary person were attacked in Southampton, the victims underlined how the fear of showing public affection for a loved one is woven into the daily fabric of LGBTQ existence. It is a cliche in our community to tell younger members “it gets better”. Does it, though? I had to wait until I reached my 30s until I suffered meaningful homophobic abuse; since then it’s been an avalanche, mostly online, but also including being chased by fascists yelling “Jonesy is a homo!” What is getting better, exactly?

And others suffer far more than me. While Donald Trump bans trans soldiers from serving, and attempts to define trans people out of existence, a tawdry, sinister campaign is directed against trans people in the UK. Much of the media demonises them, playing the same tunes that were sung about gay people in the 1980s: sexual predators, deviants, grooming and brainwashing children. It not only erases the hatred directed at trans people, it legitimises and fuels it. Some 41% of trans people suffered a hate crime or incident in the past year; 44% avoid certain streets through fear; 12% of trans employees have been physically attacked by a colleague or customer in the last year; half don’t feel comfortable using public toilets. The trans community suffers from a severe level of mental distress, and higher than usual levels of suicidal thoughts.

Anti-trans activists claim they want trans people to have happy lives, but as their recent successful campaign to force the NSPCC to drop the trans model and activist Munroe Bergdorf as its first LGBTQ campaigner underlines, they want to drive trans people out of public life. This led to 148 members of the NSPCC’s staff signed a letter condemning the decision, which has now prompted an apology from the chief executive, Peter Wanless, but not a reversal of the decision.

What depths are plumbed when anti-trans campaigners denounce the “trans Taliban” in front of cheering crowds? There are self-described liberals who pit trans activists and feminists against each other, when the truth is that most trans activists are feminists and most feminists support trans rights, whatever a vocal minority claim.

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And don’t believe you can demarcate transphobia from rising homophobia. The anti-trans activists who hounded Bergdorf are now demanding the sacking of a senior, gay NSPCC employee because they found pictures of him in fetish gear online, suggesting therefore he is not safe around children. This is the crude, unapologetic homophobia of 1980s Britain. The scaremongering over trans people has even led cis-gender lesbians – such as Stonewall chief executive Ruth Hunt – to be challenged over using women’s toilets. A minority of self-described feminists – who seem to talk of nothing other than the great trans menace – have no scruples about working with the anti-gay lobby. Earlier this year, three activists belonging to the Women’s Liberation Front – a US organisation – sat on a platform hosted by the Heritage Foundation, a rightwing thinktank that opposes LGBTQ rights. Anti-trans activists claiming to be feminists work closely with the hard right Tory MP David Davies, who has consistently voted against both equal gay rights and abortion rights.

Join the dots, look at the direction of travel: progress in LGBTQ rights has not simply ground to a halt, it is screeching into reverse. This is Pride month, but let us not have commercialised parades, pinkwashing dubious corporations, celebrating “progress”. Let’s have rage, courage and determination – because LGBTQ rights are under threat, and history shows that the only remedy is to fight back.

• Owen Jones is a Guardian columnist