Kira Herdman

Today this government, a Labour government, said they support that transgender women are not women and we should use a man’s toilet.

Here is a fact. The Supreme Court ruling did not change any laws. The ruling was in regard to what the word sex meant in relation to the Equality Act, specifically regarding the GRC, or The Gender Recognition Certificate.

The court also stated, very plainly, that discrimination against the transgender community is still protected in the Equality Act 2010 and being transgender is still a Protected characteristic.

So, what the Prime Minister said in public, and the Equalities Minister in the Houses of Parliament, was in fact against the court ruling.

I would like to quote Prof Alex Sharpe, who knows his stuff when it comes to the law around equality.

As former Supreme Court judge, Lord Sumption, has helpfully pointed out today, while organisations are now legally able to exclude trans women and men from single-sex spaces (in the context of sport, clubs, changing rooms and bathrooms etc.) they are NOT legally required to do so.

It is important that trans-friendly organisations do NOT do GC work for them. They are free to admit trans women to women’s spaces if they choose to (ditto trans men). The fact that sex is to be understood as biology/birth sex for EA purposes does not contradict this.

However, this may, likely will, lead to further litigation, probably on the grounds of harassment under EA. That is, some cis women may claim space rendered hostile, uncomfortable etc. causing self-exclusion. Whether such claims will succeed will depend on facts & nature/use of space

Thus, in relation to eg. Rape crises centre, litigation more likely to succeed. In relation to toilets, much less so. Real concern is that fear of litigation will lead orgs to capitulate not cos of legal obligation, but cos of fear/cost of litigation, which has been a key part of GC strategy

This government, the same government that made the Equality Act 2010, has just made things a lot worse for a small minority of people in the UK.

For some of us, we have been using the toilets that align with our gender for years, some all their adult lives with no problems. The GC movement says cis men will dress up as a woman to get into the women’s toilets to do stupid things. This is simply not the case. Cis men do not need to do that, they will just do it if they want to.

Every woman I have met has no problems with me, as a transgender woman who has been living as a woman for five years and almost one year on HRT, using the women’s toilet. However, I have had men come up to me while out with friends to say I shouldn’t be. You know who came to my defence? Cis women.

This government is now, I feel, the worst government this millennium for LGBT people.