MY STATEMENT IN SUPPORT OF MAYA FORSTATER’S CLAIM FOR BELIEF DISCRIMINATION.
1. Prudishness about using the word ‘sex’ to refer to the categories of male and female has led to its increasing substitution by the word ‘gender’. I believe this has been unhelpful in the debates relevant to this case surrounding the proposed reforms to the Gender Recognition Act 2004 because ‘gender’ has several other, quite different meanings in contexts beyond reference to the binary reproductive categories of sex. This often leads to confusion, conflation and ambiguity as opposing views regard ‘gender’ as meaning completely different phenomena as well as it being used in ways which obscure rather than clarify what is at stake.
2. For example, for those who support the claim that trans women are women (literally actual female people is now being claimed), gender has come to refer not to our biological sex, not to our physical reality as a sexually dimorphic species, the reason all of us exist and have evolved as we have, but rather to an often strongly held but subjective and unproven concept of innate, immutable ‘gender identity’. This concept is a metaphysical belief in a kind of female, male and non-binary ‘soul’ or ‘essential essence’. We are even invited to believe that this fixed, innate ‘essence’ also applies to people who have a gender identity that is ‘fluid’, that is, at some times or on some days they identify as male or non-binary and other days they identify as female.
3. In contrast to ‘identity’ proponents, feminists like Maya and others such as Socialists like myself who regard themselves as ‘gender critical’ or even as ‘gender abolitionists’ argue two central concepts. The first is that sex is essentially immutable in humans and is a dimorphic and scientifically established biological reality, with male and female reproductive categories of substantial lifelong significance, especially in a sexist society.
Secondly, we argue while there may be natural on-average differences in behavioural or psychological tendencies between the sexes much of what is observed as hard-and-fast behavioural and social sex differences are a set of socially imposed, constructed rules, expectations and roles. These norms, like the greater expectation on women of submissive rather than dominant behaviour, or that girls and women’s value is in how they look (to men) rather than what they do in life we refer to as ‘gender norms’ or ‘gender’, for short. Gender harmfully exaggerates and reinforces any social, psychological and behavioural differences between the sexes and coercively stigmatises any non-conformity, delegitimising and minimising the reality of millions or lives. Gender, from pink or blue baby clothes for example, is imposed upon children from birth and throughout life according to their sex or perceived sex and though girls and women are specifically disadvantaged by this social system of norms, both sexes are stifled and stunted in unhealthy ways by them.
My views on sex and gender
4. I’d argue that this system of norms has evolved and adapted across the centuries, for example the colour pink used to be considered a boy’s colour and in the 18th century men wore elaborate wigs, make up and frilly clothes. Across different class-based patriarchal societies these ideas are constituted and re-constituted in ways which tend to fit the interests of the dominant power structure. They have been actively propagated, reinforced and policed by those structures and subsequently in the home as well as in the street. They are imposed upon children in thousands of ways both subtle and brutal, even violently. Children have been bombarded with thousands of these messages by the time they are three or four years old, messages that legitimise or very strongly delegitimise behaviour, thoughts, even feelings according to sex. Ultimately, they stifle, threaten and push terrible shame and rejection onto children who do not conform to them or who recognise in themselves these stigmatised interests, traits or feelings and suppress them.
5. The idea that the extraordinary richness and diversity of human personality and interests should be boxed in by strict gender norms is an absurd one. If it wasn’t such a deeply harmful and fundamentally inhumane notion it would be simply laughable, yet here we are in the 21st century, still being subjected to these deeply restrictive rules that limit and suffocate the scope of children’s expression, creativity and aspirations, that tell girls they are weak, frivolous, vain and should be accommodating, ‘feminine’ care-givers rather than assertive of their needs. That teach boys a damaging emotional constipation including that they should not cry, that tenderness, sensitivity and playing with girls or with ‘girls things’ is for cissy’s and no-one wants to be one of those because ‘implicitly’ a boy should never lower themselves to the level of a ‘mere girl’. Such is how boys are taught their higher status and dominance over girls.
6. Historically the gender role for girls and women has evolved to keep women in a subordinate role to men, in a care-giving and child-rearing role that initially was about guaranteeing paternity and therefore the rights and ability of the ruling (male) elite to pass on their inherited wealth to their sons.
7. In modern society ‘gender’ still serves the status quo of class based but also male dominated structural power. Today women are socialised with gender norms that encourage them to believe that their hugely disproportionate burden of unpaid caring, domestic and child-rearing labour (often on top of full-time work) and their commodifiable and exploitable sexualisation is a natural (even desirable) part of being a woman rather than an intolerable discriminatory exploitation. The gender norms for men have traditionally prepared boys for dominance over women, for work and for war. Together they constitute a system of hierarchical ‘roles’ perpetuated via TV, corporate newspapers, the toy, movie, music, fashion, beauty and advertising industries, organised religion, establishment politicians, social media as well as in the home.
8. When identity activists locate girlhood or womanhood in the entirely subjective feelings of (mostly developing child and adolescent) identity, rather than in biology, I’d argue that inevitably such interpretations of one’s feelings will for most children and even adults, rest heavily upon the dominant sexist ideas, harmful stereotypes of ‘girlhood’, ‘boyhood’, ‘womanhood’ and ‘manhood’ that are promoted by the mass media as well as by the simple everyday impact of the apparently eternal continuity of women and girls’ (general) subordination, the unequally socialised and differentiated position of females in our society.
9. Typically, when these entrenched ideas are formed, children who identify as trans, when asked why they believe they are ‘really a girl’ or a boy, will refer to the gender stereotypes that seem to them eternal and universal. Yet liking dolls and dresses doesn’t mean you are a girl, it can mean you are a boy whose perfectly healthy personality including liking for traditionally feminine things has been so unjustly crushed and delegitimised as a boy by society’s medieval gender shackles that you’re now desperate to be a girl, because to be so is to like dolls and dresses with social legitimacy.
10. Children who exhibit gender non-conformity or feelings of dysphoria may be encouraged down a route of lifelong medication and drastic surgery rather than at least try to create a space where boys and girls feel comfortable to wear what they want and play with what they want and to gain support for that at school and in a wider context. It’s an indictment of our society that instead of adult society fitting itself around the needs and natural expression of our children, we are fitting our children around the needs of whom exactly, if not the narrow interests of structural power and parents who have been falsely led to believe that such sex-based shackles are natural and desirable? If these differences were entirely natural, we would not need to repeatedly bombard, bully and saturate children with them. We would not need to normalise that which is natural and ‘normal’.
11. How can these shackles not be inhuman? If you happen to be a very feminine boy much of the world sees you as an aberration. You can be the target for bullying, social ostracism, even family rejection. Masculine girls and young lesbians often feel similarly othered. As openly gender non-conforming adults or as trans adults we are often discriminated against by potential employers and suffer high rates of unemployment. If we do get a job, then bullying and discrimination at work for being trans is still prevalent. Many young trans people lose family and support networks through rejection or estrangement and become homeless and are vulnerable to sexual exploitation. Our healthcare is inadequate, especially our much-needed mental health services, and waiting lists for surgery are cruelly long. In some areas despite big improvements in the last decades we are still menaced and threatened or even violently attacked, overwhelmingly by male street thugs raised on a diet of toxic masculinity and homophobia.
12. For some a successful transition can mean a happier, healthier, more congruent, enriched, dignified and even safer life. We have all had to overcome a lot of stigma and usually a lot of bullying. We have every right to challenge prejudice and unjust discrimination against us as trans citizens, yet trans women are not fundamentally female. It’s not possible to change sex even if one changes some sexual characteristics through hormone treatment or gender reassignment surgery (GRS). Inverting penile tissue to create an artificial cavity and a sexually functional and aesthetic approximation of a vagina is not literally creating a female vagina. Still less can ‘woman’ be reduced to the feelings inside a male person’s head, no matter how strongly they are felt.
13. We can be (with caveats for single sex spaces and women’s fundamental rights) qualified socio/legal women, we can sometimes be honorary women but fundamentally we can never be female and in some circumstance that matters, especially in a sexist world. The truth is we who transition, are unique unto ourselves, with unique rights, often unique needs and experiences. For example, the healthcare needs of medically transitioned trans people are unique and we must have reliable hard data to improve knowledge of issues and risks particular to our patient group which can improve health outcomes and treatments. We cannot justly or even safely be treated as female (or male for transmen) in all circumstances, i.e. in circumstances where oppressed females are disadvantaged or for instance in an emergency department presenting with abdominal pain or urinary issues. Failure to recognise or acknowledge biological sex in these circumstances could mean a transman’s life-threatening ectopic pregnancy is missed or prostate cancer is overlooked in a transwoman.
14. However, after all that trans people have been subjected to as kids and the discrimination we still face as adults, justice demands a compassionate and equitable accommodation by society, particularly by the powerful. This must not however, intrude upon the rights of oppressed women. Therefore, one possibility is either more sharply defined qualifications to the legal fiction of ‘acquired gender’ (sex) status or a so-called ‘third gender’ status that is equal before the law. Either is compatible with a recognition of dimorphic biological sex and even with a social struggle to oppose the imposition of gender norms.
15. As long as society attempts to keep shoving children into suffocating straightjackets that for some are just too painful to bear, leading often to suicidal thoughts, gender reassignment will remain a life-affirming, even life-saving option for some people, a pragmatic individual ‘solution’ to an intolerable social reality. However, we also have a duty as a society to get to the root of the problem and change the intolerable social reality, so that gender norms are recognised as the damaging shackles they are, and all children are completely free to develop, dress, act, feel, think and aspire to where their dreams and abilities take them without the stigma or limitations of these sex-based gender restrictions.
16. Since transition I have been infinitely freer to express my personality, my sense of self without being punished or ostracised for it for breaking these unjust social gender rules. I am overwhelmingly treated as a woman both in private life and in the vast arena of public space, but I cannot claim to actually be female and though I believe we must always be treated as equal citizens, with dignity, humanity and with regard to our mental health needs, I do not believe it is justified to treat us as women in all circumstances, regardless of the significant detriments to women that I will detail later. Furthermore, my dignity, presentation, safety and rights are completely unaffected by choosing (where possible) to use a safe, quality, unisex or so-called gender-neutral toilet rather than a female toilet. It’s simultaneously possible to respect the right of women to single sex space as well as respect our own dignity, safety and privacy as transwomen. Gender Identity cannot trump sexual reality (or even sex-based group identity).
17. For much of my childhood I had felt that I had to repress my naturally sensitive, shy and feminine personality because of social stigma and bullying. I hated how emotionally detached, shallow, cold and violent boy’s relationships could be and I often wished, even as a small child that I had been born female and was able to openly be like, do and wear some of the things that girls did. I’d argue that as with childhood belief in Santa Claus or the tooth fairy, it is both possible and likely that for the mind of a child who’s natural personality and interests are rejected by adults and sometimes peers as inappropriate, even shameful for someone of their sex, to begin to feel that they must become or somehow really are the opposite sex. That’s especially the case at that developmental age of ‘magical thinking’ and in the context of (to a child, even to many adults) an apparently eternal reality of a world that constantly and forever rebukes their thoughts and behaviour and self-worth with, ‘boys don’t do that’, ‘stop acting like a girl’, ‘don’t be a cissy’ and in hundreds of other gender-shaming, rejecting ways directly or indirectly from adults in the home, on the TV, in the movies, advertising, from the pulpit or from peers at school etc. I think in context, those kinds of feelings and rationalisations are entirely understandable in such children.
18. What kid wouldn’t want to find a way to stop feeling unloved, shamed and ridiculed by the world, perhaps even by their own family for what is a core part of their self-expression? Something has to give. If powerful, organised, educated adults fail to change society’s unjust gender rules, a child can hardly be expected to change them, so they change themselves. They either suppress the feelings, behaviours and interests which bring them rejection, or they supress (to one extent or another) the reality of their sex, because it is their sexed body which has determined if a child’s ‘gendered’ behaviour is judged with rejection, stigma and illegitimacy or with love, pride and social approval. This I believe is one of the central ways that kids can feel ‘trapped in the wrong body’. The sad truth is though that children are not really trapped by their bodies at all, they are trapped by adult prejudice, by the cruel, socially constructed gender roles that we unjustly impose on them based on their sex.
19. Frankly, as a child, if the idea I might really be a girl had been presented to me in cooperation with trusted adults in schools and on TV as it is now, I would have been completely bowled over by its appeal. That concerns me greatly because although it may have made little difference in my particular case, I believe these rationalisations, though understandable are false. In my opinion they are certainly very poorly evidenced as fixed, innate ‘gender identity’ and the potential and actuality of harm coming from them is very significant because of the medicalised pathway and embodied disunity implied. In my opinion they are not intrinsic and we know that they are not unchanging in many cases because of the high levels of desistance and the growing number of detransitioners, that is respectively, people who identified as trans but stop doing so (desist) before completing a full transition and secondly, detransitioners, people who after transition, often after irreversible treatments, realise that they were mistaken about their earlier strongly held identity and try to revert to living as members of their natal sex.
20. According to Dr James Cantor [New for bundle]. ‘Despite coming from a variety of countries and from a variety of labs, using a variety of methods, all spanning four decades, every single study without exception has come to the identical conclusion.’ That is, ‘the majority (my emphasis) of transgender kids desist’. The author cautions that it ‘is not a large majority’ but goes on to explain that ‘Despite loud, confident protestations of extremists, the science shows very clearly and very consistently that we cannot take either outcome’ (persistence or desistance) ‘for granted.’
21. Why then are we treating trans identity as an unchanging, essential essence of the born self when the majority of trans identifying children abandon these identities after puberty? Other studies have shown the majority of these young people turn out to be simply gay or lesbian. It’s arguable that gender non-conforming behaviour or trans identity in children is more predictive of gay and lesbian sexuality than of gender reassignment. Yet we have vulnerable children being given fixed ‘trans’ labels setting them on a conveyor belt towards puberty blockers, life-long medication and invasive, irreversible surgeries that may be wholly inappropriate for them, leaving the underlying causes of their dysphoria unaddressed and with the potential to seriously compound their difficulties in life, including, loss of sexual sensation or function, infertility, premature balding etc.
22. Once a child identifies as trans, the people pushing the ‘gender identity model’, whilst trying to de-legitimise all public scrutiny of this model have and are exerting huge pressure which some institutions have already buckled to, for an affirmation only policy. This is an abandonment of genuine adult responsibility, care and support. Many therapists recognise that there can be many different factors in or causes of gender dysphoria in childhood, abandonment, unresolved abuse, homophobia, gender roles, fetishism, family dynamics. Autism and mental health co-morbidities feature significantly and are also likely involved in some way. Yet, because of the pressure from ‘gender identity’ lobbyists we have professionals terrified of doing anything but affirming a child’s gender identity for fear of being accused of ‘transphobia’.
23. Treatment protocols which do not allow therapists to question a patient’s declared gender, effectively prevent them doing what they were trained to do, to supportively help their clients explore their own thoughts, feelings, experiences and motivations in order to improve patient and therapists understanding of the underlying issues, come to the best diagnosis and ensure good patient outcomes. Many therapists fear that children are being failed because of this situation. Dr Kirsty Entwistle is one of the most recent of a number of whistle-blowers from the main specialist NHS gender service for children called The Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS). James Kirkup [New for bundle] quotes her as declaring that GIDS clinicians are making major decisions without children’s lives ‘without a robust evidence base’ and that ‘children who have had very traumatic early experiences and early losses…are being put on the medical pathway’ (to transition) ‘without having explored or addressed their early adverse experiences’. Extraordinarily, she even states that ‘I strongly believe that it is GIDS duty to make it known that it is highly unlikely that any child (my emphasis) presenting there will be told that they are not transgender’. In effect adult professionals have been put in an impossible position and it would seem the service is abrogating its responsibility and acting as little more than a rubber stamp, diagnostically speaking.
24. Yet that rubber stamp is allowing vulnerable young people whose fundamental issues may otherwise have been picked up by proper, full assessments to instead access irreversible treatments that were not right for them and have significantly harmed them, traumatically for many, all whilst leaving their real issues neglected and unaddressed. For example Charlie[MF(1] Evans, a woman who identified as a transman for 10 years and is setting up the Detransition Advocacy Network told Sky News [New for bundle] that ‘hundreds’ of trans people had approached her seeking help to return to their ‘original sex’, many after irreversible treatments. Many of the people approaching her to detransition now realise that they were lesbians and regret believing and being encouraged to believe they were really men. They are clear that they reject their previous identity as men.
25. So it is particularly concerning now that schools, TV and many other liberal institutions in society and online can openly teach that any child expressing a thought that they are really a girl or a boy or that they feel trapped in the wrong body, no matter what age, should have their feelings instantly and unquestioningly affirmed as if it were the disclosure of an immutable, profoundly fundamental and hallowed ‘identity’ which must in no way be questioned, however sensitively and supportively.
26. Yet, both the extent of desistance and the existence of detransitioners shows that this notion is flawed and deeply unsafe, likely leading to a growing public health scandal and to law suits from detransitioners badly let down by systems that should have protected them with the first duty of medicine, to do no harm. What’s really fixed, profound and ought to be hallowed though is a child’s need to express their natural personality and interests freely without the cruel, unjust and inhumane imposition of suffocating artificial gender norms and to be loved, free from stigma, illegitimacy or any encouragement to question their bodily integrity. Essentially: to be and to belong with love and body positivity. Is that really too much for children to expect of adult society?
27. Though it was tough in the 1970s growing up gender-rejected, I feel lucky now that I wasn’t exposed as a child to the seductive fiction that I might really be a girl. I was fortunate to grow up before the intolerant ideology of fixed and innate ‘gender identity’ had fully cohered as an entire dogmatic system of thought and became truly dominant in my community in the internet age. In the end, truth and reality matters. It matters in terms of our just and harmonious relationship with the rest of society, especially women and it matters in developing and maintaining resilient mental well-being. A lot of old school ‘transsexuals’, like me, who grew up in isolation from each other in the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s, would frequently acknowledge that we were boys or men who couldn’t live as males in this rigidly constrictive society, certainly far more so than in today’s digitally connected and ideologically more homogenised trans community. Even many who believed they were born with a mind that was ‘trapped in the wrong body’ also acknowledged their sex and that they wanted to become female, or vice versa. This has always been the case and it’s still acknowledged in diagnostic criteria today. Similarly, NHS guidance distinguishes between sex and gender identity.
28. Only biologically male people can be transwomen, a female person simply cannot. Even those of us who undergo a medical transition involving surgery and hormone treatment, traditionally called ‘transsexuals’ cannot fundamentally escape our biology. We cannot literally become biologically female or deconstruct and unlearn our male socialisation. The notion that the only fundamental thing that separates transwomen from women is that we were somehow wrongly ‘assigned’ a male gender at birth merely serves to obscure the facts of socialisation and reproductive biology, of sex being accurately recognised at birth as it overwhelmingly is except in rare circumstances where a minority of the neonates who have sex-linked Disorders of Sexual Development (DSD’s), themselves a small minority, have organs so ambiguous their sex cannot immediately be determined. No matter how deeply held some people’s feelings may be, subjective ‘feelings’ cannot be the basis for deciding to over-ride the single-sex exemptions that the law recognises at least at a basic level as being potentially crucial to women in a number of circumstances, such as the need for a rape survivor to feel safe in a rape crisis group therapy session for example.
29. The current notion of trans ‘inclusion’ is being used in a one-sidedly moralistic and highly simplistic way that treats trans inclusion as an almost religious shibboleth to be worshipped fervently and uncritically as only ever a universal good. This obscures the fact that including male people (however they identify) in women’s and girls’ spaces can lead to the exclusion of vulnerable or disadvantaged women and girls. Including transwomen in sports has already resulted in disadvantage including arguably greater risk of injury to female athletes in a number of sports, including MMA (broken orbital bone). In women’s masters cycling we’ve had a male world champion and world record holder, similar outcomes are soon likely in weightlifting and athletics. More and more women are being excluded from titles, medals, scholarships, perhaps careers they would or may otherwise have had and from protection from greater risk of injury. More broadly it is the exclusion of male people which has allowed women’s sports to come into being and thrive. Without that exclusion there would be very few sports which would not by default exclude women almost entirely (by ability/performance) from gold medals, championships, the opportunity of professional careers and from being inspirational role models to girls.
30. Inclusion of a physically intact male trans woman (Karen White) in a women’s prison has already led to the exclusion of two of White’s victims from the perfectly reasonable expectation of protection from sexual assault whilst they are under the care of the Prison Service. In the case of rape crisis and domestic violence services, it is clear that the inclusion of trans women in those spaces regardless of women’s needs may actively exclude some women survivors from accessing the care they need because many say they would need a female-only environment in order to heal and recover and would not feel safe or comfortable in an environment with male people after suffering rape or other violent/sexual acts.
31. I’ve benefitted from inclusion during my two decades of living as a woman, but without really understanding the cost to some women of that inclusion. In areas where women are disadvantaged or need dignity, safety or political autonomy I’d argue that trans inclusion is discriminatory on the grounds of sex. In these specific cases transwomen need safe and dignified alternatives for those relatively small parts of our lives (unless serving a long prison sentence) where these exemptions would apply. The source of our oppression is not women’s just defence of their own unique oppressed group and its rights, but rather the very same system of gender roles that have evolved to subordinate women and which has cruelly stigmatised us as perverts of or deviants from those norms. Trans people could and should make common cause with feminists against these norms, against the toxic masculinity and violence that is perpetrated against us overwhelmingly by men in a still male-dominated society and for good quality services for both groups. As a tiny and vulnerable minority it is inconceivable that we can win lasting and meaningful rights at the expense of women. I fear that the road currently being taken by most trans activists will lead to an enormous backlash. Instead of fighting women and trying to gag them with shouts of “transphobia” no matter how respectfully and sensitively they disagree with the claims made for gender identity, we should be engaging with them respectfully, finding solutions through dialogue and seeking to unite with them to win the resources, dignity and safety we need as trans people whilst defending single-sex spaces and rights for women. To do that we must have a firm grasp of material reality. The authoritarian attempt to impose gender identity without critique and democratic debate is a dark path. As Voltaire said, ‘those who can make you (my emphasis) believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.’
32. No movement or ideology that bases itself on a denial of or obfuscation about dimorphic biological sex can avoid the intrinsic sexism of denying the vast significance of biological sex for female people, especially in an unequal world where male people still dominate despite significant female advances. Most of the major issues that have been at the heart of the struggle for women’s rights and continue to be, are issues that either only affect women or disproportionately affect women either directly or indirectly because of their biology.
33. Most of the sex pay gap is due to women’s role in reproduction and subsequent unequal role in child-rearing. Obviously biological issues of major import include abortion rights, selective abortion, FGM, period poverty, the sexualisation, objectification and commodification of women’s body’s, reproductive healthcare and the very distinct healthcare needs of women as well as sports, that is…female physical competition. Even the greater burdens of child-care and unpaid domestic work are indirectly related to the biologically based subordination of women. Women are also especially vulnerable to sexual and domestic violence because of their sexed bodies, their subordination, objectification and their on-average smaller and less powerful physique.
34. Therefore whilst by no means sufficient by itself, recognising biological sex as the Equality Act 2010 does as a category of real significance to society, in particular to women’s lives (and as the seat of the discrimination they face) is a necessary precondition for any philosophy or public policy that is based on a commitment to equity, dignity and human rights for all. Any denial of or restriction to the right to believe in dimorphic sex and its significance is wholly unacceptable. Such denial or the over-riding of the established scientific & legal understanding of this category without even a pretence of significant public debate at the heart of our parliamentary system and in the absence of a new scientific consensus is contrary to all democratic norms and to policy based upon solid empirical evidence.
Relevance to this case
35. I share Maya Forstater’s gender critical beliefs and I believe people should not be discriminated against for holding or expressing such beliefs. I also share her lack of belief in the idea that ‘trans women are women’, and ‘trans men are men’ and I believe people should be free not to share that belief without fear of discrimination.
36. I understand that the Respondents in this case argue that gender critical beliefs are not worthy of respect in a democratic society, in particular arguing that gender critical beliefs are detrimental to the rights of trans people. As a transwoman myself I completely disagree with this. Trans people have the right to demand our equality as trans citizens in the face of prejudice, discrimination and violence but biologically male ‘transwomen’, however we ‘identify’ or ‘transition’, however we may also (like women) face disadvantage and marginalisation have absolutely no moral or just claim as fundamentally male people to female specific spaces and rights.
37. Defending the right to hold beliefs consistent with humanity’s established scientific and evolutionary understanding of biological sex is not in any way inconsistent with defending the right of trans people to also hold the multiplicity of beliefs about themselves that they do, including belief in dimorphic sex as well as what is currently the most dominant belief system (or at least dominant among those who speak out publicly), the belief in an innate ‘gender identity’ that overrules and effectively voids sex and sex-based rights.
38. Neither does rejecting another person’s beliefs about gender automatically imply hate, intolerance, bigotry or denial of their rights and dignity. For example, as an atheist I reject all religious or supernatural explanations of our existence and attempts to structure society according to the edicts of the bible. However, I respect the right of others to hold those religious beliefs, to dress, worship and espouse their beliefs without discrimination or violence. I am not infringing their religious rights or in any way minimising the full and equal human dignity of religious people by refusing to submit to their belief in God or Allah. Similarly refusing to submit to the belief in ‘gender identity’, essentially a gendered soul, does not diminish the rights, equal humanity and dignity of myself or fellow trans people whose just rights I cherish and advocate.
39. In the absence of a compelling new and solid consensus of substantially weighty scientific evidence invalidating the category and significance of dimorphic sex, of which I have seen no prospect, the campaign to compel speech and legally coerce society into treating males as females in all circumstances, regardless of female disadvantage, loss of rights and dignity, is inevitably doomed to fail in the end. As Churchill once said, ‘the truth is incontrovertible, malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it (I might add, ‘the law may ban it’) but in the end, there it is.’
40. I spent many immature years chasing external validation from other people for my ‘womanhood’ even when I knew that I could never be literally female. The truth can set you free because it is futile, exhausting and self-destructive to battle over and over with stubborn immutable reality rather than accept the pragmatic truth, warts and all. The truth does not require so much constant validation, it stands much more on its own and allows you to build intrinsic mental resilience rather than desperately needing to pursue constant external validation for something forever out of reach or to feel that every failure to validate you is a mortal threat to be squashed.
41. Accepting the reality of our sex in no way precludes us continuing to present as women, continuing to have either qualified legal rights as socio/legal ‘women’ or in a third space category equal before the law as transwomen. In most contexts we can be treated how we would like, including being referred to with the social accommodation of our preferred pronouns and so on. Neither does recognising sexual reality prevent the most vigorous action against the injustices, inequality and prejudice that trans people face because we have been stigmatised as gender ‘deviants’ or the amelioration of our situation with adequate, quality services. However, we are not oppressed because women refuse to deny the basis of their own reality or oppression, or because they refuse to accept an unproven and I’d argue unproveable absurdity, that males can (really) be actual females. On the contrary we are oppressed because we transgress the very system of gender norms which has evolved primarily to subordinate women.
42. We can be treated in the way trans people want right up to the point where to do so infringes on the fundamental rights of women. In those instances, trans people must have access to equal quality alternatives which are both safe, dignified and integrated with other provision. To find a just solution will require extensive dialogue but here are a few suggestions. For example, there could be a choice of single sex (fully female inclusive) toilets sufficient to meet demand AND safe, dignified, trans-inclusive/gender neutral toilets, self-contained cubicles opening out onto a public area for example. There could be single sex domestic violence shelters and some trans-inclusive shelters which also welcome women and people who identify as non-binary who consent to share. This kind of dual approach running in parallel would achieve the context in which the ‘legitimate aim’ of protecting the dignity, wellbeing, safety and autonomy of women who want single-sex provision, could be legally justified as ‘proportionate’ because dignified and safe alternatives where in place for trans people. Not only is a recognition of sex vital for the human rights and dignity of women and children, but in the long term I believe it is not only mentally healthier (the truth sets you free) but also absolutely vital to achieving lasting equity, freedom from discrimination and violence
43. An identity creed which declares all critique of its unproven and very poorly evidenced denial of established sexual reality to be a hateful heresy, inconsistent with human rights and which justifies termination of employment or other punitive or censorship measures is itself a threat to human rights and is tragically leading trans people down a dark path. Yet still, much as we oppose this ideology with counter-argument, feminists and others like myself absolutely defend the right of people to hold and argue for their extreme sex-denialist views. We prefer debate and democratic accountability to censorship and authoritarianism.
44. For a further exposition of my beliefs I would refer the tribunal to my published writing on the subject which are in the beliefs bundle at pages [x] [y] [x] and also to the talk I gave to a Woman’s Place UK meeting in Hastings, which can be seen on Youtube [search for Kristina Harrison speech], a transcript of which is in the bundle at [xx
45. I also signed a joint letter to the Guardian, ‘Standing up for transsexual rights’ Friday 4th May 2018 which is in the bundle at page [zz]. Given the incredibly angry, polarised debate, the consequences of speaking out against the dominant narrative in our own community, as well as against prejudice, and given the size of our community I think 25 to 30 trans people now speaking out (and still rising) is a significant number of dissenting trans voices. Another prominent voice within those dissenting trans people is Dr Debbie Hayton
46. Some of Debbie Hayton’s articles on the subject of sex and gender identity are in the bundle at [x] [y] [z] and there are many others
I believe that the facts stated in this witness statement are true.
