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The UK Courts Ruled I Am Not a Woman
And, as a result, I can be kicked out of anywhere that is determined to be a ‘women’s only space’, including washrooms; changing rooms; hospital wards; and refuges.
Let me put this here at the outset: if you’re against trans rights in any shape or form, then I guarantee you that whatever arguments you want to make to me I have already answered. I’ve written an entire series on the facts around trans people called Transphobia: An Action Pack. Literally every anti-trans argument, from sports to safety, is covered there. The history of the anti-trans movement and who is backing it, their bad-faith arguments, their lack of concern for cisgender women. It’s all there.
I’m not re-litigating any of that. I wrote it all down so I wouldn’t need to, and so I would be safe from sealioning and endless debate. Debate, at this point, has only the single purpose of wasting of my time and exhausting me.
In that series I have real-world numbers from legitimate, international organisations. I have research from medical and scientific bodies across the board. I have data upon data upon data. If you’re genuinely interested in having your mind changed, then go read. If not, then I don’t care because you’re just a bad person and you can go to hell for all I care.
Today the UK Supreme Court, the highest court, returned a verdict that a key piece of equalities legislation — the Equality Act (2010) — explicitly should not be taken to include trans women when referring to women. The judges were unanimous. They said that trans women were still protected under the protected characteristic of ‘gender reassignment’, but that we were not to be included in the category of ‘women’ for legal purposes.
The judges did not meet or consult a single trans person or trans-focussed organisation. It did meet and consult with single-issue pressure groups who exist solely to exclude trans people from public spaces: For Women Scotland, the LGB Alliance, The Lesbian Project (a splinter from LGBA led by Kathleen Stock and Julie Bindel) and others.
The Labour government welcomed the judgement, and recommitted itself to there being ‘sex-based’ rights and spaces. The Conservative opposition openly cheered, with leader Kemi Badenoch gleefully proclaiming common-sense has prevailed and that changing gender is impossible.
This campaign was backed by huge donations — here’s the Byline Times with more information about the LGBA and its shady funding sources. Billionaires, who shall remain nameless, cheered it on.
The ruling, which the judges optimistically advised should not be seen as a victory for one side or the other, is at direct odds with the Gender Recognition Act (2004) wherein trans people can legally, for all intents and purposes, be recognised as their correct gender. It is now open season on trans women in any female-coded space, and this will extend to any woman who looks a bit trans. Non-passing trans women, butch women and black women are all going to be harmed by this.
It is also the end. Given the UK media landscape — I shall leave you to view the headlines on tomorrow’s newspapers — and the political beliefs of our ruling class, coupled with these legal challenges, trans women like me have lost for at least a decade. It will take years to get back to where we were.
Here’s YouGov on how far this has gone:
In just six years, the public have been persuaded. Despite trans persons existing for millennia and the fact that these respondents have almost certainly shared a ‘single-sex space’ with a trans person, unknowingly, without any issue whatsoever.
To think, for a hot second, we were considering Self-ID for gender — implemented without issue in Ireland, Portugal, Germany, Netherlands etc.
This will take years for us to come back from. It’ll be hardest on the youngest, struggling under a de facto Section 28, who will be told nonstop that they are just deluded and stupid. The psychological harm that will do them is unconscionable. It all comes back to Thatcher stating it plainly back in 1987: “children who need be taught to respect traditional moral values are being taught that they have the inalienable right to be gay”.
Today, the nasty billionaire novelist has won. The deeply weird and, frankly, demented Irish former comedian has won. The billions of dollars going into Right-wing lobbying groups in Tufton Street have won. Bizarre cranks who couldn’t give two-hoots about actual violence against women or reproductive rights but spend their days hating trans people have won. The right-wing newspaper owners have won.
Problem is, they can’t get rid of us. The Nazis tried when they burnt down the Institute für Sexualwissenschaft. The Evangelicals tried. The Tories tried. You’ve locked us up, put us in camps, electrocuted us and lobotomised us and we’re still here. They can’t get rid of us: they’ve tried.
We will never stop being ourselves, finding happiness, spreading joy, promoting understanding and living our lives… the fact they want to try should keep you up at night.
Let me help you in here
Until women can get equal pay for equal work
This is not my America.Until same-gender loving people can be who they are
This is not my America.Until black people can come home from a police stop without being shot in the head
This is not my America.Until poor whites can get a shot at being successful
This is not my America.I can’t hear nobody talkin’ to me.
Until Latinos and Latinas don’t have to run from walls
This is not my America.But I tell you today that the devil is a liar
Because it’s gon’ be my America before it’s all over
— Reverend Sean McMillan
