A Rallying Cry for Trans Rights
- Room to Be
- 22 hours ago
- 4 min read
These are troubling and uncertain times for our trans and non binary community. We are living in a society that claims to accept and protect this vulnerable minority whilst simultaneously paving the way for less protection, allowing discrimination to become active and acceptable through new legal loop-holes. The Supreme Court has ruled that where law is concerned, sex is binary. There is only male and female. This assignation is given at birth based on genitalia and seen by the court as ‘biological common sense'. This means that now as a trans person in the UK you can re-assign your gender, but your 'sex' is legally whatever your genitals were at birth. Immutable and unchangeable (apparently). This is regardless of whether you live your life in every aspect as your true 'acquired' gender, have a gender recognition certificate or have had any gender affirming surgery. Trans women are now no longer considered 'women'. Trans men are no longer 'men'. Non binary people don't exist in the eyes of the law. Intersex people are an anomaly and clearly an exception to the rule.
The majority of the population will not understand the implications of this. Perhaps it really does seem like common sense on the surface. But in there lies the problem. The genitals you are born with are just surface. Being born with a penis won’t inherently make you a predator. Nobody looks at a bouncing baby boy and thinks, ‘aww, so cute, it’s such a shame that penis will make him a violent misogynist and rapist.’ Nor does being born with a vulva make you destined to become a victim. What are we saying of society if we presume these horrors from birth?
Nor does being born with certain genitals dictate your gender identity, as we know is the case for trans people. Gender identity is still legally changeable in the UK and is a protected characteristic in the eyes of equality laws. Trans people exist and have a right to live free from discrimination. Yet the Supreme Court ruling states that any designated single-sex space must abide by the legal definition of what is a man and a woman in terms of 'biology' solely. Whilst biologists everywhere squirm at this great misunderstanding and abasement of their science, prison services, hospital wards, schools and universities, support services and crisis centres are left reeling as they catch up with the legal implications. Indeed, anywhere that has a public toilet or changing room that is single sex could find themselves in hot legal waters if they allow trans people to use the facilities. We now live in a country that claims equality and fairness for trans people whilst enforcing them to use spaces that do not align with their gender identity. How is this not discrimination?
This law is being celebrated as ensuring the safety of cisgender women and girls, yet it targets transgender people who are over four times more likely to be victims of violent crime than cisgender people. If the goal was to make single-sex spaces safer, then this does the exact opposite for both the trans community and cis women. The often used nonsensical and non-evidenced hypothetical that predatory cis men will disguise themselves as a member of the trans community to infiltrate single-sex spaces hasn't gone away; the argument is they can now simply state they are trans men as opposed to trans women. What next? Lobby the government to write a law that says anyone who looks in the least bit masculine cannot use female single-sex spaces? The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) has released guidance on exactly that. Trans men can be excluded from female only spaces – despite having the supposed correct ‘biology’ – "where reasonable objection is taken to their presence, for example because the gender reassignment process has given them a masculine appearance or attributes to which reasonable objection might be taken".
But this isn’t just a problem for trans men who now, on the face of things, can’t use any facilities at all. What does it mean for cis women who are tall or broad-shouldered or have short hair or large hands or hairy armpits? What does it mean for the many people who are even faintly androgynous? Who decides on what a 'man' and a 'woman' should look like? This isn't just a backwards step for trans rights. It's a backwards step for feminism and helps solidify a sense of toxic masculinity – and toxic femininity – as norm.
Needless to say, it is impossible to police such a thing except by vigilantes who take offence by another person's appearance. Abusive, antagonistic, threatening behaviour will increase towards trans and cisgendered individuals who do not have the correct cookie-cutter appearance.
And the most likely outcome in all this? There will be an increase in unisex spaces. Businesses will change the sign on a door as opposed to building a new ‘third space’ toilet or changing room specifically for 0.5% of the population to use. This is something perhaps unanticipated by the trans exclusionary women's rights activists who brought this case to the Supreme Court. They may well find themselves sharing toilets and changing rooms with actual men, both cis and trans, as opposed to the very occasional trans woman.
In short, it is absurd. This ruling has muddied the waters tenfold despite being told over and over it has provided champagne popping ‘clarity’.
At least at Room to Be things are supremely clear. The trans and non binary community are a beautiful, valuable, colourful, intrinsic and important part of society and humanity. There is no such thing as binary in nature. Attempting to impose limitations on the human experience in this way is reductive, exclusionary and harmful to the very core. The Supreme Court ruling negatively impacts everyone, but in particular trans, non binary and intersex people; a minority the UK supposedly protects.
Trans women are women, trans men are men, non binary, intersex and other gender non-conforming people exist. Room to Be stands in solidarity with all trans and gender diverse individuals and wherever we can, we will speak up for your rights.
