Editorials

The recent judgement of the Supreme Court in favour of an appeal from the anti-trans activist group For Women Scotland has sent shock waves through the trans and non-binary community. It has also led to a tidal wave of triumphant gloating by anti-trans, so-called “gender critical”, organisations and by the right wing media, who have been carrying on an obsessive campaign of vilification of trans people, their banner headlines gleefully screaming “trans women are NOT women”.

Members of the trans community have experienced hurt and panic, but also intense rage. Impressive demonstrations have been called at very short notice in cities all over the UK to protest. In London, around 20,000 gathered in Parliament Square and marched to a rally in St James’s Park. At these inspiring events, the mood of anger and defiance was palpable.

Much of this was directed against the Labour government, which has not given any indication that it will intervene to amend the law or lift a finger to correct the negative implications of the Court’s decision. This follows Wes Streeting’s utter betrayal of trans adolescents by embracing the biased and unscientific Cass Review and imposing a ban on the use of puberty blockers. This is the time for socialists to stand in solidarity with trans workers and the wider trans community to demand their equality, dignity and respect.

The case concerned an Act of the Scottish Parliament aimed at increasing the representation of women on public boards. The wording of the Act was in line with the UK-wide Gender Recognition Act (GRA) that was passed by the Blair government back in 2004. The GRA stated that where a gender recognition certificate (GRC) has been issued (see here for more information on GRCs) “that person becomes for all purposes the acquired gender” [our emphasis]. So trans women could be included on the proposed board member quotas. This interpretation was upheld by two lower courts, until it was finally overturned by the Supreme Court last week.

The loss of this obscure case may now have much wider impact, as the judgement went on to define “woman” under the Equality Act of 2010 as referring to only “biological” women. In other words, measures taken to prevent discrimination against women, such as an equal pay claim, can only refer to “biological” women and not include trans women with a GRC.

Moreover, some are interpreting this as a general statement – that the word “woman” can only ever refer in law to a “biological woman” in all legal contexts. It is this that has led to the screaming headlines, even though such an interpretation is hotly contested. It is the cause of fear and anxiety among trans people, as well as intersex people, as they feel that all their rights could be stripped away . Incredibly, the Court explicitly refused to allow evidence from a single trans organisation or individual.

No evidence of risk.

The judgement has given new life to attempts to impose a blanket ban on trans women, who live their lives entirely as women, from all spaces, such as toilets, changing rooms, women’s prisons, refuges or hospital wards designated as for women. But there is simply no evidence that allowing trans women to use women’s facilities increases the risks to other women.

The NHS has received no complaints about trans women on female wards, but plenty about patients of all genders being treated on a trolley in a corridor for hours or even days. Women’s refuges are more worried about cuts in funding from cash-strapped local authorities. Trans women have been using women’s toilets for decades. Men who want to attack women don’t need to pretend to be trans to do so. Only around a dozen trans women in the whole country are in women’s prisons, following risk assessments. But trans women in male prisons are routinely subject to violence and sexual assault.

And of course, this decision might also mean than trans men, so often forgotten in this debate, would be compelled to use the “ladies” regardless of how masculine they look after surgery and/or years on testosterone. So just how would that guard against men using women’s spaces?

In any case, the Equality Act already allowed trans people, with or without a GRC, to be excluded from such spaces if that could be shown to be a “proportionate” way of resolving a “legitimate” issue. But it did not allow a blanket ban.

It is important to recognise that these developments are not the response to the trans community seeking new rights or “going too far”. This is an attempt to take away the rights that trans people have had since 2004 and 2010. The GRA itself was a direct response to a decision of the European Court of Human Rights in 2002.

The right-wing conservative section of the ruling class, as expressed in their pet news outlets such as the Daily Telegraph, the Spectator, and the Daily Mail, are trying to turn the clock back on decades of social progress, partly from their ideological commitment to sexism and rigid gender roles and the role they play under capitalism, and partly as a way of splitting the working class on secondary issues in order to weaken moves towards socialist radicalism at time of capitalist crisis, inequality and instability.

They see trans people as a softer target, initially, but they have a clear agenda to move against lesbian, gay and bisexual people and the rights of women, particularly over issues such as abortion. You only have to look at the monstrous attacks on women and LGBT people in Trump’s USA. Utterly reactionary organisations such as the Heritage Foundation, which is the main inspiration for Trump’s “Project 2025” are allies and often funders of the transphobes in the UK, who are also very close to the networks of well-known right wing think-tanks.

Ideological hostility

Any thought that these creatures are concerned to defend the rights of women is simply delusional. Yet, astonishingly, they have found allies in the UK in a small minority of self-declared “radical feminists” who have an ideological hostility to the very existence of trans people, particularly trans women. This ideology dates back at least to the early 1980s and seeks to eliminate “transgenderism” altogether. Unfortunately, it has even penetrated some sections of the labour movement.

Their protestations about caring for trans people are a cynical deception. To promote their ideology they seek to persuade others by whipping up wildly exaggerated, hypothetical or simply invented risks, promoting a climate of fear against a tiny and mostly unknown group of people.

To its eternal shame, the Starmer leadership of the Labour Party, including Bridget Phillipson, its spokesperson on “Equalities”, no less, has conceded the entire argument to the right. Phillipson told the Commons bluntly that trans women will now be obliged to use male toilet facilities and changing rooms and will not be housed in women’s prisons. Starmer’s squirming evasions over the last few years, now followed by his capitulation, make him look even more dishonest and ridiculous than before.

Contrary to his claim, the judgement has not provided “clarity” at all.  The Court did not provide any definition of “biological sex”. It simply declared that biological sex is “self-explanatory” – which it most certainly is not. Almost 2% of the population are intersex, having sexual features that are not entirely of one sex or the other.

How will biological sex be tested, given that birth certificates can be changed? Will there be genital inspections? Who will be challenged? This is a charter for the harassment of trans people and of any non-trans (cis) people who don’t look feminine or masculine enough.

Starmer is hoping to evade responsibility by relying on guidance from the Equalities and Human Right Commission (EHRC) but this organisation was completely subverted under the Tories and the chair they appointed, Baroness Falkner, has made her anti-trans bias so clear that trans people are rightly fearful of any guidance that comes from there. Labour MPs and others must be pressured to amend the law to restore trans people’s rights.

There are bound to be further legal challenges but ultimately trans workers will need to rely on their own resources and the strength of the whole labour and trade union movement to resist these attacks, workplace by workplace, and in protests and campaigns of civil disobedience. Virtually all trade unions have clear policies in support of trans rights. Union branches must step up and defend their trans and non-binary members. Trans workers must not be abandoned or left to fight alone.

[All photos from the London trans protest 19 April 2025 – Left Horizons]