The Supreme Court's gender ruling is cruel and dehumanising
Wednesday, April 30, 2025The UK's Supreme Court has ruled that the Equality Act 2010's protections for women refers only to "biological" women (except when it doesn't — more on that later). As a cis dude, I don't have much skin in the game, and will probably yelled at for mansplaining by the anti-trans crowd. But I also don't feel I can keep quiet about this. The comments I have seen across the internet, in the press, and from our elected politicians have been vexing. So I'm going to rant about it on the internet.
Firstly, what is the ruling? In 2004, we had the Gender Recognition Act (GRA), which grants people with a gender recognition certificate (GRC) the right to be legally recognised as their acquired gender, including having their birth certificate amended. In 2010, we got the Equality Act, which lists the protected characteristics that public bodies are not allowed to discriminate against (race, sex, etc). Gender reassignment is also one of the protected characteristics.
However, the Equality Act has provisions for exceptions (sections 26-28 are relevant) if they are "a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim", for example banning men from women's abuse refuges. Exceptions can also be made on the basis of gender reassignment. The new ruling from the Supreme Court states that the intended reading of this legislation is that trans women are counted as men, and therefore any exception in which it would be legitimate to discriminate against men automatically legitimates discrimination against trans women. This contradicts the GRA, wherein trans women are presumed to be women under unless there is a specific good reason.
Adding somewhat to the absurdity, on the Supreme Court's ruling, section 28 of the above link, which describes when it would be legitimate to discriminate against trans people, is intended to be applied only against trans men (since if it were for trans women, it would be redundant)!
Now, on with the ranting.
Trans people exist
What is a trans person? I don't fucking know. I don't know if anyone does. I do however know there is a certain category of human who cannot be a full person until they are socially recognised as belonging to a particular gender[1]. Do I know what causes it? No. Do I really know what that's like? Also no. Do I think it's just a matter of personal identity, or a preference for certain stereotypes? Also no.
It's mysterious, it's ineffable. I can't explain what a trans person is and why they are or what it's like. And yet here we find ourselves. Trans people are here, and are not going anywhere. Do we want to love or hate? Humanise or dehumanise?
Trans women are women, trans men are men
This subheading is not a statement of scientific fact. It is statement of values, of how we would like society to be. It is, as the anti-trans lot would say, ideology. But that's not a bad thing; everyone has an ideology, and this is an ideology of accepting and humanising a historically (and presently) marginalised group. It is asserting that we believe it is possible and right for trans people to live and be socially recognised as their gender.
The common (and helpful!) analogy is with adoptive parents. The concept of parenthood has a biological origin, and in the majority of cases conforms with the biological foundation, but socially and legally we can expand the definition because we believe that it is possible for non-biological parents to fulfill that social role. While there may be some contexts where the distinction between biological and adoptive parents is relevant, the general presumption is adoptive parents are treated equally to biological parents. Believing "adoptive parents are parents" wouldn't be treated as some kind of affront to biological fact — it would obviously be understood as a social value.
There's no hiding that "gender critical" just means "anti-trans"
The Motte-and-Bailey argument was always that trans women in female spaces present a threat because of the cover they provide predatory cis men. The gleeful response to the ruling from the gender critical crowd — "trans women are not women" — was a true mask-off moment (though the mask was about as convincing as Clark Kent's spectacles).
Anti-trans activist Maya Forstater tweeted shortly after the ruling that trans people shouldn't have the right to use either bathroom: "these are life choices people make". So there you go — being trans is a choice, and for these weirdos, it's one that should involve having to hold your wee until you get home, for the rest of your life.
This government is utterly spineless
During the run up to the election, there was an ignominious trend of politicians being quizzed by interviewers on their views on trans rights, usually by presenting questions like "can a woman have a penis?" as a kind of "gotcha", as if only a lunatic would agree. Labour politicians, including Keir Starmer, generally answered somewhat in the affirmative — that in some relatively rare cases, a woman could have a penis. The right wing press and politicians used this to mock "out of touch" liberal elite politicians with their wacky misunderstandings of "basic biology".
Since this ruling, Starmer and co have now generally answered that they agree with the ruling, that trans women aren't women. The Conservatives have thus (rightly) called them hypocritical. But if Labour really did believe trans women can be women (even if they have penises), and the Supreme Court has ruled that the Equality Act should be interpreted to exclude trans women from the category "woman", then the correct response would be to bring forward new legislation that amends and updates the Equality Act. You're the fucking government, with a massive majority. You can change the law.
I don't want to have to police where my students go to the bathroom
I'm not supposed to talk about "trans children". The correct term, according to guidance produced by the previous government, is "gender-questioning child". To which I can only say: whoever produced that guidance has clearly never actually met a trans child. Yes, children sometimes jump on trends, or are easily swayed by their social groups. Not every child claiming to be trans is necessarily trans, and caution is necessary. But denying the existence of trans children is dehumanising. Would you describe a 15 year old boy who has fancied boys his entire life "sexuality questioning"?
Anyway, as far as I know, at my school, there has never been any issue with trans children using their prefered bathrooms. I don't want to start making a fuss about it now. In fact, now I come to think of it...
There doesn't seem to be any evidence of actual danger in the bathrooms
There are some situations where it may be appropriate to exclude (some) trans people. For example, one can reasonably argue that a trans person convicted of assaulting women should not be placed in a women's prison. But trans people have been allowed to use their preferred bathrooms since... forever? And it doesn't seem like bathrooms are especially unsafe for it? Am I missing something? At least in the United States, it seems like there are no recorded incidents of trans women assaulting cis women in the bathrooms, or cis predators claiming to be trans to attack women.
I suppose, theoretically, this could happen. But aren't we supposed to be a liberal society, meaning that a certain degree of risk is involved in granting people their basic freedoms? I mean, we'd probably all be safer if we had to stay indoors under a curfew, but we wouldn't want to live in such a society. Maybe women are 0.00000001% safer[2] if trans peope are barred from the loos, in exchange for being a generally meaner, less free, and more suspicious society. Great job guys.