Normalising hate. A Liberal Democrat MP gives political cover to discrimination.

Shorn of the decency to which it was generally held by an EU that was created in part to act as a counter weight to individual nations' predilection for hating and even killing its minorities, the UK now sits in European rankings slightly above Russia and Belarus with respect to its treatment of trans people. An international LGBT+ organisation recently remarked that Gender Recognition no longer functionally exists here. 

It's quite a shock to realise that the man I voted for is unwilling to support me, as the UK trans community faces its very final showdown. The Gender Criticals - a UK invention, exported worldwide - are on the brink of final victory in the UK as the Equality and Human Rights Commission (a government sponsored legal advisory body deeply captured by GC voices since 2019) is close to seeing its latest legal guidance acquire statutory force. This guidance would effectively eliminate all trans people from single-sex spaces that match how they live their lives, across all UK services. From council office toilets, to shop changing rooms, in petrol stations, leisure centres, cafes and bars, restaurants, solicitors offices, government buildings, shopping centres, hospitals, libraries and everywhere else outside their front doors, trans people are to be banned from facilities they have used without controversy for decades. They are to use disabled facilities (though we are not disabled, though there are far too few of them for the disabled community and though they are often locked), unisex toilets that are widely absent...or, yes, toilets that match what these cretins have coined "biological sex". 

The new guidance is coming into force around early July, unless it is actively stopped in Parliament. The broken and exhausted trans community and a few almost equally tired allies are once again trying to rally support for action to halt it, knowing that the two main parties in Parliament are wedded to policies of trans exclusion. We have just a few weeks left. 

My MP is a Liberal Democrat. If you're not in the UK (or even if you are), the LibDems have 72 MPs out of a total of 650, making them the third largest party (though they are a long way off the other two). The LibDems - often seen as a pearl-clutching, somewhat principle-free soft left outfit - have rather half-heartedly rallied to trans people. They've written some 'strong letters', and expressed their 'concerns'. It's not much, but it's not nothing and it's been vaguely welcome despite its slightly unconvincing and passionless nature. 

Consequently when I wrote to my MP - whom I won't name, but is a LibDem - to ask him to help us in this desperate last stand - I was expecting support. 

I didn't get it. 

I am copying here what I said to him initially, then his reply to me, and then my reply to him.

I have written to him many times about this in the last year as the situation darkened. 

No more. 

His perspective, his clear swallowing of the simplistic, dishonest anti-trans narrative, decorated as centrists often do with all guilt-absolving expressions of 'sympathy' and 'concerns' for the group they are lining up to shit on, was really quite shocking to me.

And, as part of a group that has been abandoned by almost everybody in British society, that takes some doing. 

1. My email to my MP: 

Dear XXXX

I am writing to you to request that you please lay a Prayer Motion to object to the Equality and Human Rights Commission Code of Practice for Services and Associations which was laid before Parliament last Thursday. 

I have written to you before, following the disastrous Supreme Court (For Women Scotland v Scottish Ministers) case last year and outlining the enormous distress it has caused. I said then that I and my wife - we are trans women - are planning to flee the country to take refuge in an EU jurisdiction. Our plans have faced many setbacks, though we remain hopeful. It's a source of great pain to us that we are being forced out of our own country as a system of exclusion and segregation is introduced for us in the UK. 

The situation has worsened even further for trans people since the Supreme Cout ruling. That ruling has been weaponised, extended and exploited by well-resourced haters of trans women (especially) and we are now in the endgame. 

Stopping the EHRC's new Statutory Guidance from coming into force really is our last hope. 

If the code is not voted down, it will automatically become law via a negative resolution procedure 40 Parliamentary days following Parliament's return - around July 9th/10th. 

As well as being contradictory and clashing with many existing laws, the new Code is harmful to service providers, to cisgender women and to transgender people. 

Let me explain... 

As you know, the Code comes in response to the ruling in April last year, on the meaning of sex within the Equality Act 2010. It is a marginal rewrite of a draconian initial attempt by an EHRC staffed with Badenoch/Truss holdovers to stretch the Courts ruling as far as possible in its anti-trans provisions. Yet the new Code is barely better than their first attempt. While the Supreme Court judges ruled on a technicality, regarding women’s representation on panels and committees etc., its verdict has been vastly extended by the EHRC’s new Code of Practice.

Basically, the new code says that service providers should provide single-sex services based purely on the sex a person was assigned at birth. That means that trans women like me would have to use male or separate facilities and trans men would have to use female or separate facilities. 

After almost 20 years of using the ladies toilet, without incident - without even being noticed - I am to be banned from it. At my favourite pub, in the library in town, in the local shopping centre, and everywhere else.

Why even this latest EHRC guidance is legally incorrect

The EHRC continues to promote a radical extension of what the Supreme Court suggested. The Supreme Court's actual position was revisited this February in a ruling of which the EHRC's latest code takes no account.  https://www.judiciary.uk/judgments/good-law-project-limited-and-others-v-commission-for-equality-and-human-rights/ This case saw The Good Law Project take action against the EHRC over their 'initial' guidance after the SC ruling. Whilst GLP lost in its action against the EHRC's initial advice, the court's ruling stated that whilst it is permissible for a service provider to operate single-sex facilities, this does not mean that service providers are obliged to exclude trans women. Service providers may lawfully allow trans women to use women's facilities without being forced to open them to cis men. 

This Court ruling has been completely ignored by the EHRC.

How the EHRC has failed its own Equality Impact Assement with respect to trans people(!)

The E in EHRC means 'equality', yet the government's own Office for Equality and Opportunity has not minced its words in its assessment of the EHRC's submission. (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/equality-act-2010-draft-code-of-practice-for-services-public-functions-and-associations-2026/equality-impact-assessment) 

Here are some direct extracts from the OEO review:

• The assessment explicitly says the impact on trans people is negative. It says “the likely impacts on gender reassignment as a characteristic are negative”  (Context: this is the OEO’s overall conclusion under the Public Sector Equality Duty analysis (line 299)). 

• Warning about “double exclusion” The OEO notes the Code risks “effectively leaving (trans people) with no service at all”  (Context: the report warns trans people could be excluded both from spaces matching their gender and spaces matching their birth sex (lines 292–293). 

• Providers may be unable to create alternatives. It says “providers may lack the funding or space”  (Context: criticism of reliance on “third-space” or gender-neutral alternatives (line 293)). This undercuts the EHRC suggestion that alternative provision mitigates harms. 

• Concern about forced outing of trans people. The Code "may force trans people to ‘out’ themselves”. (Context: criticism of guidance on asking about sex at birth (line 294)...“having to use disabled toilets will ‘out’ them”)  

• Warning about harassment and gender policing. The “potential ‘policing’ of gender presentation” (which) “could lead to increased harassment” (Context: lines 295–296 acknowledge wider social harms extending beyond trans people). 

• Safeguarding concerns. A “disproportionate risk of violence and sexual assault” on trans people (Context: the assessment warns that excluding trans women from female services may expose them to danger in male services (line 297)). 

• The Code may worsen social tensions. It “may exacerbate these tensions”. Context: acknowledgement that the Code could worsen conflict around trans inclusion (line 298). 

• Disabled and trans people being forced into competition. This section is especially critical of the “third-space via disabled toilets” approach: “disabled people and trans people may have to compete”  and “a significant possibility of this creating tension”  (lines 224–226) 

• EHRC itself admits negative impacts. The report records EHRC conceding harm: “there are potentially negative impacts” and specifically, “negative impact on trans people with a GRC” (lines 280–286) 

• Explicit acknowledgement of exclusion from services and sport which “may leave trans people with access to sport [ibid]”. This appears to contain a drafting error in the original text, but the intended meaning is plainly that access will be restricted (line 290). 

How the latest guidance creates a legal nonsense of my life

The Supreme Court ruling - now exploited and embellished by the EHRC - clashes directly with the Gender Recognition Act 2004’s “for all purposes” rule for Gender Recognition Certificate (GRC) holders, undermining Parliament’s clear intentions and creating a two‑tier legal status where GRC holders are now recognised in their acquired sex for some purposes but not for equality law. 

This 2-tier 'intermediate zone' legal status is incompatible with Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, following the Goodwin v United Kingdom case at the European Court which forced the UK to create the Gender Recognition Act 2004 in the first place. In addition, enforcing a 'biological‑sex‑only' standard in equality law is incompatible with the Human Rights Act 1998: In particular, Section 3 (to interpret legislation compatibly with Convention rights where possible) and Section 6 (for courts and other public authorities not to act incompatibly with those rights). 

Applying a biological‑sex‑only standard in practice creates the need for enquiries into who holds a GRC. This is an area around which the EHRC and government continues to dance, but it's unavoidable. Under almost all circumstances this is a privacy offence under Section 22 of the GRA 2004, which assumes GRC holders will ordinarily be treated as their acquired sex. 

The present legal mess can only be resolved in one of two ways:  

Either 

(1) Parliament clarifies that Gender Recognition Certificate holders are to be recognised in their acquired sex under the Equality Act 2010, or 

(2) The courts are asked to declare the Supreme Court Ruling in For Women Scotland v Scottish Ministers is incompatible with other UK and European laws. 

Why the Code harms Service Providers  

Well-funded gender critical ideological groups are now engaged in mass lawfare and are targeting organisations and businesses that don't have the funds to defend themselves in court. We have already seen how the WI and Girlguiding have been bullied into implementing trans-exclusionary policies after many decades of being trans-inclusive, without incident (though paradoxically, the EHRC has now said that they can readmit trans women). Anti-trans groups are now actively looking for trans-friendly businesses to make an example of in court. (A friend of mine (a trans woman) had the indignity of a prominent Gender Critical activist arriving at her local government place of work last year to livestream her doorstepping employees as they entered whilst she asked if they supported 'biological men using women's toilets'. My friend lives in dread of what may happen in July). 

However, if service providers implement blanket bans on trans people from their gendered facilities, without first proving that it is a proportional means of achieving a legitimate aim, they run the risk of being sued for discrimination by trans people, under the Equality Act 2010. And for them to insist that they have no choice has been explicitly contradicted in Good Law Project and Others v. EHRC (above). Service Providers are now at a high risk of being sued from both sides.  

Further, the ambition to try and create gender-neutral toilets just for trans people will cost many millions across the country - even if employers do it. We are a small group, many will likely ignore us and run the slim legal risk - if they are aware of it - of being taken to court by some well-funded trans person who can bear the reality of being dragged through the Courts and the right wing newspapers. Because our community has little financial resource and is hunted relentlessly by media and politicians alike, such individuals are rare. The reality will be that trans people will find that they cannot go to their favourite pub, cafe or restaurant any more because in tens of thousands of cases there are only male/female facilities and that won't change.  

How the Code harms Women

As a consequence of this Code, all women will now be judged on whether they look 'female-enough' to be admitted to female-only spaces. There are explicit references to this in the Code which suggests trans women be identified by "individual’s physique or physical appearance". Any woman who is a little taller or a bit broader than average, any woman who has a deeper voice than average, any woman who has shorter hair than average, any woman who has a squarer jaw than average or any woman who prefers to wear more masculine clothes is now at risk of being be challenged when using female-only spaces. This is already happening - a massive issue, as there are far more masculine-looking cisgender women than there are transgender women. The EHRC Guidance is policing how women look and sound - some 'equalities' commission! 

And what if a cisgender woman is challenged and not believed? How does she 'prove' her sex assigned at birth? How would you prove yours? I, a trans woman, have a female birth certificate. Should I carry it at all times? The Code say I shoudn't be asked for it. The situation is a total mess.

It is often impossible to tell who is trans and who is cis. I know many, many trans people who have never been taken as anything else but cisgender. I also know cisgender women who have been accused of 'being men'. 

How the Code harms Disabled People

There are suggestions that trans people should use disabled facilities. This has met with an outraged response from disability charities. Not because they aren't sympathetic to trans people's situation but because facilities for them are in very short supply already. Often they are locked, or out of order. Putting further pressure on these undersupplied facilites is no answer.

How the Code affects me personally

I am a woman and I have been able to live as a woman since 2008. I have a Gender Recognition Certificate and I have had full gender confirmation surgery. I have female genitalia. I have been on female hormones for 17 years. My passport and driving licence identify me as a woman, and they have done since 2010. As mentioned, I have a birth certificate, reissued to me under the provisons of the Gender Recognition Act; this states my sex as female. As part of my application for a GRC, I had to sign a Statutory Declaration stating that I will live as female for the rest of my life - to do otherwise would be a criminal offence. I have shared in previous emails more details of my life and my children.  

How can i live as female for the rest of my life when I am being banned from female spaces? This is not how females live. How can I live as a female when I am being forced into a legally incomprehensible 'non-existence'. Female for some parts of the law. Male for others.  

And the practical results of all this? We are dealing with Jim Crow-style segregation as we are pushed out of society. There are echoes of Apartheid. 

Further, with respect to medical provision, I am currently facing some health issues. I am terrified that should I need to be admitted to hospital that I will be housed on a male ward. This idea is so repellant to me that I'm quite likely to refuse treatment altogether. This response is very common amongst the trans community now - you'll find this fear everywhere. 

Please act to try and stop these appalling new provisions from being enacted.

I would be very happy, as before, to meet with to discuss this further.

Best wishes

Yours sincerely

Juliette

2. My MP's reply to me

Dear Juliette

Thank you for your email.

This is a sensitive and complex issue that I have given considerable thought to and I have a lot of sympathy for everyone directly affected by the issue.

For some time, there has been uncertainty between the 2004 Gender Recognition Act and the 2010 Equality Act around the legal definition of sex and the rights of trans people to access single-sex spaces. The Supreme Court’s ruling last year provided this clarity, particularly on the use of single-sex spaces – although it is regrettable and unfair that this lack of clarity persisted for so long.

The rights of trans people to feel safe and comfortable in public settings is important. I strongly believe that every individual has the right to identify with whatever gender best reflects who they are, and every reasonable effort should be made to uphold the dignity and inclusion of trans people in society.

However, as a liberal, I also believe that it’s also very important that by allowing trans people to assert these rights, we ensure that the rights of others are not undermined, especially when it comes to the privacy and safety of women. Because of this, it is my belief that single-sex spaces should be protected based on biological sex and I am supportive of the measures laid out in the EHRC guidance on single-sex spaces.

At heart, this is a question of how we balance rights, and my view is guided by my liberal principles. I recognise that this is an issue that deeply affects people’s lives, dignity, and sense of belonging, particularly for trans individuals who already face significant challenges and uncertainty.

For me, the rights of the many to privacy and safety in single-sex spaces should take precedence. However, I do not reach that conclusion lightly. I am acutely aware that this creates real difficulty and distress for members of the trans community, and I believe they deserve greater clarity, compassion, and support.

I recognise that the measures do not provide a perfect solution, particularly for trans people who may, in some cases, have to rely on disabled facilities where alternatives are unavailable. In my view, individual unisex toilets and changing spaces, with floor-to-ceiling privacy, offer the best way to respect everyone’s rights and should be provided wherever possible. However, this will not always be feasible, which creates difficulty for trans individuals. I am very sympathetic to that.

I am also concerned about the limited opportunity for MPs to debate this guidance in Parliament. Given the sensitivity and complexity of the issue, as well as its significant impact on certain communities, it is essential that the updated guidance is subject to proper democratic scrutiny. This should happen via a free vote [...] In any such debate, my position would be to support the measures laid out in the EHRC guidance.

Please know that I have spent a long time reflecting on this and I remain deeply sympathetic to the trans community, who have too often been placed in an impossibly difficult position by years of ambiguity and successive governments skirting around this extremely difficult issue.
Whilst we may not agree on this particular issue, it is vital that I engage with the concerns of my constituents, particularly on sensitive matter such as this, so thank you very much for sharing your thoughts with me.

Thank you for raising this important issue with me. I welcome you to sign up to my newsletter if you'd like to stay up to date with local news, events and all I'm doing for residents in xxxxx

Best wishes

XXXX

3. My reply to him

Dear XXXX

Your reply was like a punch to the stomach.

But at least it clarifies my understanding of your position. I realise now that my MP, for whom I voted, has no genuine interest in my welfare if he is prepared to respond in this way.
As you didn't address any of my points, I must assume that you did not properly read my email. Or worse, perhaps you did read it, but it made no difference?

Your reply is full of inaccuracies and talking points promoted by Gender Critical opponents of my basic, long-standing, settled legal rights. I won't be writing to you again after this on this matter; as I mentioned, I must now leave the United Kingdom, forced out after 60+ years here - a time during which I have posed no threat to women, not raped anyone, not attacked anyone, never will, and since my full legal, medical and social transition almost 20 years ago not attracted the slightest attention from cisgender women in any women's space. Not one comment.

But before we conclude I need to rebut some of your remarks, if only for my own peace of mind. I quote from your email:

"For some time, there has been uncertainty between the 2004 Gender Recognition Act and the 2010 Equality Act around the legal definition of sex and the rights of trans people to access single-sex spaces. The Supreme Court’s ruling last year provided this clarity, particularly on the use of single-sex spaces – although it is regrettable and unfair that this lack of clarity persisted for so long.".

No, there hasn't been 'uncertainty', despite Gender Critical claims. The GRA and EA worked perfectly adequately together until the rise of militant anti-trans activism that blended into a wider exclusionary tropes promoted before and during Brexit by the far-right and the British media. This ultimately resulted in a Supreme Court decision that, far from providing 'clarity' destroyed a working arrangement and was legally incomprehensible, as evidenced by the range of legal rulings that have appeared in the courts since then and the need for the EHRC to withdraw its attempts at legal guidance around the SC judgment, twice, so far. 

The narrative of 'uncertainty' was cynically invented and is now promoted by the crowing 'victors' of the Supreme Court case (a self-definition I first saw it at a panel shortly afterwards featuring some of the lawyers involved. One was wearing a t-shirt saying 'VICTORY'). It was part of a framing of the Supreme Court case as the solution to a problem - a problem that didn't exist in the real world. Where it did exist was in the minds of hardcore anti-trans activists who have focused on removing trans people (particularly trans women's) rights for many years. 

"However, as a liberal, I also believe that it’s also very important that by allowing trans people to assert these rights, we ensure that the rights of others are not undermined, especially when it comes to the privacy and safety of women. Because of this, it is my belief that single-sex spaces should be protected based on biological sex and I am supportive of the measures laid out in the EHRC guidance on single-sex spaces".

I am a woman. I am part of the group called women. Nothing you, or GC voices can say or do will take that from me. It's also the law. I have a Birth Certificate that says so. The creation of the false dichotomy of the 'trans people versus women', is a toxic, manufactured position. I note you also use the term 'allowing trans people to assert these rights' - with its heavy resonance of 'indulgence' and a 'privilege' offered us at the largesse of the more powerful, wider society; as if we must be grateful for what we are offered? If we are not 'allowed' to assert our rights then they are not and never were rights. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights doesn't speak of being 'allowed' rights. It describes rights as 'equal and inalienable'.

I'd add also that you have no idea of my biology, my chromosomal makeup, my body, or my neurology. I move around in the world as a woman, am accepted by other women as a woman, am treated by my family as a woman. I have known myself to be a woman from the youngest age. This is my lived experience, and others' experience of me. I am indistinguishable from other women in daily life. Like the Jews were indistinguishable from other Germans until a new government decided to isolate, identify and later kill them.
I would add also that the measures laid out in the EHRC guidance are completely unworkable, as I explained in my previous email, and will affect many many cisgender women who will have their bodies and appearance policed. 

Equally businesses will be unable to respond, through practical difficulties and cost, alongside being asked to 'out' trans-looking customers if they try and change or use the toilet. They will perhaps need a 'visual guide' to do this - the 'How to recognise a Tr**ny' materials perhaps that used to circulate in the UK 25 years ago and are accessible online still? Similar guides to 'Jewish features' were available in Germany in the 1930s (and continue to influence the discourse now, including in the British press recently when they attacked Zack Polanski).

"...trans individuals who already face significant challenges and uncertainty".

Trans individuals in this country - less than 1% of the population - face bigotry, abuse, discrimination and hatred every day. Violence against us is growing and in recent research a staggering 99% of trans people surveyed indicated that the current climate has affected their mental health. Suicide levels are climbing. I have very seriously considered it. Please don't sanitise what is happening to us by using terms like this. I find it insulting.

"For me, the rights of the many to privacy and safety in single-sex spaces should take precedence".

Perhaps your most shocking statement of all. The first implication is clear. My presence in a women's changing is a threat to the privacy and safety of other women. This is a stunning accusation.

My presence does not impact the privacy and safety of other women. There is no evidence that trans women represent a threat to the privacy and safety of other women. Trans women are typically highly sensitive to the effect of their using single-sex spaces, as they fear humiliation and insult themselves, and case law that still stands (Croft) and which was not removed by The Supreme Court states that they should be permitted to do so once they have reached a certain point in their physical transition. Further, trans women are far, far more likely to be the victims of violence than to be perpetrators. There is plenty of data on this. The EHRC guidance will add to the risks we face.

Elsewhere in your reply I note that you call yourself a 'liberal'. I don't see it. Your words here create for me the impression that you are an ideological majoritarian.

At one level, this is a morally very problematic position. That one larger group of people claim a right and in so doing remove another, smaller and more vulnerable groups rights says nothing at all about the moral validity of that larger groups desires. It simply says that there are more of them. In the 1930s in Germany, the 'will of the people' (aka the majority) was first created and then mobilised to destroy the lives of the Jews (who represented about the same percentage to the population as trans people do in the UK). That the 'many' called for this does nothing to excuse what happened.

Majoritarianism prevailed in the US Deep South and was a structural underpinning beneath the Jim Crow laws. Jim Crow defined the prevailing majority as intrinsically white, just as the Nazis defined it as Aryan. The current framing in UK Gender Critical policy defines 'women' - the protected class - in a way that excludes me *by definition*, then uses the resulting majority it creates to override my rights. The category is constructed to produce the desired political outcome, then presented as natural and obvious. As you talk about women's rights - not dignifying my identity by referring to me as a woman - you are not describing a long pre-existing majority. This is clear, because just a few years ago, British society did (for the very great part) admit me legally and socially to the category of women. What has happened - now presented as inevitable and unchallengeable - was simply not so until recently (just as Jews were defined as Germans until, suddenly, they weren't). You are signing up with those who have constituted this majority group by definitional exclusion, and who are now invoking its will against me.

"I recognise that the measures do not provide a perfect solution, particularly for trans people who may, in some cases, have to rely on disabled facilities where alternatives are unavailable. In my view, individual unisex toilets and changing spaces, with floor-to-ceiling privacy, offer the best way to respect everyone’s rights and should be provided wherever possible. However, this will not always be feasible, which creates difficulty for trans individuals. I am very sympathetic to that".

There is no requirement for a "solution" to a non-existent problem. Disability rights groups are outraged that trans people could be forced into their (often unavailable or locked) facilities. I am not disabled. And nor should I have to draw attention to myself when out by being seen to use one when I am clearly not disabled. Perhaps by having to ask a premises owner to open a disabled toilet for me, thus outing myself and exposing myself to ridicule?

As for the "difficulty for trans individuals" you envisage - I am astonished that a LibDem MP is willfully supporting a measure that will discriminate against a minority - and for no demonstrable reason. Further, effectively, you are telling me that I cannot go to my favourite pub any more. They do not have a disabled toilet (I wouldn't use it even if they did). And I must now keep in mind whether I will be able to urinate in a public building, cafe, bar, restaurant, GP surgery, library, railway station, hairdresser, airport, council office, solicitor's office, department store, leisure centre, theme park or shopping centre before I leave the house. In fact, you tell me that I cannot go to these places - unless I use a male toilet, or a disabled or unisex facility that in many instances simply won't exist.

"I remain deeply sympathetic to the trans community, who have too often been placed in an impossibly difficult position by years of ambiguity and successive governments skirting around this extremely difficult issue".

Really? I am afraid I reject your sympathy. It is of no use to me at all. Further, there have been no "years of ambiguity". This is a Gender Critical lie. The system was working fine for the overwhelming majority. Now, of course, the trans community has been almost completely abandoned by the British political establishment, running scared of powerful ideologically-rooted groups like Sex Matters and growing prejudice and hatred of difference on the right of society. We have been thrown under the bus at the behest of a tiny group of fanatics rooted in an extremist dogma formed in the 1970s, who have never represented the mainstream of feminism and some of whom are funded by staggeringly wealthy individuals like JK Rowling. Their agenda has lately supported by the deep pockets of right wing groups, and figures from Elon Musk to Donald Trump, with whom your position in reality aligns.

Please understand that I will not be using the disabled toilets, nor men's changing rooms or toilets.

I will continue to use women's single-sex facilities, until I can leave this country for another which treats me with decency. I am not going to stay home and live in fear.

Sincerely

Juliette

******

I don't expect to be hearing from him again.