After last week’s supreme court decision, activists had been worried that trans people might become fearful of going out in public in case they were abused.
They weren’t afraid in London on Saturday. Thousands of trans and non-binary people thronged Parliament Square, alongside families and supporters, waving baby blue, white and pink flags to demonstrate their anger at the judges’ ruling.
The numbers seemed to take the organisers and police by surprise. Protesters from a hastily assembled coalition of 24 groups gathered in a ring against the barriers surrounding the grass and began speeches. But after the roads became clogged with people, a woman wearing a “Nobody knows I’m a lesbian” top ran across with her dog and soon the square was full. “It’s one hell of a turnout and there is a really strong sense of unity and solidarity,” said Jamie Strudwick, one of the organisers. “I think it’s impossible to compare it – it’s like nothing I’ve ever seen before.”
Last Wednesday, the supreme court ruled that when the Equality Act 2010 referred to women, it referred only to biological sex and did not include transgender women who hold a gender recognition certificate (GRC).
The judgment was celebrated by groups including For Women Scotland, a gender-critical campaign group backed by JK Rowling, which says that women’s safety is threatened by allowing transgender women into single-sex spaces.
In his judgment, Lord Hodge said that trans people were still protected from discrimination and harassment under the Equality Act. But some trans people say they have felt confusion, fear and anger, with many believing they will find it harder to challenge unfair treatment and receive support from authorities that should be helping them.
After the ruling the Equality and Human Rights Commission chair Kishwer Falkner said that it would create a new statutory code of practice by the summer, giving guidance to public bodies on how they should change their treatment of women and trans people. She said the NHS would need to change its rules on single-sex wards and her organisation would pursue the matter if it did not.
Other organisations have already acted. British Transport Police said same-sex searches in custody would be conducted “in accordance with the biological birth sex of the detainee”.
“In the last week, I’ve had to respond to four suicide attempts or threats from young people,” said Oscar Hoyle, who founded Blossom LGBT community interest company in 2018. “The most significant one, I was on the phone for three hours to a transgender girl, 18 years old. It took three hours for police to come.”
Blossom works with about 400 16- to 30-year-olds from across the LGBTQ community to support them into adulthood and about two-thirds identify as trans or non-binary.
“Regardless of where you sit in this conversation, nobody should be in a position where they feel like life isn’t worth living just because they fall within a marginalised group,” Hoyle said.
Among the crowds outside parliament were Awsten Atkinson, a 23-year-old trans man and their partner, Daisy Watt, a 19-year-old trans woman. “My first reaction to the ruling was absolute horror,” Watt said. “I remember looking at the news and thinking, how on earth have we fallen this far? Not even 10 years ago we were making incredible progress but we just seemed to backslide so severely.”
Atkinson was “devastated and in disbelief”. “Why do people care so much about what we do with our lives when it doesn’t actually affect them? This is being framed as a feminist movement but the criteria they’re using to decide who is a woman brings the focus back to women as objects, as the sum of their body parts.”
The couple were appalled by the BTP decision. “There are a lot of British transport police under investigation for sexual harassment as it is and this opens up the opportunity for them to say ‘you’re getting searched by a male because I believe you’re trans’ and they’re protected by law to do that,” Atkinson said.
With protesters on the green, mostly under 30, waving flags and banners, Watt was “reassured that we have a community around us that is willing to stand up and speak truth to power”. Atkinson added: “As we were coming along, I started smiling and I said to them [Watt and her friends] ‘wow look at everybody’. What you can count on in this community is that people will rally round.”
Near Mahatma Gandhi’s statue, two trans women in their 20s said they were worried that the UK was becoming more like the US.
“When they instituted the bathroom bans there, you saw that it wasn’t just trans people, it was also cis people getting accused and being forced out,” one said.
The other said: “What I see is trans misogyny that women legally can’t be women whereas men will always be men. I find it very scary.
“In public spaces I have a different vibe. It’s like we’re going back in time. It feels like we’re not protected by the law any more.”
Ann-Marie Still was there with her sister and niece. When she heard the news she was angry and disappointed in the system, she said. “I immediately reached out to trans friends, family, with a simple message: ‘you are loved, you are valid’.”
“Most people disregard the young,” said Dani, who was there representing her trans sister. “Parents, children, elderly people – they can’t live their lives as they actually want to.”
Steph Polack, a trans woman from Oxfordshire, said that her initial reaction was that it was “a nonsense ruling” and there had a been “a lot of confusion and outrage” from people she knew. “I have had trans friends, who transitioned years ago and have been getting on with their lives without issue since contact me asking what this means. They are scared and worried that they are going to be singled out and that their ability to lead normal lives is going to be taken away.”
Polack said it would not change how she behaved. “I can go for an exercise and I go into the changing rooms and there’s nothing to hide because I look like every other woman that’s there.
“There are one or two people I come across there who know my past and they’re quite happy with it and the rest of them don’t know and can’t tell. Why should it change? There’s no reason for it to change.”One of the things that bothers Polack is whether the ruling makes her gender recognition certificate valid or not. “There will probably be an attempt to restrict access to changing rooms and what they call single-sex spaces and enforce some sort of ban, but how do you police that?”
