Supreme Court attacks trans people – the fight for liberation goes on

Today’s ruling is only one example of a right-wing offensive happening around the world. But as June writes, trans people will keep on fighting, with protests already being planned.

Trans women are under attack. They are under attack in the US by creep reactionaries who want to police what toilet you use and what haircut you get. They are under attack by violent men angry at themselves. They are also under attack by so called feminist activists, and their reactionary bourgeois backers. This morning the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom issued their ruling in the case For Women Scotland Ltd v The Scottish Ministers. The Supreme Court has ruled that under the Equality Act 2010, provision for women only applies to biological (cisgender) women. This ruling also asserts that sex is binary in the eyes of the Supreme Court, further cutting off the possibility of non-binary legal recognition. Additionally the ruling takes the bizarre step of protecting ‘lesbian only spaces’, a particular bugbear of Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminists (TERFs). The novel legal idea of ‘biological sex’ threatens to have trans men legally detransitioned in the eyes of the law, buying into transphobic ideas of trans men not possessing agency over their own bodies and gender.

The ruling itself will not change much for most trans people who lack a Gender Recognition Certificate (GRC). But by casting doubt on the status of the relatively few legally recognised people who have those certificates, it makes life harder for everyone – whatever path they’re taking, however far they’ve gone down it. It is also my understanding that many women’s services which will change their policies on the basis of this ruling were in practice already closed to trans women. But what this does mean is the anti-trans movement in Britain has momentum. Like the transphobic Cass Review, this ruling gives an inch and with it, the ruling transphobes will run a mile.

The treatment of trans women by the British state, healthcare systems, and media is cruel. The routes they have to take to receive NHS treatment require them to undergo years-long waiting lists for Gender Identity Clinics (GIC), which they will be randomly dropped from. While waiting for this healthcare, unable to start their transitions, many of them will die. When they finally reach a GIC they are barraged with humiliating questions about their sexuality and forced to perform a restrictive femininity for their medical gatekeepers. Once certified by a GIC they are often given too little hormonal medication. Trans women are cut off from hormonal medicines and blood tests by their GPs refusing to enter into shared care agreements. Private healthcare, though quicker, is out of reach to the vast majority of trans women, still has long waiting lists and service quality is poor. 

The British press revel in their cruel treatment of trans women. The press took touching signs of affection between Dr Kate Upton and her wife as a sick twisted perversion of femininity, refusing to address her by her actual pronouns, symbolically stripping her of her womanhood. Popular media depicts all non-cisgender people as predators, threats to a pure cisgender femininity. 

This tone has filtered into increases in anti-trans violence and hate crimes. Brianna Ghey’s murder, and the attempted murder of an unnamed woman in Harrow last year, are just the most visible incidents in a rising tide of anti-trans violence which has risen year on year. 

Alongside these cruel indignities trans women – and in particular non-white trans women – face some of the highest levels of homelessness, housing insecurity, and low quality housing in the country, and routine discrimination in employment. 

Today we see further cruel treatment of trans women in Britain by a legal ruling, funded by a reactionary billionaire and cheered on by so-called trans exclusionary feminist groups, trying to stifle any legal reform to gender, and to cut down what little legal protections exist for trans women in Britain. It is a success for an ascendant global reactionary movement which joins together anti-migrant politics, Zionism, racism, anti-feminism, and reactionary anti-queer and anti-trans politics. As Marxists we must oppose this movement in all its forms. 

Seeing how my trans sisters are treated hurts my soul, it fuels a burning anger within me. I worry about what this means for me as a non-binary trans person, pursuing my own transition. I am letting that anger drive me, to organise all queer people together in explicitly radical and Marxist terms to fight for a future where we are given the respect deserved by all humans. A future where all people are housed securely, given what we need to live fulfilling lives, spaces where our families and communities can flourish, where we can all build a vibrant shared culture, and to taste the fruits of our labour. 

Right now our place is on the streets joining demonstrations against this ruling and whatever comes next. Only by meeting each other and building new networks of resistance and liberation can we hope to move forward. It is bleak now, but I know from the depths of my heart that trans people will be key in building the movement which overthrows this squalid state of affairs. 

Trans liberation now. Trans liberation forever.

In solidarity and infinite love for my trans sisters.

Emergency demo, London

1pm Sat 19 April
Parliament Square

Called by Front for the Liberation of Intersex, Non-Binary and Trans People; Lambeth Unison; RMT; UCU; Alliance for Workers Liberty; Workers Power; Anti Capitalist Resistance; Pride in Labour; Trans Kids Deserve Better; Trans Action for Housing Justice; rs21; TransActual; Unite SE London Medical Branch; PCS London and South East; London Renters Union

Protests around Britain

Over twenty more protests are taking place around Britain – for current details see the What the Trans?! website