Protect trans lives sticker

Description

We’re facing a full attack on trans rights in the UK – with the Supreme Court’s ruling to limit the definition of a woman to “biological sex” in April 2025, meaning that trans women are now excluded from protections given to cis women in England, Scotland and Wales under the 2010 Equalities Act. While the Court insists that trans people will still be ‘protected’ against discrimination, we are already seeing what the implications are, from losing access to single-sex services such as hospital wards, refuges and prisons, even bathrooms (with horrific implications of how this would be enforced), banning trans women from women’s sports, to denying the reality of trans existence or that biological sex exists on a spectrum. The ruling is opening the door to a host of repressive measures which threaten all free gender expression and autonomy.

While anti-trans rhetoric and action is generally a flagship for fascist politics, in the UK we have an anomalous minority of ‘gender critical’ feminists, who were responsible for the legal challenge that brought about the Supreme Court ruling. Perceiving trans politics as a threat rather than an asset to feminism, with an unwillingness to recognise trans women as women or to embrace a broadening of our understanding of gender, this movement has fanned the flames of a right wing backlash to progress.

We need to resist this on all fronts, while building our own resilience and showing our love for our inclusive communities. Join marches, write to your MP, talk to your colleagues, challenge transphobia where you see it, extend solidarity, help the Good Law Project and the Trans Legal Clinic challenge the Supreme Court’s judgement, and resist.

Artwork by Alex