How the Supreme Court tipped Anna over the edge

The day the Supreme Court handed down its decision on the meaning of sex under the Equality Act was the last day Anna*, a woman in her 30s, was seen or heard from. She took herself into her room, locked the door from the inside, and took her own life.

The notorious judgment was handed down on 16 April 2025. It followed a process in which the Supreme Court refused to hear from any trans people, ignored its legal obligation under the Human Rights Act to consider their human rights, and came to a decision without hearing any challenge to patently false findings of fact. 

“I love it when a plan comes together” posted the billionaire JK Rowling the next day to her millions of followers on X.com with a photo of her on her yacht, toasting her success with cocktail in one hand and a cigar in her heavily bejewelled other.

But what JK Rowling was celebrating killed others.

Earlier this year a coroner in London – Good Law Project holds a copy of the full Record of Inquest – found that “the Supreme Court judgment on the definition of a woman would have had a significant impact on [Anna]’s mental health and her internalised transphobia”, and concluded on the balance of probabilities that “suicide” was the cause of her death. He said she had died on or before 24 April 2025: we assume that is the day her body was found.

Anna’s death is a profound tragedy for those who loved her. But it is also merely one drop in an ocean of trans suicidality. Billionaires like JK Rowling have funded a blizzard of legal attacks on the trans community – and in tandem her allies in the rightwing and far-right press have pursued a campaign of trans hate.

Worse still is how, in a shift reminiscent of apartheid South Africa, public bodies have joined the hunt. 

The Supreme Court decision is emblematic of the hostility towards trans people in much of the so-called justice system. Conservatives , and then Labour, appointed transphobes to head the watchdog notionally charged with protecting trans people, the Equality and Human Rights Commission. The Charity Commission, whose senior leadership “likes” transphobic material on social media, has funnelled huge sums of public money in charitable tax relief to organisations set up to attack trans people. Detransitioning young people is now the official policy of the NHS – and it now mandates safeguarding referrals for their loving families if they try and provide gender-affirming care. And the Today programme, the supposedly neutral BBC’s flagship news programme, openly sneers at trans people.

Britain, in its treatment of trans people, has become ugly and shameful.*Anna is not her real name.

• Suicide is preventable. You can call Samaritans for free on 116 123 or visit www.samaritans.org for more ways to speak to a Samaritan.