Help protect trans people’s right to safety

We all deserve to live free from discrimination and harassment. That’s not just a matter of courtesy. It’s a set of protections enshrined in law. In 2004, the Gender Recognition Act was introduced as a safeguard for many trans people to be able to live freely, authentically and openly. It gave trans people the right to legally change their sex.

In 2010, the Equality Act codified and updated the UK’s existing equality law framework, maintaining the protections in equality law against harassment, discrimination and violence that already protected trans people as men and women. The Equality Act, in combination with the Gender Recognition Act, means for example that trans women who have a Gender Recognition Certificate have protections under equality law if they are paid less than men because of their gender.

But the Supreme Court is now due to hear a case that threatens the freedoms and protections that trans people have relied on for 20 years. And this case could be heard with no trans people in the room – with no reference to the devastating effect it could have on their lives.

The campaign group For Women Scotland are not for trans women and they are not for the huge numbers of women who are trans allies. They‘ve been trying to get the courts to redefine the Equality Act 2010. So far their attempt to unwind the legal status of trans women has failed.

But they are trying again – this time in the highest court in the land.

Good Law Project wants to make sure the voices and experiences of trans people – and the trans inclusive majority of women – are heard at the Supreme Court. We will be supporting an application to intervene from the woman who was the UK’s first trans judge, Dr Victoria McCloud KC, and other representative groups.

It is beyond contemplation that these questions could be decided by the Supreme Court, and argued by those who want to strip trans people of their protections, without hearing from the trans people themselves.

Please help us fund this case, so that does not happen. Donate here