Help us challenge the Supreme Court’s judgment on trans rights

We believe that the Supreme Court – which disgracefully refused to hear from trans people before handing down a decision with the profoundest possible consequences for trans lives – has placed or revealed the United Kingdom in breach of its obligations under the Human Rights Act.

In a 2002 case called “Goodwin”, the European Court of Human Rights said: “A conflict between social reality and the law arises which places [a trans person] in an anomalous position, in which he or she may experience feelings of vulnerability, humiliation and anxiety” and found the UK in breach.

Following that case, the UK introduced the Gender Recognition Act to make us compliant. The Minister introducing the Act said it was intended to alter the definition of man and woman in equalities legislation but the Supreme Court, because it refused to hear from any trans people, appears to have been oblivious to this critical fact and decided references to men and women were to “biological” sex.

After the Supreme Court case, our so-called Equalities Minister, Bridget Phillipson, said “the ruling was clear that provisions and services should be accessed on the basis of biological sex”, and the Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, said he no longer believes that trans women are women: “A woman is an adult female, and the court has made that absolutely clear.”

The decision and these statements shamefully deny the reality of trans existence and will lead to daily humiliation for trans people and for cis people who choose not to dress “normally”. And they will not make anyone safer, cis or trans.

To use single sex services, trans people and “non-conforming” cis men and women will be required to “prove” their “biological sex”: goodness knows how. Trans women, and cis women who don’t abide by gender norms, will be “frisked” by men. Trans men will be forced to identify themselves to everyone as trans by using female services. Younger trans people will be humiliated at school and at university.

The Nazis forced the LGBT+ community to identity themselves as “degenerates” by wearing pink triangles. Labour’s policy means that for trans people to move through the public sphere they will need, similarly, to identify themselves as trans in an increasingly violent and transphobic world.

We believe the UK is now in breach of its obligations under the Human Rights Act and the European Convention of Human Rights and we plan to ask the High Court for a declaration of incompatibility. We believe the legal arguments are strong – but we must also point out that the Supreme Court has revealed a readiness on the part of our courts to disapply, in the case of trans people, normal legal and procedural safeguards.

We have put together a legal team involving several KCs and at least one trans barrister. The legal team will be supported by heavyweight policy specialists in equalities law and will be informed by the lived experiences of trans people. We will publish the legal documents in the case as they become available and as the law permits. This is no small undertaking – but, for the trans community in Britain, it is literally existential.

We would be grateful for your help.