Despite being handed the 300-page document months ago, the government still hasn’t implemented the Equality and Human Rights Commission’s (EHRC) new trans code. It deals with the practical implementation of the Supreme Court’s ruling that the Equality Act defines women according to sex assigned at birth.
The EHRC immediately chose to interpret this as the basis for the complete exclusion of trans people from the single-sex facilities of their lived gender. However, it has since taken down the ‘interim’ guidance.
The lack of the new code has left trans people in a legal limbo. My community has been left without a clue to the extent of exclusion we are about to face.
However, the new code has now been leaked to the press. The news outlets of the UK managed to get their reporting out just in time for Trans Day of Remembrance, on which we mourn the lives lost to transphobic violence and discrimination around the world. This, I’m sure, was a coincidence.
The big reveal that has taken so long? The promised solution to the trans question? The service providers of the UK will be asked to take a guess at who they reckon is a tranny, and chuck people out accordingly.
EHRC trans code: ‘based on how they look’
The BBC wrote that:
Trans people could be asked about whether they should be accessing single-sex services based on their physical appearance or behaviour, according to proposed new guidance seen by the BBC.
Likewise, the Times claimed that:
Under the guidance, which has been seen by The Times, places such as hospital wards, gyms and leisure centres will be able to question transgender women over their use of single-sex services based on how they look, their behaviour or concerns raised by others.
Note the language used here: “trans people could be asked” and “question transgender women”. These statements are a rhetorical attempt to mislead the reader – either on the part of the EHRC or the news outlets. What’s more, the articles themselves expose them as such. Both go on to state some variation on the following:
The code reportedly notes that “there is no type of official record or document in the UK which provides reliable evidence of sex” because people are able to change their sex on passports and driving licences without a GRC. Instead, where there is “genuine concern about the accuracy of the response”, the code reportedly states it may be proportionate to exclude a transgender person.
‘Humiliated and excluded’
So, walk with me here. There’s no way to tell whether or not someone is trans by official documentation. As such, a service provider is allowed to exclude someone from single-sex spaces purely according to how they look and act.
Therefore, someone doesn’t have to be trans in order to be excluded under the new anti-trans guidance. So stating that “trans women could be questioned” etc. isn’t actually true, is it? Anybody could be questioned, and anybody could be excluded, based purely on “concerns raised by others”.
The EHRC and its transphobic stenographers in the BBC and the Times would like you to believe that this code will only impact trans people. This is a lie, and a deliberate one at that. Transphobes like to believe that they can tell who is trans just by looking at them, because they’ve convinced themselves that all trans women look like men in dresses, and all trans men look like tomboys.
This is false. If it wasn’t, having sex without disclosing that you’re trans wouldn’t be a crime. If trans people always looked like their assigned sex, the EHRC wouldn’t have to suggest that trans men could be banned from men’s and women’s toilets. Likewise, trans advocacy and education group TransActual UK reported that:
Our research has uncovered many stories of cis people, especially gender non-conforming women, being humiliated and excluded by staff or vigilante gender police when using the appropriate facilities and shown that this has already increased since the publication of the EHRC’s draft guidance.
‘Get this right’
It falls on equalities minister Bridget Phillipson to make the EHRC’s guidance into law. The EHRC’s Kishwer Falkner – a woman criticised for her bigotry by the fucking Lemkin Institute for the Prevention of Genocide – has urged Phillipson to implement the new code. Likewise, the Guardian reported that the code was leaked by government figures who believe Labour is “delaying publication to avoid a potential backlash”.
Addressing these claims, Phillipson told reporters:
I have responsibilities to make sure that’s done properly and we’re taking the time to get this right.
This is an important area and we want to make sure that women have access to a single-sex provision – that’s incredibly important for domestic violence services, rape crisis centres, so that women are able to heal from the trauma they’ve experienced.
But of course, trans people should be treated with dignity and respect.
Let’s not mince words. If a trans person is trying to access a rape crisis centre, it is because they have been raped. However, that fact is less important than the possibility that they might make a cis woman uncomfortable. There’s no “dignity and respect” in that.
Similarly, there is no way to “get this right”, with all the time in the world. This transphobic code necessarily involves an assault on the rights of anyone who could be perceived as trans, regardless of their gender status. Trans+ Solidarity Alliance founder Jude Guaitamacchi called out that very fact, stating:
These leaks reveal that not only does the EHRC’s proposed code of practice seek to require trans exclusion, it instructs service providers to police this based on appearance and gender stereotypes.
This is a misogynist’s charter, plain and simple, and the government must reject it.
Echoing the sentiment, a spokesperson for TransActual stated:
We’ve seen this before – people trying to make our society into a place that is only safe for ‘normal’ ladies. Not just loos. But sports centres, changing rooms and more. We know from experience that women of colour and butch lesbians are more likely to be seen as unfeminine by strangers, so this policy would have racist and homophobic impacts as well as being obviously incredibly harmful for trans people.
We offer our solidarity to the many cis women who have been targeted and harassed for their appearance by ‘gender critical activists’ who believed they were trans, and who would be put even further at risk by these rules.
We cannot believe that government would be so foolish – so hell-bent on shooting itself in the foot – as to go along with this. We therefore trust that Equalities Minister Bridget Phillipson will treat it with the contempt it deserves and reject this costly, cruel and unworkable guidance, sending it back to the EHRC to be completely rewritten.
Congratulations to the anti-trans left. You’d better own the EHRC trans code.
I want to finish this article with a direct address. Almost every time I – or one of my colleagues – write a piece on trans issues, the comment section is populated by people who cheer on the anti-trans policies. Some, I’m sure, are right-wing trolls who merely pretend to be on the left to muddy the water.
However, I’m also sure that some of you genuinely believe that you are on the left. Lets ignore for a minute the fact that trans bans were a policy priority for the fascist Trump regime. Even a stopped clock is right twice a day.
You might believe that trans women don’t belong in women’s sport. In turn, that opened the door to your wholesale opposition of trans people living their lives as they see fit. Maybe you believe that women’s oppression is rooted wholly in biology. Accordingly, you fight against the rights of the trans men you believe to be women, because they can’t be allowed to make decisions for themselves.
I want to congratulate you. I am now wholly defined by my biology, or at least, whatever anybody cares to guess is my biology. This is your great victory. Please do celebrate.
Only, own your victory with your whole chest, because all of it belongs to you. I cordially invite you to comment with expressions of joy, invectives for trans people to stay out of single-sex spaces, and explanations of why you’re actually the true leftist and all of the fascists you keep company with are mere coincidence.
Just remember to append your comment with the following:
I believe that the accompanying discrimination against intersex people, butch lesbians, femme gays, and gender non-conformists is worthwhile to achieve this goal.
You fucking cowards.
Featured image via the Canary
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