The wild thing about this is that Starmer, once the top lawyer in the UK, is just plain wrong about this. The equality act is clear about this and there are multiple examples of case law stating exactly that trans women have the right to use single-sex spaces aligning with their gender identity.
The GRA is irrelevant here, having a GRC does not change what spaces a trans person can use. The literal text of the EA2010 says that a person with the gender reassignment characteristic is changing or has changed their sex. That is the legal definition of gender reassignment.
The EA allows for limited, case-by-case exclusion of trans people from single-sex spaces, as long as that exclusion is a proportional means to achieve a legitimate aim. This does not allow for blanket exclusion of trans women from single-sex spaces, if it did then there would be case law on it.
Think about it, we've been at this in the UK for ten fucking years now. If the law actually allowed blanket restrictions, do you not think that some TERF organisation or another would have gone to court and proven their case?
But they don't, because they know they will lose.
Ann Sinnot from LGBA tried to get a judicial review into the guidance on the EA2010 in 2021, arguing that you can't have single-sex spaces that include trans people. She failed to even get a review, the judge told her that she was "wrong in law" and her position was "unarguable".
And this is the thing that frustrates me so much, in the 11 years since I transitioned over witnessed every single step this country has taken into the shitter on this subject, despite the fact that the courts have ruled in our favour over and over again. Even MF's big win was not as big as claimed.
And Labour and the Tories and bending over fucking backwards, making absolute fools of themselves, on a topic that is wildly unpopular with the public regardless of your views, being consistently plainly wrong about the law, and they can't fucking see it.
All they fucking see is another headline about a billionaire and her sycophants getting their fucking pants in a twist, and being showered with praise by our corrupt, bigoted media organisations.
I'm so, fucking, tired.
10 fucking years. A decade of daily articles spewing lies and fabrications about this imagined threat that trans people pose. And nothing, not one iota of truth has materialised. None of the stories reflect the real lived experiences of trans people in this country.
We are silenced, we are ignored, we are denied a voice in the discussions that affect our lives.
Starmer wants to meet with Rowling over her concerns, and wants David Tennant to keep quiet. What about Rowling's concerns make them worthy of consideration, but not Tennant's? Because he said a swear?
Where is the compassion? Where is the dignity? Where is the respect that these politicians claim to treat us with?
Why are there three kids—actual kids—protesting outside the NHS HQ right fucking now, demanding healthcare, being threatened with arrest? Where are the offers to sit down with them?
It sickens me. It really does. To think that we are finally going to be free from 5168 days of Tory rule, that nothing is going to fucking change—for me, for my friends, for my loved ones, for my community, for the youth we are so desperate to protect.
Oh, my bills might be a bit cheaper, and maybe I won't have to worry about the collapse of the university sector so much.
But I have no faith in Starmer or Labour, that things will actually get better for me and mine. We will get nothing but platitudes and compromised scraps.
