Author Archives: Rebecca Jones

Content warning: This post contains material about rape and sexual assault.

Some of you may remember that roughly a year ago I wrote a piece titled ‘For a lot of trans people, it’s hard to feel pride right now’. A year is a long time in politics, and so you’d hope that over the last year the situation for trans people would be better. Well, in some ways it is, and in some ways it’s worse.

We’ll start with what really has got better since last year, the party’s position. I am genuinely so proud of how far we have come as a party in the last twelve months. Ed and Marie’s letter to the Minister on the EHRC code, the many MPs who spoke in parliament about how fundamentally unworkable and harmful the EHRC code of practice is, the over 50 Lib Dem signatories to EDM 240 and finally the brilliant Lib Dem showing at the Women and Equalities committee session with the EHRC have rejuvenated so many trans people’s faith in the party. Thanks to these efforts, the Lib Dems are once again recognised as a party at the forefront of the fight for trans+ rights. In fact, the past three months have seen us become the loudest and strongest voice on trans+ rights in the UK. That is something we should all be proud of.

But sadly, the Government and legal situation has not kept up with our progress.

The Government has continued its war on the rights of the trans+ community, all while repeating the words ‘Dignity and Respect’ at every opportunity. Just not the dignity to have spaces away from the opposite gender, and not the respect for recognition of who you are. They have continued their war on the healthcare of trans kids, with the delays on the PATHWAYS trial (although this is at least now going to go ahead), the stripping of care for 16 and 17 year olds and the heartbreaking treatment of kids under WellBN. Worrying there are reports the same could extend to adult care. The Government has also pressed ahead with laying the EHRC code of practice. This is despite the Chair and CEO of the EHRC, and the minister, all being unable to give good responses on its workability and its detrimental impact to trans people. Even the Government’s own impact assessment called out how negative this would be for trans people.

The legal situation is no better. Multiple conflicting employment tribunals, a loss for the Good Law Project in court, a horrifying ruling in For Women Scot (FWS) III, etc. FWS III really worries me, as it says that every trans person, no matter what stage in their transition, must be housed with their birth sex. No exceptions. I accept that a blanket self ID policy does not work in prisons, and a case by case basis is needed to prevent the very rare occasions when things go badly wrong. But housing trans women who have made serious steps in their transition, including those who have undergone Sex Reassignment Surgery (SRS), with men leads to harrowing results. In Australia, a trans woman was raped 2000 times in a men’s prison, in the UK it led to sexual assaults and suicides before the policy changed. The only alternative is trans prisoners being locked in their cell for 23 hours a day in effective solitary isolation. This is not acceptable.