Tag Archives: 2025 pride month

For a lot of trans people, it’s hard to feel pride right now

By Rebecca Jones | Sun 8th June 2025 - 9:08 am

Just a few years ago it looked like our country was moving in the right direction. There was a broad consensus for trans rights, things were moving forward. Yet now, not only have trans rights not progressed, they have actually regressed. Even for the few thousand of us that have gone through the burdensome procedure of getting a Gender Recognition Certificate (GRC), we still almost no legal recognition of our true gender.

In the aftermath of the UK Supreme Court ruling, trans people are experiencing a roll back of our rights at a pace not seen since Section 28. With many companies even instituting ‘bathroom bans’ for trans people – akin to far-right Republican states in America. It’s an incredibly scary time to be trans in the UK right now, and for many of us it seems like it will only get worse. Just recently we saw Conservative politicians proposing amendments to forcibly change all trans people’s identity documents to reflect their birth sex instead of the gender they live as now. This barely scratches the surface of the tide against us. It’s incredibly difficult to be positive about it all.

And to be honest, we’re scared. I’m scared.

As a community, we have no faith in the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) to uphold our rights, with their leadership repeatedly speaking out about trans exclusionary policies. Many of us hoped things would get better after Kishwer Falkner leaves office, but the Labour Government seems determined to install someone who looks like they could be equally opposed to our rights, freedoms and equalities. For many of us, we feel little hope of the situation getting that much better as Labour continues to chase the far right at the expense of vulnerable groups in society. I speak to a lot of trans people, who really cannot see much hope right now, and I don’t have much I can tell them.

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged featured, LGBT and Trans Rights | 11 Comments

It’s Pride month – protest has not been needed this much for a long time

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 1st June 2025 - 10:11 pm

In a week where Nigel Farage seems to have had the stage to himself to talk about his plans to do away with anything remotely woke and to get women, British women that is, (and we all know what he mean by that) to have lots of babies, to ruminate on curtailing access to abortion, we can see that the right are not going to stop curtailing people’s freedoms once they’ve dealt with trans people.

This year’s Pride month comes as the rights of trans people have already been rolled back as a result of over-zealous interpretation of April’s Supreme Court Judgement. The Scottish Parliament announced that trans people would have to use gender neutral toilets at Holyrood and that male and female facilities would be based on “biological sex.” That is hugely problematic as it could require staffers to out themselves. That is why if I were there, I would feel that I would need to use the gender neutral facilities in solidarity.

Alex Cole-Hamilton questioned the Parliament’s Corporate Body about this last week after he was a signatory to a cross-party open letter expressing concern about the changes:

Christine Grahame suggests that the decision was taken on the basis of the need to balance the legal responsibilities of the Parliament related to the Supreme Court judgment. However, as we heard from Patrick Harvie, the former Supreme Court Justice Lord Sumption has made it clear that there are no legal responsibilities for the Parliament. He said that judges did not take a side and that the judgment does not provide an obligation to create single-sex spaces—it is a matter of choice for institutions. The EHRC has been challenged on how it will police that. We have heard about the use of birth certificates. I understand that the SPCB does not expect this to be policed, but others may. Can I ask that no parliamentary staff member will be put in the position of having to challenge a toilet user in the future?

Contrary to the view that this subject is simply a load of nonsense, many members are far more concerned about the wellbeing of those who choose to make the Parliament their workplace. We owe them dignity and respect. Given the answer to a previous question, I ask the corporate body simply to ensure that the aforementioned complaints procedure must not and will not be used as a means of prejudicing anyone in the Parliament, nor to force the disclosure of any details of their private life, including their status relative to their gender.

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged featured, human rights and LGBT | 4 Comments