Tag Archives: supreme court judgement

John Grout

Say hello to the Groper’s Charter

By John Grout | Thu 24th April 2025 - 1:04 pm

In delivering the Supreme Court’s ruling last week, Lord Hodge went to great lengths to stress that it should not be portrayed as a victory for one side over the other, and that the rights of trans people remained protected under both the ‘gender reassignment’ and ‘perceived gender’ clauses of the Equality Act.  He urged caution.

It’s a shame that nobody listened to him.

One of the first things I was taught in the first week of my archaeology and ancient history degree in 2006, was that it is impossible to accurately sex a human skeleton due to the chaotic and often contradictory combination of genetic, epigenetic, endocrine, physical and neurophysical factors that go into it, few of which survive very long – for instance, one thing that stayed with me was that up to 8% of the population have chromosomes inconsistent with their gender, and there are XY women who have given birth, and XX men who have fathered children.  (This, incidentally, is why the IOC stopped doing chromosome testing of athletes in the 1990s, and why chromosome testing is not done in schools, because halfway through your Biology GCSE is really not the time to find that out.)  The overlap between the ranges of typically male and female builds, proportions, skeletons, etc., is too broad to give any certainty either, particularly when one considers how many people were doing physical labour in historical times.

The scientific implications of attempting to define sex biologically aside, a very real practical consequence of doing so is coming down the rails towards us.  Within hours of the ruling, the British Transport Police announced that trans passengers would now be strip-searched by officers of their sex as registered at birth, rather than of their destination sex.  This was met with celebration from some, and much consternation from elsewhere.  Our own MP Tom Gordon has now written to the BTP to seek urgent clarification on the legality and presumption of this change.

But there’s a more insidious implication, and it’s lurking behind the ruling as a whole.

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Adrian Hyyrylainen-Trett

The Supreme Court Judgment will inspire more people to campaign for LGBT+ rights

By Adrian Hyyrylainen-Trett | Sat 19th April 2025 - 10:30 am

Following the horrendous and mortifyingly scary Supreme Court judgment on the Equality Act, after a couple of days to breathe, look after and protect our trans and non-binary friends and colleagues, we are starting to talk to various colleagues to start a plan to challenge this outrageous decision. 

This judgment has not only created more inconsistency, confusion, and downright removal of  hard won trans rights but has landed several unintended consequences not only to the lives of trans men in particular, but actually to other key legislation where companies could with this judgment circumvent laws on equal pay for example. 

As we sit on the shoulders of giants, who have paved way for our own liberty, we have to do the same for generations to come and this is an opportunity not only to strike through the ridiculous Supreme Court  judgment removing trans women’s rights to be recognised as a women in all areas of life, but to legislate for third gender (non binary and intersex protections) formally and to eliminate any incongruous definitions between the Gender Recognition Act, and the Equality Act – essentially tidying up all the wording whilst not using any biological or gender critical terminology, 

As we all know, the passing of the excellent policy paper “Free to be who you are” from our equality spokesperson Christine Jardine at our recent Harrogate conference  gives us the means to challenge the Government, insist on clear guidance for trans and non binary people and to revise our laws to be trans and non-binary inclusive. 

As many Lib Dem Voice readers, will know – as an openly non binary person, this week has been incredibly stressful and sad, seeing friends and colleagues really suffer from the judgment on Wednesday. 

I understand why the party leadership has to acknowledge the Supreme Court’s decision, but it doesn’t have to endorse or accept it and be contrary to the party policy we passed so recently. I also acknowledge that we have exceptionally important local elections in two weeks, and we want to do well, but from LGBT+ Lib Dems perspective, as one of their Honorary Vice Presidents we need to see the party hierarchy recognise the anxiety and stress that this decision has had on its members and on LGBT+ folks who should be among our most natural supporters.

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Chris Northwood

We have just entered a civil rights emergency

By Chris Northwood | Fri 18th April 2025 - 1:19 pm

As the shockwave of Wednesday’s bombshell Supreme Court decision has landed, we are now seeing the rapid erosion of some civil liberties in the UK. Although the court’s decision itself ruled on a fairly narrow part of Equalities Law, we are now seeing huge confusion as people pore over the full implications of the ruling and some seem to capitalise to restrict the rights of trans people, without regard of the side effects on the wider LGBT community, or women.

We have now seen initial responses from people like the chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission Baroness Falkner, which appear to be taking a worst case interpretation of the ruling which does nothing but erode hard fought rights for trans people, claiming that we should be excluded from spaces we have existed in without issue for decades.

The British Transport Police have been fast off the mark to change their policies regarding strip searching of trans people. Male police officers can now strip search women if they believe they are trans (regardless of what genitalia that person might actually have). As a councillor I have seen officers in my council take weeks at the fastest to fully evaluate the impact of changes like this before introducing them, so find it impossible to believe that this policy has been introduced as a result of careful consideration of the implication of the ruling given the speed at which it has been done. It is clear that systemic transphobia remains embedded high in many public institutions, which are now rushing to bring in policies which harm vulnerable trans women.

I have no doubt that we will see more transphobic policies introduced under the guise of this ruling, rather than as a result of any careful consideration of the implication of it. These policies will hurt not only trans people, but be harmful for society in general as an erosion of liberty. Women in particular will be hurt by these decisions, shamefully championed by transphobic hate groups which masquerade as “women’s rights” campaigners, when inevitably authorities may make a judgement about their sex which turns out to be wrong. This has happened in the US through other trans-exclusionary definitions of women in bathroom bans. Legal recourse after the fact for redress is no compensation, and will remain open only to those with the pockets to fund it.

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