Women who transitioned decades ago feel their safety and security has suddenly been removed
Last week’s supreme court ruling sent shock waves through the UK’s trans community.
The unanimous judgment said the legal definition of a woman in the Equality Act 2010 did not include transgender women who hold gender recognition certificates (GRCs).
That feeling was compounded when Kishwer Falkner, the chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, which is preparing new statutory guidance, said the judgment meant only biological women could use single-sex changing rooms and toilets.
As far as I understand, trans people are still a protected class under other statutes on the UK, but basically just don’t count for any laws like “50% of company board members must be women to receive this tax break”.
Which, idk, seems reasonable to me.
I have no idea how that’s reasonable. The point of such laws is to promote equality. And even if you choose to count trans women as a completely unique third category (which you shouldn’t…the word “women” in “trans women” is there for a reason), they are certainly a minority gender, so counting them for the purpose of pro-diversity incentives seems like a no-brainer.
Trans women experience misogyny. Most transphobia is rooted in misogyny. If you’re subject to misogyny, you should count towards female hiring quotas.
Only if you take it in a vacuum. Acting like this is a singular incident and not part a seires of events that have made trans people less and less safe in the UK is a poor judgnent call.
So how about the toilets and changing rooms mentioned?
Why would you say it’s reasonable unless you don’t consider them to be women?
The reaction is definitely blowing it out of proportion, but trans women should definitely count toward that.
It seems pretty unreasonable to me that laws like that exist in the first place, so my answer to the question how trans people should be counted for such purposes is “neither because such laws shouldn’t exist”.