The Response To The Supreme Court Ruling Only Proved That Cruelty Is The Point

Since the Supreme Court ruling that defined trans women as men and vice versa, there has been a flurry of activity both within the public and private sectors across the UK, a cacophony of voices clamouring to “abide by the law” and a spate of organisations rushing to update their policies to exclude trans and non binary people from “single-sex spaces”.

The judgement, which was clear in that it should not be taken as carte blanche to discriminate against, or diminish the rights of trans people, has been taken by many as exactly that.

Yet the questions I have asked of MPs and MLAs alike on the implications of this ruling have been ignored, unanswered or responded to with a litany of right wing talking points about the “safety of women and girls”.

So let’s break this down so that’s it’s more easily digestible for those “gender critical” readers out there, shall we?

Firstly, the rush in Northern Ireland from district councils, sporting bodies, politicians etc to vigorously implement the Supreme Court ruling ignores the legal reality that protects trans people here. Under the Windsor Framework, specifically Article 2, trans people have defined protections under EU law that cannot be easily washed away by the argument that Parliament is sovereign. The Windsor Framework is a legally binding international treaty, at the foundation of which is decades of case law, European legislation, expert opinion etc. I do not doubt that this Supreme Court ruling and any attempt to implement said ruling in Northern Ireland will be grounds for a test case and a Judicial Review, but we haven’t crossed that bridge yet.

The rush of Fermanagh and Omagh District Council to clarify that they would implement the ruling (this decision has since been retracted), is a testament to just how monumentally ill-informed our government bodies are when it comes to their obligations under the Windsor Framework, and existing equality legislation. The Supreme Court ruling was based on a case brought to challenge the definition of a woman under the 2010 Equality Act, a piece of legislation that has never applied in Northern Ireland.

The people at the forefront of the movement to “clarify” the existing law about trans and non-binary people claim to be fighting fiercely for women’s rights. So where were these people when abortion rights were being hard-won over decades here? Where were these people when queer women’s rights were being eroded by restrictions on IVF treatment, and marriage equality? Where are these people when fundamentalist groups infringe upon safe zones around reproductive access centres? Or when women’s pay scales fail to match up to those of their male colleagues?

Excuse me for being that person, but I am not about to take any lectures on the dignity and safety of women’s rights from the DUP, TUV or angry men in the comments sections of women’s charities on Facebook who reserve their animosity for some of the most vulnerable in our society.

When challenged by activists with the reality that forcing transgender men into using women’s facilities will make both trans men, and cisgender women unsafe, politicians and so-called “women’s advocacy” organisations such as For Women Scotland, NI Women’s Rights Movement etc are totally silent. Because those things don’t matter to them. Logic and reason have never been the currency upon which these culture war arguments are made. The currency is cruelty and cruelty for its own sake.

The exclusion of gender non-confirming cisgender people from this debate, such as women who live with PCOS, men who experience gynaecomastia; as well as intersex people who present as cisgender or trans and non-binary have been completely overlooked in this entire conversation. When I have brought up what protections will be extended to people to prevent their genitals from being policed by overzealous perverts masquerading as defenders of women’s rights, I have been ignored or shouted down by one MLA as a fascist, and someone who hates women. I’ll leave it up to you to decipher who that was.

Only days ago did we read in the news of a masculine looking woman being challenged, by a man no less, for using the women’s toilets because she didn’t fit the narrow biological determinist view of what a woman is. Women who grow facial hair, women who have more testosterone than their peers such as Caster Semenya, women with deeper voices, broader shoulders, bigger feet, more muscular physiques etc will all be subject to a perverse scrutiny that mirrors the bastardised sciences of the Nazi regime, measuring the craniums of their citizens to determine who is Aryan. This is nought more than eugenics dressed up as a fanatical drive to “protect women”.

My point is that this entire agenda is an unworkable response to a manufactured social economy that trades in the denigration and subjugation of the vulnerable. Not long ago it was homosexuals, then it was women seeking an abortion, then it was migrants and refugees, and now Trans people are the target. Cruelty is the point, and the sooner we realise that and the louder we say it, the better it will be for the trans and non-binary people who occupy spaces in our communities, workplaces, churches, and our homes. I have no doubt in my mind that we will look back at this moment in a generation’s time in shame as a dark step backwards for human rights, but by then it will already be too late for less than one per cent of our population who have become the enemy of the tabloids.