Protect the dolls

It feels longer, but it was only in 2025 that the Supreme Court ruled in the For Women Scotland case that the protections in the Equality Act 2010 apply only to women who were born female. Although their judgment was limited, and they stressed that trans rights should continue to be respected, the attack on trans rights has intensified.

The Equality and Human Rights Commission, which should support and protect minorities, issued first interim and later final guidance stating that public single-sex spaces should be restricted to those of the appropriate biological sex, regardless of how they identify. Many organisations have implemented this policy. They don’t need toilet police to enforce it: the chilling effect of the court judgment is enough.

On the sports field, the ref has blown the whistle. Trans women footballers are now permanently offside. The FA has banned trans women from women-only football teams. This is so unpopular at the grassroots level. I have not seen anything from women-only football teams welcoming the decision. Many organisations have protested. Not least Goal Diggers FC, whose teams welcome both women and non-binary players. They delivered a letter of protest to the FA amid much publicity.

And the court judgment itself is beginning to unravel. What does biological sex mean anyway? The world is not limited to people with XX and XY chromosomes. Science has shown us that other combinations are available. Also the judgment leaves intersex people in limbo. Apparently there are as many intersex people in the world as there are redheads – 1.7 million of each. Never mind that this is more interex people than I thought and fewer redheads. It’s not a negligible category. Intersex includes people with XY chromosomes (male) who also have Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome. This condition impairs their genital development so that they end up with female rather than male genitalia. Where are they supposed to go when nature calls?

And our scientific understanding of embryo development has changed also. Different parts of the embryo develop at different times and can be subject to different hormonal streams. The genitals develop earlier than the brain. It's possible for the genitals to develop on male lines and the brain to develop on female lines. I believe this is what happened to me.

The Supreme Court also took no account of the human rights implications of their judgment for trans people. Let’s not forget that the Gender Recognition Act 2004 was passed to protect the human rights of trans people who could not marry someone of the opposite biological sex because the existing law did not recognise them as women. The 2004 Act gave them the status of women for all legal purposes. In relation to Equality Act protections, their status has been curtailed.

Victoria McCloud, a trans judge, is taking the UK government to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg on the ground that the judgment infringes her Convention rights. Article 6 guarantees the right to a fair trial. Last year she sought leave to join the litigation in the For Women Scotland case, arguing that it could significantly affect legal protections for trans women, but this was refused.

Unlike the Supreme Court, the court in Strasbourg will consider fully the human rights implications. If it rules against the UK government, then the government will be required to introduce legislation to remedy the breach of human rights whether it likes it or not. This will apply whatever government is in power – even if we end up with a government led by the Reform Party. That is the consequence of the UK’s membership of the Council of Europe, which requires the UK to remain a signatory of the European Convention on Human Rights and to comply with its requirements. In effect, the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg is a superior court to the UK Supreme Court. 

The only way out of this would be for the UK to leave the Council of Europe. We would be keeping company with those other international pariahs who are outside the tent: Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan… and the Vatican City. Not that this seems to bother Reform, Restore, and the Conservative Party. As Shakespeare wrote in The Tempest: ‘Hell is empty and all the devils are here.’

What can we trans people do in the face of this onslaught on our rights? We should protest in whatever way is open to us. Personally I now always use the Ladies when out as Violet. The EHRC guidance does not have the force or law and I regard myself as free to ignore it.

As we are now seeing, there is one very good way to highlight the absurdity and cruelty of the Supreme Court judgment.

Trans men, your time has come!

We in the queer community are one big family and we need to stand together and support each other. The effect of the judgment is that trans men – FTM transsexuals who were born as biological women but who now identify as male – are no longer allowed to use male toilets.

Well then. It’s time to man up. I call on trans men everywhere to descend in numbers on female toilet facilities, looking as masculine as possible – bring out those Calvin Kleins – and brandishing copies of their original birth certificates highlighting their female identity. (Although there is no legal requirement to do this.) Take a group photo outside the female toilets and send it to the Daily Mail. Enter the toilets and do your business. And stay there. Do not threaten the cis women who come in, just look at them in a masculine kind of way. I guarantee that the women will leave in search of the nearest gender-neutral facilities, which will of course be locked.

Because, despite what gender-critical campaigners say, trans women are no threat to biologically-female toilet users. Trans women look like, feel like, and act like biological women, and their over-riding aim in female toilets is to do their business and get in and out as quickly as possible. There are no recorded instances of assault committed by trans woman against cis women in toilets. The real threat to biological women comes from predatory and abusive men.

And when you’ve finished, apply to join any women-only sporting team (if your testosterone levels are low enough). Become a member of For Women Scotland, if you’re Scottish, turn up at their meetings and speak in their debates. 

You are entitled to do all this, because the law regards you as female, even though you identify as male. Let’s see what the tabloid media make of that. Also the far-right, centre-right or right-leaning political parties (Reform, Conservatives, Labour). It’s time to protect the dolls.