The supreme court has made a mockery of gender recognition. Our politicians must not allow the EHRC to further shatter trans lives
T
he supreme court judgment on the application of the 2010 Equality Act has rendered the UK’s system of legal gender recognition entirely hollow. It has ruled that men like me who have gender recognition certificates are defined as women in equality law, which applies to organisations ranging from workplaces to public services and sporting bodies. Vice versa for trans women.
For context, the Gender Recognition Act 2004 was passed after the European court of human rights ruled that the “intermediate zone”, between two sexes, in which trans people were then forced to exist was – and, crucially, remains – unlawful. Under the Gender Recognition Act, I am male “for all purposes”, but the supreme court decided this is not the case under the Equality Act. In effect, it is not the case in public.
Having run what human rights organisations criticised as an unusually short six-week public consultation, the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) will soon update its code of practice about how this legal interpretation of the Equality Act will be applied. This will then go to parliament to be approved by ministers, as things stand, with no opportunity for debate.
