Build resistance in workplaces as government ramps up attacks on trans+ rights

On the trans+ liberation march in central London after the Supreme Court ruling (Photo: Guy Smallman)

Bridget Phillipson, Labour women and equalities minister, has thrown trans+ people under the bus.

She has backed the Equality and Human Rights Commission’s (EHRC) guidelines which ramp up attacks on trans+ rights in the wake of the Supreme Court’s ruling last year.

The ruling sparked mass protests last April when it ruled that the legal definition of a woman in the Equality Act 2010 is based on “biological sex.”

The government has updated the EHRC’s guidelines to institutionalise transphobia across public institutions. 

It is now lawful to refuse a trans woman entry to a women-only association, as membership is “based on sex”.

Access to single-sex services must be based exclusively on “biological sex.”

The guidance notes that banning trans+ people from using facilities will put them at risk of harm. But it says that there “should” be an alternative trans+ people can use.

The new code states trans+ people can be excluded from hospital wards if they are single sex. Under current NHS guidance, trans+ patients can be accommodated on single-sex wards based on the gender they identify as.

The new guidance states that it would not “usually be proportionate” to exclude a trans man from obstetrics and gynaecology outpatient services.

However, the code says the hospital “can refuse to treat them” and also “refuse to adjust the way in which it provides the service”.

It effectively bans trans+ people from playing professional sport, or even joining amateur clubs.

“Trans people should not be included in single-sex or separate-sex competitions for the sex with which they identify,” it says.

The new regulations acknowledge this “may impose significant limitations” on the ability of trans+ people to participate in sporting activities at all. 

Even worse, the code encourages the harassment of anyone who doesn’t conform to gender stereotypes. It stipulates that it is legitimate to ask someone to confirm their sex. 

Such “concerns” could be raised by an “individual’s physique or physical appearance, behaviour or concerns raised by other service users.”

If someone is asked to confirm their sex, it should be done “as sensitively as possible, and must respect their privacy”, the code states. But this is simply a green light for every transphobe and homophobe to harass who they chose. 

Sky, a trans woman from Manchester, told Socialist Worker, “Sadly, I’m not surprised by the guidance. It’s just making life harder for trans+ people and echoing what Donald Trump did in his first term and continues to do.

“The guidance can’t be legally enforced but it will make people self-enforce. It’s not about legal rulings–it’s about creating hostility to trans people and making them self-segregate.

“This talk about ‘third spaces’ for trans+ people–that’s just never going to happen. 

“This is Labour pandering to the far right, and people like Posie Parker who spoke at the Tommy Robinson rally this month.

“It means people will start policing spaces and challenging people based on their clothes or haircuts.”

Trade unionists have to organise at work to demand bosses don’t adopt the new guidance–and if they do, defy it.

Union leaders can give confidence to worker if they declare that the union will back anyone who does so.