Resist attack on trans+ rights in workplaces

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

Trans+ rights were under attack in the law courts this week, but resistance is pushing back some transphobic government guidelines. 

The Supreme Court’s transphobic ruling last year gave the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) and bosses the cover to ban trans+ people from single-sex spaces. 

On Friday, a high court judge threw out a legal challenge to EHRC’s transphobic guidance on which workplace toilets and changing rooms trans+ people can use. This means bosses can ban trans women from women’s toilets.

The EHRC issued guidance last April and withdrew it six months later. But Judge Justice Jonathan Swift denied that the EHRC guidelines would prevent trans+ people from using the facilities they choose. 

But that is precisely what the guidelines mean–trans women forced to use men’s facilities.

Sky, a trans woman and NEU education union member, told Socialist Worker, “The guidance on trans+ people not being able to use toilets at work, it really implies that trans+ people are a threat to the population

“What are trans+ people in a workplace supposed to do? Hold it in all day? Third spaces do not exist. 

“The reality is that lots of people won’t follow the rules.

“But it makes work environments more precarious for trans+ people. It opens us up to transphobia from managers, for example. Trans+ people are going to avoid certain jobs, which might pay better, but where they won’t be supported.

“We’ve been having this battle over toilets for a decade. It is bizarre–it’s based on dodgy science and culture war talking points. 

“Trans+ people are far more likely to be harassed in toilets than anyone else”. 

On the same day the court threw out the appeal, the Department of Education issued its provisional statutory guidance on supporting trans+ children and young people at school.

The new guidance overturns guidance from 2023 which imposed a ban on any primary school-age children undertaking what is called social transitioning–using different pronouns and wearing different clothes.

The new guidance says such social transitioning will be very rare, particularly in primary schools–but it can happen.

The 2023 guidance stipulated that parents should always be informed if a child wants to transition. The new guidance acknowledges there could be cases “where involving parents or carers would constitute a greater risk to the child than not involving them”.

This is a small step forward, but socially transitioning students will not have access to toilets, changing rooms or residential accommodation designated for the opposite sex.

Sky said, “On the guidance in schools–it is welcome that the 2023 guidance has been scrapped. It is now okay to socially transition in primary school. 

“The whole idea of informing parents, in an ideal world, educators and parents would work together to support the child. But transphobic parents do exist. So it has to be up to the child to divulge information to parents.

“There is the underlying assumption that schools will secretly allow children to transition and not tell the parents. 

“The thing about transitioning slowly as school is that it creates the space for children to grow in confidence so they can approach their parents. 

“They have had to revise guidance several times–it shows there is a degree of panic in the ruling class. They don’t want thousands on the streets protesting. 

“Our big protests have actually pushed back against the government.

“But if you look at the United States–that’s what will happen here if we don’t resist and if Reform UK get in. 

“In the Gorton and Denton by-election, Reform UK put out leaflets which attack refugees and trans+ people in the same sentence. So we know what is on the horizon. 

“Our campaigning has forced a change in the guidance which is good–but we need more campaigning and protesting to change the whole vision of trans rights.”