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EmailLast week’s Supreme Court ruling has reverberated across the world. Over the Easter weekend, there has been both jubilation and protest. As the dissection of the ruling begins, it feels like some have forgotten the importance of compassion and humanity.
We should remember that at the heart of this judgment are, practically speaking, roughly 15,500 individuals with a Gender Recognition Certificate (GRC). There are tens of thousands more who do not. Trans people are our families, friends, neighbours, and colleagues; we share our workplaces, our communities, our pubs, cafes and places of worship with them. They are worried and frightened by the legal implications of the ruling, and its unknown consequences.
It is already clear that this ruling, whether you welcome it or not, raises more questions than it answers. Legal rulings are always specific - and this one from the Supreme Court relates specifically to the Equality Act. But like all landmark rulings, however carefully framed, interpretations snowball fast.
The question we must now ask our politicians, our regulators, and our legal fraternity is where do we go from here? And how can we find a solution swiftly to ensure that a marginalised group, many of whom already felt unsafe, feel protected in light of the judgment?
The Lord Justice was extremely careful to clearly reiterate that trans people remain protected from discrimination and harassment under the law. In delivering the judgment, Lord Hodge warned that this should not be seen as a victory for one 'side' or the other. It is purported to be ‘clarification’ of how the Equality Act should be interpreted. We now need to understand whether it is indeed clarifying, what its full impact will be, and how it can be practically applied within our intersecting laws and across our places and spaces, and communities.
The Equality Act (2010) was a groundbreaking piece of legislation, reflecting our national beliefs that people should be protected, among other things, because of race, religion, age, disability or gender. It seeks to deliver in law what our society, at its best, hopes for all its citizens - dignity and protection.
Over the last fifteen years, the Equality Act has worked alongside a slightly older piece of legislation, the 2004 Gender Recognition Act (GRA) introduced by a Labour Government. In recent days, this Labour Government has reversed its position on trans people.
Last week’s ruling directly impacts trans people who under the GRA have gone through the lengthy process of obtaining a Gender Recognition Certificate (GRC), which makes someone’s acquired gender their legal gender. Although, of course, the ruling also has implications for trans people who have chosen for a myriad of personal reasons not to obtain a GRC. Individuals with a GRC – and indeed, without one - have likely spent years navigating difficult feelings about their bodies, navigated a series of challenging health processes and procedures to physically change their bodies, and then navigated the uncertainty of legal processes to be legally recognised. You do not have to agree, to demonstrate anything other than compassion for somebody who has been on that journey.
Globally the last decade has been extraordinary for all of us. We have lived through a global pandemic that limited our freedoms, changed our lives dramatically and took away our loved ones and our livelihoods. We are living in an economic period where many of us are worried about paying our bills. We worry about losing our jobs as AI develops; we are concerned about the safety of our children online and we are nervous about the increasing reports of conflict in countries that seem ever closer to us. Yet, as a society, it could be argued we have channelled some of that fear and worry into a fixation on the perceived impact of a marginalised group, members of which many people have never knowingly met and who just want to live their lives with dignity and respect as we all do.
We do not know what the full implications are for the Supreme Court’s judgment - either politically, legally or culturally. That’s why, at Stonewall, we will be taking the time to consider the ruling in its fullest sense and would caution others to do the same.
For example, what does it mean for the future of the Equality Act? What does it mean for the Gender Recognition Act? What does it now mean to have a Gender Recognition Certificate? What does it mean for other intersecting legislation currently going through Parliament?
We will be seeking practical answers about what this ruling means for trans people in their day-to-day lives. Like, what does it mean for a trans man with his young family in the swimming pool changing rooms? What does it mean for teenagers going on holiday abroad with their dad - or mum - who transitioned 15 years ago? What does it mean if you have a birth certificate with one gender and a passport with another? It will take time to work through, to understand and for further interpretations to come through the courts.
As this process happens, we at Stonewall will be trying to keep the lives of trans people, who have a huge amount of support, at the heart of our questions. We will also be asking people to remember the importance of compassion and remind them of the national beliefs that drove the creation of the Equality Act.
