Supreme Court judgment has left LGBTQ+ people feeling ‘angry, worried, hurt and uncertain’
Simon Blake, Stonewall CEO
It’s been a year of turbulence, challenge and change for the LGBTQ+ community across the UK and globally.
We have seen numerous examples of rights being challenged, contested and rolled back across the world.
Here in the UK, we have fallen down the global leaderboard on LGBTQ+ rights, and we are seeing hostility, discrimination and division more openly expressed.
Time and again I talk to people of my generation who are saying that despite how much progress has been made, the atmosphere surrounding LGBTQ+ rights feels horribly reminiscent of the past, and not in a good way.
LGBTQ+ rights, although hard won, remain fragile. We have seen several regressive actions in recent months. Funding for the LGBTQ+ movement globally has reduced and although the Welsh Government remains committed to its LGBTQ+ funding, across the UK funding for LGBTQ+ services is incredibly tight.
Prejudice
Prejudice towards marginalised groups is unacceptably high; hate crime data released this week shows that hate crime is on the rise and Stonewall data shows less than half of LGBTQ+ people feel safe holding their partners hand in public.
This anti-LGBTQ+ sentiment is crossing into some workplaces too. Some organisations are dialling down their diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) activity – and where they do remain committed to DEI principles, many are renaming activity or merging it into other departments. Some are seeing reduction in budgets.
The Supreme Court judgment on the meaning of woman and man in the Equality Act, in April this year, and the subsequent inadequate Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) consultation process on a new Statutory Code of Practice, has left the LGBTQ+ community, particularly trans and non-binary people, feeling angry, worried, hurt and uncertain.
The draft guidance introduces a hierarchy of rights and tiers safety concerns, implying that some LGBTQ+ peoples’ rights and safety are less important.
This is set against a backdrop of a growing division in attitudes towards refugees, asylum seekers and people of colour across Wales.
Union Jack
The Union Jack is being flown with a re-purposed meaning across the country to show that other marginalised communities are being demonised, along with the LGBTQ+ community. Sadly, we are now living in a world that feels more hostile for many people.
My second year as Stonewall CEO kicks off, like my first, advocating for the legislative change and political leadership we need, even more so in Wales as we look ahead to the Senedd elections next year.
In July we launched Stonewall’s new strategy: In courage and unity, is hope; which we will be launching in Cardiff with the Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice next week. Our vision is of a world where everyone, everywhere has equal rights. Central areas of our work are navigating turbulence, which reflects the times we live in right now – and shaping policy and we will be calling on members of the Senedd to continue to prioritise the commitments laid out in the LGBTQ+ Action Plan for Wales.
Sustainable and long-term change cannot be achieved by anyone alone. Wales has a great opportunity to lead sustainable, long term and inclusive change through engagement with the Wellbeing of Future Generations Act, recognising the necessity of a more equal Wales for everyone. Politicians from all parties play a vital role so we will be continuing to advocate for positive change with a wide range of politicians and policy makers.
Manifesto promises
The government in Westminster has yet to deliver on its election manifesto promises. In the summer the Prime Minister said he wants the UK to be a leader in LGBTQ+ rights; we simply haven’t yet seen the sustained commitment and political courage we need to advance LGBTQ+ equality across the UK. Over the past eight years we have been promised time and time again that a fully inclusive ban on conversion practices will be brought forward; and the Welsh Government has been vocal in its support highlighting it in the LGBTQ+ Action plan for Wales but we’ve yet to see a draft bill from Westminster.
The UK Government has committed to amend the Crime and Policing Bill to make LGBTQ+ and disability hate crimes aggravated offences, which will make a considerable difference to LGBTQ+ people in Wales. But it is not over the line yet. In Wales, we still do not have the long-awaited Trans Guidance for Schools.
Trust in governments and politicians is lacking and that makes it even more important that the needs, voices and realities of the LGBTQ+ community are represented in political debates and conversations. Our call to action for all politicians, especially as we look to the upcoming Senedd elections, is simple: we need moral courage and political leadership to reduce the social, economic and health inequalities that exist across our four nations in the LGBTQ+ community.
Hope
Despite the challenges there is also so much that gives us hope. There are parliamentarians in both houses who consistently stand up for the rights of the community. The thousands and thousands of people who volunteer their time to answer calls and emails, to run employee and other networks to organise – and attend – Pride events, to fundraise for LGBTQ+ causes – we saw this across Pride Cymru, Wrexham Pride and Pride in the Port that Stonewall attended this year.
We’ve had the pleasure of working with some amazing LGBTQ+ young people through our Cymru LGBTQ+ Future Leaders programme, which gives us real hope for the future of inclusive leadership here in Wales. We know that progress is possible; we’ve seen it happen, time and time again. I look forward to working with politicians and partners to make that possibility a reality.
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Suggest that if Stonewall had not been misrepresenting the law to public organisations for so many years, they wouldn’t now find themselves in such a tricky position. The Supreme Court judgment made it clear that men who call themselves women are not actually women and cannot therefore access women’s spaces and services. It also made it clear that men cannot access lesbian services as they aren’t lesbians either. Stonewall have been telling organisations (and Welsh Government) that they can, and they were wrong. It is extraordinary that they claim to represent lesbians, but have been advocating for non existent ‘rights’… Read more »
Absolutely. Stonewall are discredited. The court ruling is clear. Respect it.
A load of rich, right-wingers in the media decide to villify a tiny minority and you fell for it. Trans people were living as their authentic selves for decades and you weren’t bothered until you were told to be.
Which obviously begs the question! If Trans were living “authentically as themselves for decades” and others weren’t bothered, then why the identity politics bandwagon, fanaticism , absolutism and financial grifting by Stonewall, Mermaids etc. Reality, like gravity, has a habit of asserting itself. The lessons of this infantile debacle are still to be learnt.
All the stuff you describe *didn’t exist* until the right-wing media decided to categorise various things as such and you fell for it. The rest of Europe thinks the UK (and US) has lost its collective mind over the obsession with trans people.
And the idea of Stonewall being a strong ally to the trans community would come as quite a surprise to the trans community.
Anyway, just keep an eye on your credulity. It starts with trans obsession and before you know it you’re banging on about vaccines, 9/11 being an inside job and you’re shouting at hotels.
I think it’s important to recognize that The Supreme Court decision has NOT stated that trans-women are not women. This is a huge misinterpretation of what was actually said. The judgement is actually fairly restrictive, in that it states (paraphrase) because trans have their own protected rights that should be treated at least equal to women that there is space for both to exist separately. The judgement highlights how we have tried to short circuit the issue and prevent necessary spending to accommodate the rights of trans and instead forces the situation back to how it should have been. Trans… Read more »
Help me understand your second paragraph: Are you suggesting that separate toilets, swimming classes and prisons be provided for the tiny percentage of the population that are trans-men and a separate provision of the same facilities for the tiny percentage who are trans-women?
Regarding your third paragraph: Are you suggesting that objecting to biological males competing in women’s sport is bigotry? Or objecting to people with a penis being in a rape victim’s refuge is bigotry?
Hopefully I have misunderstood you on both points.
Obviously not a nice situation to look down on your body of one sex when your head tells you it wanted the other, but as with many problems in life it just has to be dealt with.
The law exists to prevent individuals causing harm to others, so no discrimination for something somebody had no choice on, but men should not walk into women’s changing rooms (or vice versa) and when the deceit goes to the ultimate the guilty have rightly gone to jail.
Yes, that’s right. We don’t need any nuance. Let’s just generalise all trans people as potential sex offenders. /s
Some men are sexual predators. The reason all men are barred from women’s spaces is that we don’t know which ones are and which ones aren’t.
Stonewall betrayed many people and provided cheap, inaccurate training to organisations who failed to quality check what they bought. Time Stonewall provided some real data on its community. The Census figures for trans people had to be corrected downwards. Now Stonewall is trying to regain its influence and income streams with a pretend hate campaign. It will be interesting to see how the retiring Justice Minister references the Supreme Court decision. Will she move on and let schools and parents and all of us behave with care and consideration towards one another. As one of the women who had to… Read more »
Stonewall are part of a network very (and far too) close to Welsh Government. Hopefully that will change next May, whoever wins power.
Very good points – both of you. Keep fighting and hopefully those in power (and those want it) will listen to women and adhere to the SC ruling. This is a huge issue.
LGBTQ+ people are not the same as people who claim to be a different sex to that attributed to them at birth. It is quite possible to champion the former but not the latter. The first requires people to be indifferent to a choice of sexual partners. The second requires one to accept that an opinion is more important than reality.
The other significant slant on this issue is that any woman who has previously been subjected by a male to some sort of sexual abuse is inevitably rather likely to be highly spooked at the prospect that sensitive spaces such as toilets and changing rooms might have to be shared with putative women who, notwithstanding, still look to all outward appearances like men.
In this context, any discomfort and anxiety on the part of women who’ve had that sort of experience strikes me as wholly understandable.