Dear Members of Parliament,
We are writing to you with the hope that you will see the injustices being done and finally take a stand against the removal of the rights that trans people in the UK currently have access to. Silence and inaction is no longer an option, and will be taken as an indication of hostility towards the transgender community.
The illegitimate Hodge Ruling from the Supreme Court last week was the final step too far. A ruling conducted by a judge with a known anti-LGBT history fuelled by his religious beliefs, who flatly denied trans people a voice in the hearing with the deliberate intention of overstepping his judicial boundaries, a ruling that blatantly lied about the application of how âsexâ was defined in EA2010, and was done so in the service of a corrupt establishment intent on destroying the lives of transgender people in the UK.
The whole ruling is beyond corrupt, and represents a gross miscarriage of justice that needs to be independently investigated by the international courts.
This ârulingâ is already being used far beyond its own stated restrictions of applicability to effectively render both legal gender recognition (GRA2004) and the Equality Act (EA2010) completely worthless when it comes to protecting trans people, being pushed by the transphobic head of the discredited and laughably named Equality and Human Rights Commission, aided and abetted by known transphobic activist commissioners on its board, primarily Alasdair Henderson & Akua Reindorf.
We will state plainly - this ruling effectively means transgender people cannot live our lives in the UK at all, and illegitimately overrides the ECHR court ruling of Goodwin vs UK which forced the then Labour UK Government to enact the Gender Recognition Act 2004.
This, and previous governments already have a long and sordid history of abusing transgender people while claiming we âdeserve dignity and respectâ, while your policies and refusal to act actively harm and kill us. This and multiple previous governments are guilty of breaching Public Sector Equality Duty, the Nolan Principles, the Equality Act 2010 and the Human Rights Act, as well as multiple breaches of UN Human Rights principles and Rights of the Child, relegating the UKs transgender citizens to the status of 3rd class âunpersonsâ - and we will no longer stand for these abuses.
You may have noted the peaceful demonstrations against the ruling, which were conducted over the Easter Weekend. The demonstration in London alone was estimated to be attended by more than twenty five thousand people.
As a community we are no longer prepared to limit ourselves to discussion on the issues affecting us - issues that have been too long ignored by Governments and abusive political parties who believe they can ride roughshod over our lives.
The previous status quo was a compromise we tolerated out of fear. That ends now. Since even those meager protections are now being stripped away by a handful of people who hate us beyond reason, as a community we are now presenting a list of non-negotiable demands for immediate action:
Rights and Protections
- GRA 2004 must be amended with immediate effect to allow for legal self declaration of gender without the need for a medical diagnosis or reports. This should also include full legal recognition for non-binary, intersex people and under 18s, complete removal of the spousal veto, and deletion of the list of GRC holders.
- Removal of all sex or gender based exemptions from the Equality Act 2010 in relation to gender reassignment.
- Addition of restrictions to the protected characteristic of âReligion and Beliefâ to ensure that this avenue can never be used to strip other protected characteristics of rights ever again.
- References to sex or gender on marriage applications and certificates should be removed.
- References to âfatherâ and âmotherâ should be replaced with gender neutral terms on birth certificates.
- Driving Licences should cease to encode sex or gender in any form.
- Passports should offer âXâ as a sex or gender marker option for those who want it.
- Anti-Trans language and rhetoric should be legally classified as hate speech, including the deliberate misgendering of transgender people. This should also include making it illegal for the UK Press and Media to incite moral panics in order to protect all minority groups from the perpetration of lies, misinformation and disinformation. If this cannot be done as part of regulating hate speech then it should be enacted as a form of press regulation, which is currently highly inadequate.
- Hate Groups, such as Sex Matters, LGB Alliance and For Woman Scotland should be labelled by the Government as such and stripped of charity status.
- Gender neutral facilities to be required in all public buildings for those who want them.
- The rights of binary trans men and trans women and non-binary people to use all âsingle sex spacesâ that align with our experienced sex or gender, or that we feel most comfortable in.
- A legal right to gender affirmative healthcare on the NHS established, with a legal duty for treatment to be started within the NHS constitutional limit of 18 weeks. This should include the right for under 18s to transition medically and regardless of how their parents feel.
- Cosmetic genital surgery on intersex babies to be banned.
- The formation of a new, specific class of MP for minority groups, starting with transgender and non-binary people, to ensure we are no longer excluded from the parliamentary process and decisions that affect our lives.
- A legal duty to consult and seek agreement with minority communities before taking actions or making changes that affect them.
- Reestablishment of the Governments LGBT Advisory Board, and its existence codified in law.
- Establishment of a Government Transgender, Non-Binary & Intersex Advisory Board, and its existence codified in law.
- A duty for the British Government to offer asylum to trans and nonbinary people from countries oppressing them, starting with the United States of America.
- The right for transgender prisoners to be housed in accordance with their lived, experienced sex or gender, limited only where the offender is known to be violent or a violent sex offender, where the establishment of specific third spaces should be used.
- Protection from conversion abuse practices, including the misnamed pseudo-medical âGender Exploratory Therapyâ, which is merely a means of delaying or denying access to gender affirming care.
- The right to participate in all sports, including at elite level, in line with our lived, experienced sex or gender, using the current International Olympic Committee guidelines as a basis for inclusion.
Healthcare
- The illegitimate and discriminatory ban on Puberty Blockers reverted immediately.
- A full, independent inquiry conducted into the formation and running of the fraudulent Cass Review, and the Cass Review to be disavowed as the fraudulent, political propaganda that it is.
- Gender Affirming treatment to be provided on an informed consent basis for those over 18, and those under 18 who are Gillick competent.
- A legal duty for GPs to initiate and provide ongoing gender affirming care & treatment to transgender people on an informed consent basis, to replace so called âgender clinicsâ over the next 2 years.
- An immediate extending of surgical provision for all types of gender affirming surgery, and the provision to allow the use of private providers, including overseas providers at cost to the NHS until domestic provision is adequately established.
- Extension of available gender affirming treatments available on the NHS, including but not limited to:
- Breast augmentation where HRT doesnât provide sufficient growth.
- 200 hours of electrolysis
- Facial surgery where desired
- Any gender non-conforming surgeries
- Full compensation paid to any transgender people who have been forced to pay for private treatment due to the failures of the NHS to address the issues faced in accessing gender affirming care.
Public Duties & Bodies
- A full investigation into the anti-trans politicisation of the NHS, coupled with the removal of anti-trans policy makers such as Wes Streeting.
- A full investigation into the anti-trans politicisation of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, coupled with the removal of anti-trans policy makers such as Kishwer Falkner, Alasdair Henderson and Akua Reindorf.
- A full investigation into the anti-trans politicisation of the civil service and the removal of those involved, including the disbanding of so called Sex Equality and Equity Networks (SEEN).
- A full investigation into the anti-trans politicisation of the Charity Commission, which legitimised the anti-trans hate groups Sex Matter & LGB Alliance.
- A full investigation into the anti-trans politicisation of the Ministry of Justice and the Judiciary, and the removal of those involved.
- The establishment of an extended Conflict of Interest process for all public and political bodies, including MPs and Ministers, that declares both religious and âphilosophical beliefâ.
- A full investigation into the abuse of the political appointments process employed by the UK Government to enable the anti-trans politicisation of the establishment over the last 10 years.
- A full investigation into the conduct of and systemic incitement of hatred by the UK Press and Media against the trans community.
These demands are compiled from various reports conducted by previous UK Government and Committee reports that already highlight the multiple injustices we face, alongside corrective measures to restore the rights we have already lost and protect us from harm in the future.
The issues affecting the lives of transgender people in the UK have been too long ignored, and until now we have been patient in attempting to work within the system to establish necessary changes, despite continued lies and abuses by the state.
That has now changed. We are no longer willing to compromise where our lives and rights to exist are concerned, and will not be pushed back to the margins or society or segregated in any way. Nothing less than full inclusion is acceptable.
Transgender people have always existed, we are not going away, and we will not comply with any laws that remove our rights or restrict our lives.
Regards,
The Aggrieved
- Ryan Castellucci
- Chris Riley
- Annette Walker
- Fran Moldaschl
- Jemma Fry
- Karin Celestine
- Alex Patterson
- Clem Benfield
- Phoebe Murphy
- Kai Woods
- Peter Shillito
- Connor Biggin
- Poe Hughes
- Alexa Devreux-Swift
- Willow Liquorice
- Penelope Friday
- Erin Hardisty
- Gianni Ceccarelli
- Trans Advocacy and Complaint Collective UK
- Philippa East
- Dale Aspinall
- Amy Stubbs
- Emily Rogers
- Rose Johnson