On Wednesday 16th April 2025 the UK Supreme Court made a ruling which stated that the term ‘woman’ under the Equality Act should be ‘based on a biological understanding of sex characteristics’. Many human rights and trans advocacy groups expressed concerns about the way in which this might negatively impact trans folk.

In public discussions, at least in the UK, the issue of trans identities often seems to be reduced to a ‘debate’. Rather than a discourse about how we best ensure trans people have access to things like good healthcare, dignity and recognition and rights under the law, narratives often centre on if we should allow trans people to have those things. With this background, many of us may find it difficult to bring up these topics with people around us, even if we recognise the importance of social justice and the role that trans rights plays in that. But having these conversations is a really important part of change. Here are some suggestions of ways of bringing up and challenging transphobia – for use down the pub, at the dinner table or your next family get-together.

“It makes me uncomfortable that policy and laws are being made in the UK about trans rights and gender affirming healthcare without the involvement of trans people themselves.”

Many notably anti-trans groups made written or oral arguments to the Supreme Court in this case. The case was brought by a group which explicitly says that trans women are not women and can also be characterised as generally hostile to trans folk. The Good Law project has written a good piece about this, and also pointed out that even those defending the case are not themselves trans. Trans voices were simply not heard, let alone centered, in a judgement which very much relates to trans experiences and treatment in law.

Sadly, this seems to becoming a standard way of making policy and law around issues directly affecting trans people in the UK. Critics of the Cass Review, written to advise on the care of trans youth, point to the explicit exclusion of trans people in key roles – particularly that it excluded transgender youth in a review that was explicitly about their care.

There is a saying from disability activism, ‘Nothing about us, without us’ -the idea that marginalised groups need to be included in decisions that involve them. In the UK, we seem to be facing a growing body of policy and law made about trans people which not only does not regard or respect trans identities, but also does not even bother to listen to any basic trans representations.

“I find it worrying that people are trying to define something as personal and private as gender identity for everyone based on biology. This feels limiting for loads of different people – including those who aren’t necessarily trans but whose bodies don’t conform to biological sex and gender stereotypes.”

The UK Supreme Court’s ruling is said to back a ‘biological definition’ of what it means to be woman. I am someone who is AFAB (assigned female at birth) and usually opts to use the women’s options if presented with binary gendered options in public – for example using changing rooms or bathrooms. As such, I am very concerned that the power to survey and police women’s bodies will extend to people like me, as well as being terrible for trans women.

Because something this ruling conveniently ignores is that fundamentally and overwhelmingly, we use social conventions and not biology to assess what someone’s gender is. I don’t show my passport when I use the ladies’ loos in at work or in public places. I don’t show an ultrasound of my womb in the gym at the door to the women’s changing rooms. And like a vast majority of people in the world, I’ve never even had my sex chromosomes tested. In fact, there is a – small but theoretically possible – chance that if I did, I would not have female ‘XX’ chromosomes as an AFAB person. For many years we have been assessing gender based on social constructs, not individual biology, when it comes to accessing public gendered spaces.

The ruling ignores this fact. In doing so, it empowers people to scrutinise and potentially challenge people using women’s spaces. With increasing hostility to trans women, cis-gendered women are reporting being harassed and made to feel uncomfortable when accessing women’s public toilets. This is particularly true of women who are marginalised in some way – for example, visibly queer and/or Black women. That is often because widely held beliefs about what it is to be an ‘ideal woman’ are rooted in ideas of white-supremacy and heteronormativity. We can see this really clearly when women athletes such as Imane Khalif or Caster Semenya have their bodies and gender identity disrespectfully and repeatedly questioned, despite being AFAB. I have heard the artist Travis Alabanza, a non-binary dramaturg and author, describe this surveillance of women’s bodies in public spaces by transphobic attitudes as, ‘the patriarchy getting everyone to do its hard work.’

Trans women exist, and as such, have the right to basic safety and dignity as a bare minimum. Rules which seek to question and police their bodies restrict this right, reinforcing harmful misconceptions of gender identity for trans and non-trans people alike.

“I am concerned about the way that the media is using the phrase ‘women’s safety’ is used to justify laws and policies which exclude trans people. It implies that trans folk are inherently dangerous. I am also suspicious that this is often targeted towards trans women specifically, often ignoring the existence of trans men or non-binary folks. This seems like plain-old misogyny.”

Although this ruling will likely have a negative impact on the lives of many trans folk, its specifically seems to focus on trans women, using the language of ‘women’s safety’ Trans women are portrayed as harmful. In doing this, a marginalised group becomes further othered, stigmatized and ostracised.

Whilst trans masculine folk definitely can and do experience transphobia, this relentless focus on trans women feels like a specific kind of misogyny and sexism – trans-misogyny. An intersectional-feminist approach recognises that to build a truly progressive movement, we need to acknowledge and understand the different aspects of identity and challenge all of these to effectively build change. We can’t focus on the rights and needs of a privileged few – a critique leveled at white feminism. When transphobic groups like For Scotland Women challenge the rights of trans women, purporting to speak for all women, they are acting in direct opposition of this intersectionality.

“I notice that JK Rowling heavily uses her platform to say harmful things about trans people and also uses her fortune from the Harry Potter franchise to fund transphobic actions.”

The author JK Rowling donated £70,000 to the anti-trans group which took this case to the Supreme Court, directly funding the legal costs of bringing the case. This is perhaps not surprising as she has repeatedly uses her platform to say hateful things about trans people. She also publicly criticises and attacks those who try to use trans inclusive language and practices – including cis women.

So we find ourselves in the position where a famous millionaire is using the proceeds of her art to fund hate against a marginalised community. This doesn’t feel like a fair fight. As such, it is impossible to ‘separate the art from the artist’. Money from the Harry Potter franchise has directly gone to actions that harm trans people. We need to be talking about and recognising this more.

“I am alarmed that the UK is taking such a drastically different approach to trans rights and healthcare from other countries.”

If you read the headlines from the British press right now, you would get the impression that the establishment view does not support trans identities. However, the UK is very out of step with most of its neighbours when it comes to trans rights. The UK Supreme Court ruling questions the legitimacy of trans legal identities. Meanwhile, last month Germany became the latest European country to adopt trans self-ID. This means that, while in the UK a majority of men have decided that biology makes a woman, 12 EU countries have literally made it the law that someone’s legal gender is based on what they express it to be.

Whilst there are other countries which are hostile to trans folk – notably the United States under a second Trump Administration – the UK compares unfavourably to many, many other countries on various measures of trans rights and freedoms.