Last year’s Eurovision winner Nemo is taking a stand for transgender rights in the wake of the UK Supreme Court’s unanimous ruling that trans women are not legally women under the Equalities Act.
The Swiss artist - the first nonbinary winner of Eurovision - posted details on social media for how people in the UK can contact members of parliament to protest the Supreme Court’s ruling that will exclude transgender women from women’s toilets, hospital wards and sports teams.
Indeed, the ruling earlier this month means that transgender women with a gender recognition certificate (GRC) can be excluded from single-sex spaces.
“A big thing for me is talking about my queer experience through my music but also contextualizing it in that way, but then also just standing up for what I believe in,” they said in an interview with AP, explaining their need to contribute. “And not being afraid to speak up and encouraging others to speak up as well.”
Nemo called the ruling of Britain’s highest court an “attack on trans+ rights” which will “impact the whole community.”
“It’s a very tough time like emotionally, as a trans person,” Nemo said. “It’s hard when there’s so much pushback on something and you’re just like, the only thing you wanna do is being able to live and be yourself, not having to worry, not having to hide. And if that’s not given, it’s like, how do we even … what can you do?”
Nemo added they don’t feel like trans rights are going backwards and acknowledged that sometimes things get worse before they get better.
“I have so much hope that things are generally moving forward,” they said. “I think people are generally ready for empathy and for understanding each other.
Britain’s highest court defines a woman for anti-discrimination purposes as someone born biologically female, noting that transgender people remain protected from discrimination.
However, trans groups said the decision would undermine their rights.
Prominent figures in the LGBT+ community have been calling on charities to speak out on the ruling, and doctors at the British Medical Association have condemned the ruling, dubbing it “biologically nonsensical” and “scientifically illiterate”.
They argue that a straightforward binary divide between sex and gender “has no basis in science or medicine while being actively harmful to transgender and gender-diverse people”.
Additionally, the UK's only ever judge to publicly say they are transgender is planning to take the UK government to the European Court of Human Rights over the ruling.
Dr Victoria McCloud, who stepped down from court last year, said the judgement violated her human rights and she felt "contained and segregated".
She said the court had failed to consider human rights arguments that would have been put by trans people and the judgement.
Speaking to The Guardian, Dr McCloud said the basis of her action was that “the Supreme Court refused to hear me, or my evidence, to provide them with information about the impact on those trans people affected by the judgment and failed to give any reasons”.
She added: “Those are two basic premises of normal justice. There were protest groups speaking on behalf of women in this court case, but ordinary women were not actually represented as a whole.”
“The disabled were not represented, and now we’re seeing the Conservatives saying that trans people have got to use the disabled loos, which impacts the lives of disabled people. The impacts of all of this have not been dealt with.”
She added that rather than bringing clarity, the judgement had “brought chaos”.
