HUNDREDS of protesters have gathered outside of the EHRC’s Glasgow offices to call for guidance that would exclude transgender people from toilets and other services to be scrapped.
Both sides of West George Street in the city were packed with activists calling for recognition of transgender rights.
Several placards called out UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer for his response to the recent Supreme Court ruling that defined “woman” under the Equality Act as based on biological sex.
The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) interim guidance, published less than two weeks after the judgement was handed down, said that trans women should not use women’s facilities and trans men should not use male facilities, as it would mean “they are no longer single-sex facilities”.
It continued: “In some circumstances the law also allows trans women (biological men) not to be permitted to use the men’s facilities, and trans men (biological woman) not to be permitted to use the women’s facilities.
“However where facilities are available to both men and women, trans people should not be put in a position where there are no facilities for them to use.”
It then went on to state a “mixed-sex toilet” should be provided alongside male and female facilities and it was “compulsory” for workplaces to provide single-sex facilities.
Campaigners could be heard telling the crowd this amounted to “segregation” of transgender people.
The guidance has previously been described as "authoritarian and cruel".
The crowd could also be heard chanting “Starmer out” and “Labour out”.
Others took aim at Harry Potter author JK Rowling, who has been vocal in her opposition to trans rights, while one said: “F*** your segregation, let us piss.”
Shouts could be heard calling for the EHRC’s chair, Baroness Kishwer Falkner, to be removed from her position.
Organiser Dr Kirstie Ken English (below) told The National that the EHRC guidance goes “farther ahead” than what the Supreme Court ruling said.
They explained: “Basically [it] would restrict the ways that trans people can exist in public spaces and segregate us from public spaces.
“Any women who could be suspected of potentially being a man could be harassed in public spaces based on this guidance.
“The guidance suggests that discrimination should be first and foremost, where that is not what the Supreme Court ruling says.”
They added: “This has been taken as free reign to discriminate against trans people.
“Trans people are a very small community. We are used as a punching bag because we're an easily distractible target, and we know that this is a divide and conquer technique.”
Ken English added that the EHRC guidance was “scientifically illiterate”, a claim backed by doctors from the British Medical Association (BMA).
Organisers have called on the public to write to the EHRC objecting to the guidance, contact their local MP and MSP and support trans groups.
Several speakers took to the steps outside of the EHRC Glasgow office on Friday afternoon.
Fiona Brittle, of the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS), told the crowd that there were members working within the EHRC who were “in solidarity” with the protestors.
She said: “It is impossible to divorce this for the culture war that is going on, which is being propagated by governments and by big business and by the media, in order to divide working class people against each other instead of aiming our anger and our fury, our justified fury, at the lack of public services, at the lack of investment in our healthcare system, and to turn that anger on each other instead of them, the people who actually have the power to make these decisions.”
The public reaction to the packed protest was mixed. While numerous cars beeped their horns in support as they passed through the street, and one white van driver called over one activist to sign a petition at a set of traffic lights, others could be heard shouting obscenities as they passed.
In April, the UK’s highest court rejected the Scottish Government’s arguments that the category of “woman” included both biological females and biological males who held a Gender Recognition Certificate (GRC).
The certificates allow trans people to change their sex on legal documents to their acquired gender. After anti-trans campaign group For Women Scotland, who took the case to court, failed repeatedly in the Scottish courts, the Supreme Court found in their favour.
As well as the EHRC guidance, the Scottish and English Football Associations recently announced trans women would be banned from taking part in the women’s game.
