TRANSGENDER people must accept a perceived reduction in their rights after a landmark judgment by the Supreme Court ruled that women are defined by biology, a UK human rights commissioner has said.
Speaking at a debate about the repercussions of April’s ruling by the Supreme Court, Akua Reindorf said trans people have been misled and “lied to over many years” about what their rights actually were.
Reindorf, a barrister who is one of eight commissioners at the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) and is drawing up the official post-ruling guidance, added that there “has to be a period of correction” and believes the fault lay with trans rights lobbyists.
Reindorf was reportedly speaking in a personal capacity, but has been criticised by the director of the trans campaign group TransActual who said the commissioner’s remarks were profoundly unhelpful.
Human rights campaign groups Liberty and Amnesty have also called on the EHRC to safeguard the rights of trans people and to make sure they are properly considered when it draws up guidance for public bodies on how to implement the changed legal landscape.
Speaking at an event organised by the London School of Economics law school, Reindorf argued that the impact of the ruling was clear.
Reindorf condemned what she called “this huge farce with organisations up and down the country wringing their hands and creating working groups and so on, and people in society worrying that they will have nowhere to go to the toilet”.
Asked by an audience member about worries the ruling could reduce the rights of trans people, another panellist, the barrister Naomi Cunningham, reportedly said trans people “will have to give way”.
Cunningham added: “It can’t be helped, I’m afraid.”
Reindorf then agreed, adding: “Unfortunately, young people and trans people have been lied to over many years about what their rights are.
“It’s like Naomi said – I just can’t say it in a more diplomatic way than that.
“They have been lied to, and there has to be a period of correction, because other people have rights.”
Reindorf said her comments reflected the fact that before the ruling, the law had been commonly misunderstood because pressure groups argued that trans people who self-identified should be treated as their identified sex, when this was in fact just the case for people with a gender recognition certificate (GRC).
Reindorf added that the Supreme Court decided that this mix of different rights made the Equality Act unworkable and called it “the catalyst for many to catch up, belatedly, with the fact that the law never permitted self-ID in the first place”.
She said: “The fact is that, until now, trans people without GRCs were being grievously misled about their legal rights.
“The correction of self-ID policies and practices will inevitably feel like a loss of rights for trans people.
“This unfortunate position is overwhelmingly a product of the misinformation which was systematically disseminated over a long period by lobby groups and activists.”
In April, the EHRC released interim, non-statutory advice about how to interpret the ruling, which set out that transgender people should not be allowed to use toilets of the gender they live as, and that in some cases they cannot use toilets of their birth sex.
Several critics have since called the advice oversimplistic, with legal campaign groups saying they plan on challenging the verdict.
Chiara Capraro, head of gender justice at Amnesty International UK, said: “The EHRC has the duty to uphold the rights of everyone, including all with protected characteristics. We are concerned that it is failing to do so and is unhelpfully pitting the rights of women and trans people against each other.”
Akiko Hart, Liberty’s director, said: “Any updated guidance from the EHRC must respect and uphold the rights of everyone in society. The Supreme Court’s judgment was very narrow, and there are a lot of very legitimate questions about how it’s implemented that must be carefully considered.”
Jane Fae, a director of the trans campaign group TransActual, rejected Reindorf’s argument, stating: “The characterisation of what was previously a widely held view both by the EHRC as well as by civil servants and lawyers working in the field of equality as ‘lying’ is profoundly unhelpful.
“Prior to the ruling of the Supreme Court in April, trans people just wanted to live their lives within the framework as it was understood.
“‘Activism’ has only really come into being over the last few years in response to a never-ending campaign designed to deprive trans people of rights.”
A spokesperson for the EHRC said: “Akua Reindorf KC spoke at this event in a personal capacity. This was made clear at the event and in the video recording published online.
“As Britain’s equality regulator, the Equality and Human Rights Commission upholds and enforces the Equality Act 2010 to ensure everyone is treated fairly, consistent with the act.
“Our board come from all walks of life and bring with them a breadth of skills and experience. This helps us take impartial decisions, which are always based on evidence and the law.”
