Dear MP,
I write to you in LGBT+ history month about the EHRC and the news of the leaked guidance today.
This is very worrying and seems at odds with the Equality Act 2010. A point of view backed up in both statute and case law over the last ten years.
https://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Admin/2021/1623.html
As a trans woman if this guidance became official. Removing my existing rights. I would be at risk in both genders’ toilets outside my home. Limiting my options of participating in society. This is all against a backdrop of increased attacks on LGBT+ people. Something I have experienced myself.
and the news of the EHRC holding meetings with anti-trans groups
https://www.vice.com/en/article/wxdzwn/ehrc-trans-rights-leaked-emails
I’m sure you have seen the recent Council of Europe report. Naming the UK alongside Hungary, Poland, Russia and Turkey. As countries with “extensive and often virulent attacks on the rights of LGBT+ people”.
https://www.itv.com/news/2022-01-26/uk-named-alongside-russia-in-lgbt-hate-report-due-to-transphobia
Seeing the Labour party come out is a small positive light, against all this worrying news
https://www.vice.com/en/article/3abq78/we-need-to-make-the-uk-safer-for-trans-people-labour-says
Being a dual citizen of Ireland and the UK. I can’t help comparing the two countries. The difference is quite stark.
On Trans rights. Ireland brought in their own Gender recognition act 2015. Without the secretive, discriminatory and medicalised process we have in the UK. In the UK, we had a consultation in 2018, with the finding delayed for years and then ignored.
I hope you can receive from the Government and EHRC an explanation for the very dramatic change by the EHRC
Yours sincerely,
Zoe