Trans people ‘lied to over their rights to enter female-only spaces'
Trans people have been 'lied to over many years' over their rights to enter female-only spaces, a senior member of Britain's equality watchdog has said.
Akua Reindorf, one of eight commissioners at the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), said transgender people had been misled about their entitlements and there 'has to be a period of correction' to recognise the women's right to single-sex spaces.
Ms Reindorf made the comments at a debate about the Supreme Court ruling that the word 'sex' in the Equality Act refers only to biological sex, and not to a person's gender identity.
The ruling confirmed it was lawful for female-only sports teams to exclude trans women and for trans people to be barred from lavatories and changing rooms for the opposite sex. This was later backed up by interim guidance from the EHRC.
Asked by an audience member about concerns that the ruling could roll back the rights of trans people, Naomi Cunningham, a barrister and panellist at the debate, said trans people 'will have to give way', adding: 'It can't be helped, I'm afraid.'
Ms Reindorf, speaking next, agreed, saying: '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.'
Self-ID 'never permitted'
Ms Reindorf, also a barrister and speaking in a personal capacity, said she believed the fault lay with trans lobbyists.
Before the Supreme Court ruling, the law was commonly misunderstood, she said, blaming pressure groups that argued that trans people who self-identified should be treated in line with their preferred gender identity, when that was only the case for people with a gender recognition certificate (GRC).
She said the Supreme Court ruling was 'the catalyst for many to catch up, belatedly, with the fact that the law never permitted self-ID in the first place'.
She added: '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.'
Speaking at the event, organised by the London School of Economics law school, Ms Reindorf said the impact of the Supreme Court ruling was very clear.
She 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'.
Restoring women's rights
She was backed by JK Rowling, the author of Harry Potter, who accused trans lobby groups of 'lying about what the law said'.
Ms Reindorf added trans lobby groups argued trans women – who she called 'trans-identified men' – were entitled to the same rights as women under the law.
'This false interpretation, which removed sex-based rights from women and girls and gave trans-identified men additional rights, may have been imposed upon large sections of society, but it was always illegal, as countless legal experts and grassroots women's groups fought to have recognised.
'The Supreme Court restored to women rights [what] they'd lost in practice. Trans-identified men lost nothing in law, because they'd never had the rights they claimed they had ... Nothing has been taken from trans-identified people except a false belief, and women have simply regained what they should have had all along.'
But Chiara Capraro, the head of gender justice at Amnesty International UK, criticised Ms Reindorf's comments.
She 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.'
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