Major LGBTQ+ organisations spark international review of the EHRC

February 11, 2022 6:28 AM

Following a week of revelations showing alarming hostility to trans rights within the UK's Equality and Human Rights Commission, a coalition of LGBTQ+ charities and human rights bodies have written to the United Nations to call for a Special Review of the ‘A’ status of EHRC as Great Britain’s National Human Rights Institution.

The reports, broken by Ben Hunte for Vice News, detail private meetings between the EHRC and anti trans groups, an exodus of staff alarmed at the anti-LGBT culture being adopted by senior leaders, and leaked documents that would advise organisations to bar most trans people from the single-sex spaces matching their gender, including toilets, hospital wards and changing rooms.

Earlier this year, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe identified the UK alongside Hungary, Poland, the Russian Federation and Turkey as countries of concern, condemning “the extensive and often virulent attacks on the rights of LGBTI people".

posted by death valley compound (21 comments total)

Props to Hunte and Vice News for performing better commitments to journalism and ethics than the BBC and most of the national newspapers combined.

Also worth underlining that the proposed guidelines change would be unlawful and impossible to enforce. But that doesn't stop our transphobic government from attempting it anyway.
posted by fight or flight at 6:54 AM on February 11, 2022 [19 favorites]

Worth noting that this is the same EHRC that found the Labour party under Corbyn guilty of three breaches of the Equality Act, leading to Corbyn's loss of the Labour whip under Starmer for saying the scale of the problem had been “dramatically overstated for political reasons” by opponents and the media.

The EHRC board members are Tory appointees however, and they're a funny lot.

A board member of the government’s equality watchdog has ‘liked’ or retweeted social media posts criticising Black Lives Matters protesters and describing the words misogynist and homophobe as “highly ideological propaganda terms” in the latest controversy to beset the EHRC, the Guardian can reveal.

Alasdair Henderson, who led the Equality and Human Rights Commission inquiry into Labour party antisemitism this year, also liked a tweet decrying “offence-taking zealots” who accused Roger Scruton of antisemitism, Islamophobia and homophobia, and one by Douglas Murray, who once called for Muslim immigration to Europe to be banned.
[...]
Henderson is the latest commissioner whose views have come under scrutiny after the announcement that David Goodhart and Jessica Butcher would be appointed to the board by Liz Truss, the equalities minister.

Goodhart has praised the government’s “hostile environment” policy while Butcher urged women who have been discriminated against at work not to “go cry to someone” but to “take the onus to circumvent the situation”.

posted by chappell, ambrose at 7:57 AM on February 11, 2022 [4 favorites]

I would like to believe that the bigots overplayed their hand but as long as they've got the actual power I'm not sure that's a meaningful concept.
posted by Pope Guilty at 8:04 AM on February 11, 2022 [9 favorites]

I am cis and live in the UK. If anyone has any suggestions about what I can do that might help, I would really welcome them. It's not that I'm doing nothing at all right now, but I think there's probably more I could do.
posted by plonkee at 8:06 AM on February 11, 2022 [5 favorites]

Glad you asked, plonkee!

Here's a good twitter thread from CN Lester with ways to materially help trans folks in the UK.

Mostly: donate your money to trans causes. If you can't do that (or as well as that), donate your time in writing to your MP and advocating for inclusive policies in your workplace/community/places of worship etc.
posted by fight or flight at 8:10 AM on February 11, 2022 [12 favorites]

I'm guessing the Tories' idea for a commission on equality and human rights is to find ways to eradicate them.
posted by acb at 8:39 AM on February 11, 2022 [3 favorites]

I've never managed to make my way to the UK. Now I'm not sure how long it will be until I'll feel welcome there. Then again, I feel the same way about various US states. They're just not safe anymore for someone trans.
posted by Flight Hardware, do not touch at 8:41 AM on February 11, 2022 [2 favorites]

I've never managed to make my way to the UK. Now I'm not sure how long it will be until I'll feel welcome there. Then again, I feel the same way about various US states. They're just not safe anymore for someone trans.

I went to the UK once when I was thirteen (so twenty-four years ago) but other than that this is where I am -- I'd like to go there with my family but even when my spouse and I are discussing that I talk about our trip to "TERF Island", and there are a lot of states to which I just don't feel comfortable going (people say things like "Nashville is awesome, you should go" and my spouse's family is from North Carolina so it'd be nice to visit them, but...these places have anti-trans bathroom bills. Even if they're not laws, I don't feel like those are places I can go). I'm a trans man so things are generally safer and easier for me than for trans women but it just fucking sucks all the places I don't feel like I can go and all the fun adventures I can't have.

I hope the action discussed in the post has a positive effect and makes the UK a safer and happier place for trans people (and everyone! But especially trans people).
posted by an octopus IRL at 8:51 AM on February 11, 2022 [9 favorites]

This is what I don't get. If they make trans people use their assigned at birth gender's facilities unless certified, what do they expect male presenting trans people to do? They're going to be forced to walk into the female changing rooms even though they're presenting as male and may look extremely masculine. Do these people think women are honestly going to be comfortable with some big burly man coming into the changing room because they were assigned female at birth and didn't get the right documentation?
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 9:01 AM on February 11, 2022 [2 favorites]

I'm guessing the Tories' idea for a commission on equality and human rights is to find ways to eradicate them.

They're just sad they can't yell it out as a benefit of Brexit without giving the whole fucking game away.
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 9:03 AM on February 11, 2022 [3 favorites]

Do these people think women are honestly going to be comfortable with some big burly man coming into the changing room because they were assigned female at birth and didn't get the right documentation?

I think they think that some women being made afraid because of trans men coming into the women's room is at worst an acceptable tradeoff for trans people being afraid to use public bathrooms and thus increasingly pushed out of public life and at best a positive thing because it'll just increase anti-trans panic. They don't actually care about women, trans or cis, and they don't care about logic either.
posted by an octopus IRL at 9:18 AM on February 11, 2022 [21 favorites]

If they make trans people use their biological gender's facilities unless certified, what do they expect male presenting trans people to do?

In general, trans bathroom panic is an expression of transmisogyny. Of course these ideas are stupid and unworkable: they don't need to be sensible or even coherent to achieve their aim, which is inflicting harm on trans women.

There are different ways in which TERFs attempt to harm trans men, mostly through infantalisation and denial of agency. But bathroom panic and "single-sex spaces" is primarily about portraying trans women as a threat of sexual predation that cis women should fear and direct violence towards. And, in a wider sense it's about policing women's gender expression, because that violence will obviously be directed towards anyone, trans or not, who doesn't sufficiently conform to a stereotypical presentation of femininity to avoid suspicion.
posted by death valley compound at 9:22 AM on February 11, 2022 [22 favorites]

None of these bigots wants people to use inappropriate bathrooms. Their intent is to keep trans and gender-nonconforming people from existing in public. I mean, think about the practicality if you can just approach anyone and ask them to prove they're not trans on the way to the loo.

It does seem like Scotland is leaning towards telling the EHRC where to go re: striking a balance between the rights of trans people and transphobes, so that's nice.
posted by Wrinkled Stumpskin at 9:24 AM on February 11, 2022 [10 favorites]

I'm a trans man so things are generally safer and easier for me than for trans women
Honestly, I never felt unsafe in a public (women's) bathroom until the past year. Now, with all the law changes and general transphobia out there, I'm distressed to find out how unsure I feel going into a bathroom.
One of my best friends is non-binary but with significant masc leanings. They prefer using a men's bathroom... But they've said they feel less safe there. Until we normalize multigender multiuser bathrooms, spaces aren't going to be safe or welcoming for many non-binary people.
The lack of any legal recognition for non-binary people in the UK is an enormous barrier to queer rights.
posted by Flight Hardware, do not touch at 9:31 AM on February 11, 2022 [8 favorites]

Do these people think women are honestly going to be comfortable with some big burly man coming into the changing room because they were assigned female at birth and didn't get the right documentation?

From the TERFs I know, the sense I get is that they consider the entire concept of "trans people" deeply inconvenient, not worth thinking about, and disturbing. So the idea of burly AFAB trans men making women's bathrooms uncomfortable for women doesn't run counter to their intent, it reinforces it—because their intent isn't to make women feel safe, it's to paint trans individuals as menaces.

To the extent that they buy their own "make women feel comfortable" narrative, the unspoken "...by eradicating trans identity from the public discourse" always follows.
posted by rorgy at 11:04 AM on February 11, 2022 [10 favorites]

Yes, there is no grand plan there for how to make trans people's, or even cis people's, lives work in the context of their vision, because the whole point of their project is to suppress and destroy transness and trans people. If when parsing their proposals people find themselves thinking "I don't really understand where [some specific trans person's situation] is supposed to fit into this", that's by design, not oversight.
posted by dusty potato at 11:48 AM on February 11, 2022 [7 favorites]

Yeah, the point is ultimately to legislate trans people out of existence; just make it logistically impossible for trans people to live. TERFS are quite open about this when talking to each other, the phrase "legislate out of existence" is one they freely use.
It's not supposed to "work" in any sense other than that, and they have no problem with cis gnc people getting hurt as collateral damage.
posted by BlueNorther at 2:39 PM on February 11, 2022 [6 favorites]

Yeah, the point is ultimately to legislate trans people out of existence; just make it logistically impossible for trans people to live.

This is the "hostile environment" policy working as intended. It's also being used against immigrants, the homeless, disabled people, poor people, and everyone else the Tory government deems "undesirable". Theresa May has crawled away from her legacy but the hateful policies she brought about will ruin lives for decades to come.
posted by fight or flight at 4:34 PM on February 11, 2022 [10 favorites]

Evil is on the march. Cruelty is the point. Why teach people compassion when fear and hate is easier to manipulate?
posted by Jacen at 3:46 AM on February 12, 2022 [1 favorite]

And the SHRC tells EHRC where to go. It's a step forward, and there's a reform due to come before parliament next week.
posted by Wrinkled Stumpskin at 1:46 AM on February 25, 2022 [2 favorites]

Great news for Scotland. Jury very much still out on whether it means anything other than reactionary backlash south of the border as a result.
posted by Dysk at 4:38 AM on February 25, 2022