this post was submitted on 27 Apr 2025
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Women who transitioned decades ago feel their safety and security has suddenly been removed

Last week’s supreme court ruling sent shock waves through the UK’s trans community.

The unanimous judgment said the legal definition of a woman in the Equality Act 2010 did not include transgender women who hold gender recognition certificates (GRCs).

That feeling was compounded when Kishwer Falkner, the chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, which is preparing new statutory guidance, said the judgment meant only biological women could use single-sex changing rooms and toilets.

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[–] A_norny_mousse@feddit.org 141 points 1 day ago (4 children)

I hate it when European countries play "who can emulate the US the fastest"

[–] Zagorath@aussie.zone 145 points 1 day ago (11 children)

Nah, that doesn't apply in this case. The UK is a world leader in transphobia, acting not because the US does things, but because they're entirely transphobic on their own.

[–] Corkyskog@sh.itjust.works 38 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I bet Rowling is ecstatic.

[–] garbagebagel@lemmy.world 32 points 1 day ago (1 children)

She donated £70,000 to the people that pushed to pass this bill.

In the words of Pedro Pascal, she is indeed a "heinous loser"

[–] Zagorath@aussie.zone 17 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Her public celebration of the result was absolutely grotesque

collapsed inline mediaScreenshot of a Tweet by Rowling, replying to another Tweet by Rowling. The original Tweet has a photo of her smoking a cigar and holding a drink, sitting by the sea and staring smuggly at the camera, with the caption "I love it when a plan comes together". The reply Tweet compares people mistaking her cigar for a blunt to trans women, claiming the cigar might "identify as a blunt".

[–] Jumpingspiderman@lemmy.world 13 points 1 day ago (3 children)

Anyone speculate on why JKR is so anti-trans? Did something happen in her past that makes her so hateful on this issue?

[–] Zagorath@aussie.zone 7 points 23 hours ago (1 children)

Did something happen in her past that makes her so hateful on this issue

I can't guess as to the full extent of her transphobia, but I can point to a couple of elements of it.

She did suffer domestic abuse of some sort before and around the time the first Harry Potter book came out. This was a cis man who did it, but I think in her mind there's no difference between cis men and trans women.

There's also a well-studied psychological phenomenon where people tend to double-down on their prior beliefs when challenged, unless those challenges come in a very narrow form. Her earliest transphobic comments may have been her being tepid about expressing her true beliefs, but they may genuinely have been the sort of misinformed casual transphobia that a much, much wider segment of the population has which may have gone no further if she were a normal person. But because lots of well-intentioned people—largely some of her most dedicated fans—tried to educate her and help her to be better, she may have doubled down and got into the reactionary feedback loop that so many transphobes, racists, and members of the alt-right got into. They perceive constructive criticism, especially when it comes in large volumes, as a personal attack, and the people who aren't attacking them instead encourage them to double down on their beliefs, and reward them when they do.

Her books show a very strong liberal bias. Liberal in the sense that it's not regressive per se, but it's also strongly opposed to analysis of problems as stemming from systemic issues rather than One Bad Actor. SPEW is the easiest to point to, but the lack of systemic change in the governance of the Wizarding World post-Voldemort is more significant, in my view. The problem was one Minister of Magic who was just ignorant of the problem of Voldemort, followed by another who actively covered it up. These individuals are the bad guys who need to be defeated. It wasn't, as the books tell it, underlying racism and classism of wizarding culture. So it seems that Rowling is not good at spotting systemic injustice. Such as the higher suicide rates among trans people (especially if they're not accepted), higher rates of DV and other violence, and other problems faced are not factoring into her calculations. Which makes it so much easier to cast trans people as the bad guys.

But I find it hard for these to adequately explain either the initial spark of transphobia per se, or the rather extreme extent she's gone to. So yeah, like you I'm a little curious if there's more to it.

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[–] TankovayaDiviziya@lemmy.world 19 points 1 day ago

Well, UK birthed the US after all. The apple doesn't fall far from the tree.

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[–] vzq@lemmy.world 44 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Good on you for leaving the EU with at that fuss about “human rights” and “rule of law”.

[–] svcg@lemmy.blahaj.zone 21 points 1 day ago (5 children)

You might be thinking of the Council of Europe, of which the UK is still a member (for now).

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[–] squirrel@lemmy.blahaj.zone 42 points 1 day ago (1 children)

The Guardian shedding crocodile's tears? Boohoo, we spend years vilifying trans people and now look what happened...

[–] Skiluros@sh.itjust.works 18 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Would you prefer a more celebratory article? What's your arguement?

[–] vzq@lemmy.world 46 points 1 day ago (1 children)

The argument is that the guardian is a fucking piece of shit terf rag that platforms the worst of the worst while pretending to be left of center.

And any occasion is a good occasion to remind them to do better.

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[–] RedFrank24@lemmy.world 9 points 18 hours ago

I had to avoid looking at this topic elsewhere because it made me so fucking angry. My best friend in the entire world is trans, and she's coming for Christmas this year. I'm not sure what I'd do if someone harassed her for using the toilet, but I get the feeling my mugshot would be in the paper afterwards.

[–] Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 points 16 hours ago* (last edited 15 hours ago)

The UK doesn't even have a written constitution, so everything, including "Rights" is really just one parliamentary majority (which with the country's First Past The Post system can be had for as little as 34% of votes cast, which taking in account the typical levels of abstention means the approval of less than 1/4 of the population) or one Supreme Court decision away from being nullified.

Back when the UK was still a member of the EU (to be an EU member one MUST be a member of the European Convention Of Human Rights), this kinda stuff ended up in the European Court Of Human Rights (which is not an EU court, but instead is the court of last resort for members of the European Convention Of Human Rights), but nowadays maybe that's not so (I'm not sure if the meanwhile after Brexit the UK has already left the European Convention Of Human Rights, but being able to leave it was one of the things the Brexiters claimed was a "benefit" of leaving the EU).

(Edit: it turns out the UK is still a member of the Council of Europe and hence the European Convention Of Human Rights, so maybe this can still be appealed to the European Court Of Human Rights)

I've lived in a couple of countries in Europe, including the UK, and found the UK the be the least Democratic of all (frankly I'm not even sure what they have is a real Democracy rather than a "managed" Theatre Of Democracy to keep the riff-raff thinking they have real power).

[–] Eyekaytee@aussie.zone 6 points 1 day ago (3 children)

passing of the Gender Recognition Act in 2004, which allowed trans people to change gender on their birth certificate

this doesn’t make sense to me, if gender is a social construct then why is it on the birth certificate? shouldn’t it be the sex that’s on the certificate and can’t be changed?

[–] vzq@lemmy.world 22 points 1 day ago (3 children)

A better question is, why is the government administering it in the first place?

There should be no laws that depend on either gender or sex, so knowing it does not help the government fulfill its obligations. Therefore it is not covered by the public interest and official authority grounds of the GDPR.

[–] Zagorath@aussie.zone 20 points 1 day ago (1 children)

There should be no laws that depend on either gender or sex

Ideally, maybe. In a future perfect society. But let's remember that the court case that triggered this was about whether trans women count as women for the purposes of meeting laws that require gender quotas. Quotas that most of us should support because of their importance in combatting existing gender inequalities.

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[–] ReiRose@lemmy.world 15 points 1 day ago (6 children)

Agreed. The only people that really need to know your biological sex are your doctor and people you're seeking (sexual) relationships with.

For believing that the government has no business with my genitals and also believing that there's nothing inherently wrong with trans people...does that make me a trans inclusionary radical feminist?

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[–] synae@lemmy.sdf.org 11 points 1 day ago

Birth certificates are also a social construct and so they have no logical consequence to the question

When you transition, you in a very literal way change your sex. Chromosomes do very very little for sex differentiation. All a Y chromosome, or specifically the SRY gene, does is tell the gonads to develop into testes. From there on, everything is hormonal. Biological sex is largely determined by hormones, not genetics.

And moreover, very few ever actually have their chromosomes tested. If you think sex is chromosomal, well, you don't actually know your own sex.

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