Steph Paton: Trans people won't retreat after Supreme Court ruling

The National

22-04-2025

I'd kept it because I had somehow ended up on the front page. The headline read 'Scotland to Recognise Third Gender' and was illustrated by a photograph from a recent Pride march that just happened to be of me.
The world is a very different place now, eight years on. Rather than discussing the future of legal recognition of trans people in Scotland, we're instead fighting to keep what rights we have.
In the last year alone, more than 1000 articles were published about transgender people in the UK, in just a handful of right-wing newspapers – from a carousel of supposedly 'cancelled' voices that have never struggled to gain a front-page story wherever the mood strikes.
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From a place of hope for legal recognition to the bonfire of equalities we see today, it has been a bitter road – and all the hallmarks of those past years are present in the Supreme Court's ruling on the definition of 'woman' in law.
While anti-trans organisations and Tufton Street lobby groups were welcomed to give evidence, trans voices were explicitly excluded from doing so, a trend that we've witnessed over the years of being talked about but never to.
Listening to Lord Hodge deliver the verdict last week, it was remarkable how clearly this influence was felt. Instantly recognisable transphobic talking points nestled in all the legalese made clear exactly who had been listened to in this case.
The culmination of eight years of dehumanisation has brought us to this questionable ruling, cheered on by Britain's right-wing press, funded by the wealthiest as they share victory photos from a private yacht, and seemingly meekly accepted without challenge by most of Scotland's political parties.
It took two hours for the First Minister to tweet that the Scottish Government would be accepting the Supreme Court's ruling. That could barely be thought of as enough time to read and consider it. No challenge. No agitation for an appeal at the European Court. Just … acceptance.
And the reason, I suspect, is simple. The SNP, and Labour, have long played both sides on human rights issues. Every victory for LGBTQ+ rights that has come under Westminster and Holyrood governments has been accompanied by far more internal turmoil and intentional delays than either party would care to admit.
But it didn't stop them from using those victories to market themselves as 'progressive champions' – a phrase that seems positively vintage at this point – when it was a boon to do so. Now here comes a Supreme Court ruling that lets both parties' leadership claim their hands are tied as they officially abandon the pretence of wanting to advance LGBTQ+ rights forward.
The sigh of relief that must have come from various government departments that they can drop this pretence must have been something to behold. But unfortunately for them, this is not the end. Rather than retreat, the movement for trans liberation has had a fire lit beneath it. We know that this ruling will, like the Cass Review, be used to justify institutional change that it never ruled on nor supported.
As much as the widely-maligned Cass Review is cited as the justification for withdrawing access to puberty blockers, this was never recommended in the publication.
Likewise, it seems the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) is preparing to take the inch given by the Supreme Court and make a grab for the mile. Already it seems to be preparing to release guidance that attempts to misapply the ruling.
Baroness Falkner, Liz Truss's appointee to lead the EHRC, who Labour chose to keep, is already preparing to test how far she can push statutory guidance on the back of the ruling, whether justified or not.
In response to the ruling, Falkner claimed trans people should just use their powers of advocacy to have third spaces provided for them. When we can't even be heard by the Supreme Court while it is ruling on our lives, I'm not sure what advocacy Falkner thinks we are capable of.
But more than that, advocating for minority interests is the LITERAL POINT of the EHRC. Instead, Falkner openly says that trans people should effectively fend for themselves while she leads a campaign against us.
We may have been abandoned by press and politicians alike, but it is a different story on the streets of Scotland's cities. While anti-trans demos can, at best, cobble together a few Scottish Family Party activists alongside their 'feminist' compatriots, the rallies in support of trans liberation bring thousands to the streets.
And as much as this ruling was about supposedly bringing 'clarity', things seem less clear than ever. Like so much facing us today, the 'trans debate' is part of a fight for our independence and autonomy against the vested interests of the wealthy and their friends in politics.
But they will not win. Not just because we have the numbers, but for the simple reason that you cannot legislate a people out of existence.
The Supreme Court's poor ruling is limited to the definition of women in law only. It could no more legislate the Earth to spin in the opposite direction than they could make trans people cease to exist.