Transgender woman and activist boasts of using the Ladies toilets in Parliament after biological female Supreme Court ruling
A transgender woman has boasted about using the ladies toilets in Parliament just days after the Supreme Court ruling.
The landmark hearing last Wednesday ruled that the definition of a woman is based on biological sex, and that trans women with a gender recognition certificate (GRC) could potentially be excluded from single-sex spaces if 'proportionate'.
In an 88-page ruling, the justices said: 'The definition of sex in the Equality Act 2010 makes clear that the concept of sex is binary, a person is either a woman or a man.'
Despite this Marty Davies, a writer and campaigner, took to X to detail how she is protesting the change in the law from the heart of government.
She arrived at Parliament for Lesbian Visibility Week to hear the Minister for Women and Equalities Bridget Phillipson speaking in the chamber.
Which Davies described as her 'casually rubber stamping the stripping away for Trans+ rights'.
She wrote on X: ' Following the speech I went to the women's toilets just outside the Churchill room. I went to the toilet.
'I washed my hands. And no one was hurt.'
She joins a multitude of other activists who are defying the new rules, with one photographing themselves in a women-only space.
Joss Prior took a selfie in what looks like a women's toilets yesterday, posting it on X alongside the caption: 'Using women's spaces as you do.'
Meanwhile, Ashley Johnson threatened to 'p*** on the floor' if she is stopped from using the ladies toilets.
'Back to anxiety I had about using public toilets when I first transitioned. Thinking I'll still use the ladies and if any establishment stops me, I'll p*** on the floor in their public area,' she wrote on Facebook.
The ruling has caused much controversy among various groups, with transgender activists left furious.
Thousands of outraged campaigners took to the streets of London to protest - waving flags and chanting throughout the afternoon.
Protestors targeted a number of statues in the capital. Notably, a statue of the suffragette Millicent Fawcett was defaced with a banner reading 'F** rights'.
The Metropolitan Police said they were investigating the incidents as criminal damage after the statues were daubed with graffiti.
This weekend, pro-trans groups are organising demonstrations in towns and cities including Coventry; Portsmouth; Liverpool; Leicester; Oxford; Birmingham; Cheltenham; Cambridge; Derby; Bristol; Newcastle and Aberystwyth.
In Coventry, the group 'Coventry Trans Pride' has called an 'emergency protest for trans rights', meeting at the city's statue of Lady Godiva on Saturday afternoon.
They call on people to 'come together to show that we won't take these attacks on our rights sitting down… we will not disappear and we will not be silenced.'
In Darlington, a protest in the town's market square was called after the Supreme Court's decision was described as 'more than a simple clarification on wording, it's an attempt to push trans people out of public life completely.
In his first comments since the Supreme Court's judgment, Sir Keir Starmer yesterday said he believed 'a woman is an adult female, and the court has made that absolutely clear.'
He added: 'I actually welcome the judgment because I think it gives real clarity. It allows those that have got to draw up guidance to be really clear about what that guidance should say.'
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Daily Mail
5 hours ago
- Daily Mail
CHRISTOPHER STEVENS reviews Jamie's Dyslexia Revolution on Ch4: All fired up like an angry Aga, chef Jamie gave the minister a roasting
Jamie's Dyslexia Revolution (Ch4) Has Radio 4's Amol Rajan been coaching Jamie Oliver on how to grill politicians? When the chef confronted Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson at the Houses of Parliament, she barely got a chance to finish a sentence. All fired up like an angry Aga oven, Jamie repeatedly cut her off. Launching his campaign to help schoolchildren with reading difficulties, on Jamie's Dyslexia Revolution, he refused to let her brush him aside with bland excuses. 'We're still quite a relatively new government,' she began, 'and I think we have a real opportunity to make a difference here . . .' and on she waffled with the kind of vacuous verbiage politicians can spout in their sleep. Jamie wasn't having any of it. 'Will we be seeing some radical strategic restructuring of teacher training?' he demanded. Ms Phillipson promised 'longer-term reform', and Jamie jumped on that: 'What does that mean? Like three, four, ten years?' By now, the secretary of state was starting to wriggle like a schoolgirl who realises she's left her homework on the bus. Things got worse when she claimed that children were now screened for dyslexia at eight years old: 'I don't believe that's statutory for every child,' Jamie snapped. The cheeky cook with his boisterous patter and a saucy wink for the grannies was nowhere to be seen. Our Bridget got well and truly bish-bash-boshed. After the confrontation, Jamie joined parents of dyslexic children outside the Palace of Westminster, before delivering a rousing pep talk. 'Write to your MP,' he urged. 'We want some fundamental change to make our schools truly inclusive and make every child count.' It was a triumphant ending to an hour that until then had often meandered and sometimes dragged. There was little explanation of what dyslexia is, just vague talk of how 'words almost look upside-down and backwards, blurry or moved around'. To illustrate this, a few misspelled captions were projected onto a screen — though, since these were not difficult to read, it had the false effect of making dyslexia appear a trivial problem. We were repeatedly told that up to 15 per cent of British children and half of inmates in UK prisons are dyslexic. But Jamie had no clear ideas on how to address this — only that something needed to be done. What suggestions he did have, such as printing text on coloured paper, were left unexplored. His indignation at the way children with dyslexia are frequently left to flounder in lessons was heartfelt — his own schooldays were wretched, and he still struggles with reading. Despite his claim that 'the chips on my shoulder about education are gone,' he clearly still nurses a furious indignation at the way he was treated. Perhaps that anger has fuelled his successful career. If he really expects Bridget Phillipson to improve standards of education, he's going to be disappointed — but if he wants to show parents and children with dyslexia that self-belief beats book-learning, he's made a great start.
The Independent
6 hours ago
- The Independent
DC prepares for Trump's military parade with 18 miles of fencing and 175 magnetometers
As the nation's capital cleans up from the culmination of World Pride this past weekend, focus now shifts to a very different massive event — Saturday's military parade to honor the 250th birthday of the Army and the 79th birthday of President Donald Trump. 'We're preparing for an enormous turnout,' said Matt McCool of the Secret Service 's Washington Field office, who said more than 18 miles of 'anti-scale fencing' would be erected and 'multiple drones' would be in the air. The entire District of Columbia is normally a no-fly zone for drones. Army officials have estimated around 200,000 attendees for the evening military parade, and McCool said he was prepared for "hundreds of thousands" of people. 'We have a ton of magnetometers,' he said. 'If a million people show up, then we're going to have some lines.' A total of 175 magnetometers would be used at security checkpoints controlling access to the daytime birthday festival and the nighttime parade. Metropolitan Police Department chief Pamela Smith predicted 'major impacts to traffic' and advised attendees to arrive early and consider forgoing cars for the Metro. 'This is a significant event with a large footprint,' she said. 'We're relying on the public to be an extra set of ears and eyes for us.' The military parade has been designated a National Special Security Event — similar to a presidential inauguration or state funeral. That status is reserved for events that draw large crowds and potential mass protests. It calls for an enhanced degree of high-level coordination among D.C. officials, the FBI, Capitol Police and Washington's National Guard contingent — with the Secret Service taking the lead. The Army birthday celebration had already been planned for months. But earlier this spring, Trump announced his intention to transform the event — which coincides with his 79th birthday — into a massive military parade complete with 60-ton M1 Abrams battle tanks and Paladin self-propelled howitzers rolling through the city streets. Multiple counter-protests of varying sizes are planned for Saturday, with the largest being a mass march to the White House dubbed the No Kings rally. Officials say they are also on alert for signs that the immigration-related clashes between law enforcement and protesters currently roiling Los Angeles would spread. 'We're paying attention, obviously, to what is happening there. We'll be ready,' McCool said. 'We have a robust plan for civil disobedience.' Agent Phillip Bates of the FBI's Washington Field office, which is tasked with counterterrorism and crisis management, said there were 'no credible threats' to the event at the moment. Lindsey Appiah, the deputy mayor for public safety, told The Associated Press last week that the city had longstanding plans for the Army birthday celebration. But those plans 'got a lot bigger on short notice' when Trump got involved. Still, Appiah said the city has grown 'very flexible, very nimble' at rolling with these sort of changes. ____
Telegraph
7 hours ago
- Telegraph
Why the wrong memorial will water down the Holocaust
On Wednesday, the Holocaust Memorial Bill returns to the House of Lords. What a waste of energy over seven and more years this project has been. The motives are good. Unfortunately, the idea is not. In the great battle against growing anti-Semitism in our society, precious weapons are being mistargeted. There are strong second-order objections to the memorial and its accompanying 'learning centre'. They include the vast cost, over £200 million; the lack of room in Victoria Tower Gardens and the loss of green space; the security risk at the heart of government and Parliament which the police and parliamentary authorities increasingly fail to control; and the fact that the gardens will soon be overcrowded by the overspill for the coming 30-year project to restore the fabric of the Houses of Parliament next door. There will be parliamentary amendments tomorrow to address these last two points. Most of the Bill's opponents, many of whom are Jewish, do want a memorial, but a much smaller and more beautiful one. The present design is a grandiose hand-me-down, by the somewhat discredited architect David Adjaye, already used elsewhere. Opponents also do not want the learning centre. Tristram Hunt, the distinguished director of the V&A, thinks it could be much better managed at the Imperial War Museum. The key objection relates to what is really being commemorated. If you track the history of Holocaust Memorial Day since it was instituted a quarter of a century ago, you will find increasing pressure to water down the concept. There have been several occasions – ITV's Good Morning Britain this year, for example – in which coverage has entirely failed to mention the Jews at all, let alone the fact that the Holocaust killed six million of them. People such as the former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, unfailingly hostile to Israel and previously friendly to murderous Hamas, have thus found it possible to take part in Holocaust Memorial Day without having to confront the grim truth of history. Over time, the uniqueness of the Jewish experience thus slips away. A process begins in which the word 'Holocaust' is taken to stand for any persecution of any group by any other group. From there, it is a short step to suggesting, as pro-Gaza mobs always do, that Israel itself is committing genocide against Palestinians. This is not an isolated outbreak of a few fanatics, but a deliberate plan to strip the Jewish state – and all Jews – of their moral authority. The ultimate aim is to preach the equation 'Jews = Israel = Nazis'. This libel is so widespread as to have become one of the main tropes of anti-Semitism. The danger is that the wrong sort of commemoration will facilitate this. Delegations from anti-Israel countries and 'humanitarian' organisations emerging from Parliament will stroll into Victoria Tower Gardens, pose outside the Holocaust Memorial and deliver their piece to camera about alleged war crimes, starvation of children etc. You can just imagine the ineffable Greta Thunberg doing exactly that. Sad to say, both main political parties are putting on whips to get the memorial Bill through Parliament. This suggests an underlying uncertainty about the rightness of their cause. Traditionally, votes on matters of conscience are not whipped. Surely Holocaust commemoration is a classic conscience issue in which party considerations have no place. I fear that establishment politicians, frightened of being labelled anti-Semitic, have supported this great big project without thinking about it. Yet thought is exactly what is needed to correct the errors of Holocaust education today. By the way, there exists a splendid role model for commemoration in, of all places, Poland. The POLIN museum in Warsaw movingly and expertly relates its country's part of the full story we all need to know – how Jews lived there for a thousand years and how, in the end, and most horribly, they died. Weathering the storm Like many parishes, our village held its annual fete last Saturday. The problem, in advance, was the weather. Nowadays, weather forecasting is so much more accurate that if it says, two or three days before, that it will rain, it probably will. So event-planners must take it seriously. This avoids the occasional spectacular washouts of the past, after which everyone used to say, through gritted teeth, 'Rain failed to dampen the spirits'. Our organisers therefore did the prudent thing and announced that the fete would not be held in the public garden by the church but in the village's two interconnected halls. The trouble was that, on the day, there was virtually no rain during the fete's opening hours. We all felt slightly silly because we could have stuck with the original plan and saved ourselves a lot of trouble. Should we have followed the old way and just held the thing outdoors, rain or shine? I am not sure of the answer. But I do know that everyone enjoyed the make-do atmosphere among the crowded stalls and the noisy Punch-and-Judy show inside, finding community in adversity. Business was brisk. The splash headline in our local paper says, 'Post office to remain open'. My first reaction was to laugh at this non-news. After all, it is in the nature of shops to open. But I quickly realised I was wrong. It was indeed news. The unspoken policy of the modern Post Office is to close itself down. A decision in the opposite direction certainly deserves the front page.
