Latest news with #TransgenderRights
Yahoo
08-08-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Trans women to be banned from single-sex spaces under new EHRC guidance
Transgender women will be banned from single-sex public spaces under new guidance to be published by the UK's equalities watchdog, reports say. The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) is set to submit its statutory guidance to ministers this month in response to the UK Supreme Court's unanimous ruling that trans women are not legally women under the Equality Act. The new guidance appears to be similar to its interim guidance issued in the wake of the ruling, which has been criticised by trans rights campaigners as discriminatory and has seen legal challenges launched against it. According to The Times, the guidance will mean trans women will be banned from spaces such as women's toilets and changing rooms. It will apply to any organisation that provides a service to the public, including schools, shops, hospitals, prisons, leisure centres and government departments. Private organisations or charities will also be subject to the guidance if they are providing a public service, and it is also reported that it will say transgender people can be excluded from single-sex sporting competitions. In a published statement John Kirkpatrick, chief executive of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, said the organisation 'has not yet' decided on changes to the draft guidance and is still in the process of analysing draft responses. The guidance will be submitted to Bridget Phillipson, the women and equalities minister, who will approve it if she deems it to be in line with the law, before putting it before parliament. Trans rights campaigners have criticised the EHRC for its handling of the ruling, with legal challenges brought against the watchdog over its interpretation of the law. Cleo Madeleine, from campaign group Gendered Intelligence, said if the reports are accurate it suggests the EHRC has abandoned its commitment to equality and human rights and 'endorses harassment and exclusion of anyone who doesn't fit in'. 'The proposal seems to be that anyone can be shut out from toilets and changing rooms at any time unless they carry their birth certificate,' she said. 'We've had many reports of trans people being excluded over the past few months, but also reports from cisgender women who have been thrown out of services and spaces because they were tall or had short hair. Ultimately, this hurts everyone. 'But fortunately, it's also unenforceable. There is no toilet police and it is not a crime to use the services and spaces appropriate to your gender.' She added: 'We appeal now to the minister for equalities to remember the reason for her office, and to uphold the rights and protections of transgender people with compassion and calm.' A Stonewall spokesperson said that while trans people are and will remain protected from discrimination and harassment under the law, the draft guidance 'takes the position of justifying exclusion rather than inclusion of trans people as its starting point'. 'It risks creating a hierarchy of rights and a tiering of safety concerns, which are counter to the intentions behind the Equality Act 2010,' the spokesperson said. 'The EHRC has received over 50,000 responses to its consultation from businesses, organisations and individuals raising wide ranging and complicated issues including compatibility of the draft guidance with other existing pieces of legislation which will need to be addressed.' The Good Law Project is one group that has launched legal action against the EHRC, arguing the guidance 'goes far beyond' what the For Women Scotland judgment requires. It argues: 'It amounts to a bathroom ban for trans people, violating people's right to privacy in their everyday lives.' Following reports detailing the watchdog's updated guidance, the Good Law Project executive director, Jo Maugham, said: "The EHRC's guidance is subject to legal challenge – a hearing is scheduled for later this year – and a court will decide whether it is compatible with the Equality Act. 'Given the evident hostility of the guidance to the rights and dignities of trans people we are confident the commission will lose." Campaigners have also criticised the EHRC's consultation process, questioning how 50,000 responses could have been analysed so quickly. The Good Law Project also wrote to the EHRC, accusing them of 'ignoring' transgender people's views as it used artificial intelligence to categorise the replies. A spokesperson for the EHRC told The Independent: 'We are using a combination of approaches to analyse the responses received to our consultation. With more than 50,000 responses received, we have commissioned an external supplier to support us in analysing them. Our approach will involve supervised use of AI alongside our expert legal assessment to ensure a balance of robustness, accuracy and speed, including promoting consistency and helping to avoid bias in managing this scale of responses." The Times reported the guidance, which is still being finalised, will not say services must provide single-sex spaces, but that if they do, they must only be used by biological women. It will also reportedly allow services to request birth certificates and make inquiries about a person's birth sex, but this could be discriminatory if not handled in a sensitive way. The guidance will also say services need to consider if there is an alternative for trans people to use, and that, in cases such as toilets, it would not be proportionate to leave a trans person with no facilities. An EHRC spokesperson said: 'The code of practice has not yet been finalised. We received an extremely high volume of responses to the consultation and are grateful to everyone who shared their feedback. 'To ensure we give these responses the consideration they merit, we are working at pace to analyse them and are amending the draft code of practice text where necessary to make it as clear and helpful as possible. 'But our code will remain consistent with the law as set out by the Supreme Court.'
The Independent
08-08-2025
- Politics
- The Independent
Trans women to be banned from single-sex spaces under new EHRC guidance
Transgender women will be banned from single-sex public spaces under new guidance to be published by the UK's equalities watchdog, reports say. The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) is set to submit its statutory guidance to ministers this month in response to the UK Supreme Court's unanimous ruling that trans women are not legally women under the Equality Act. The new guidance appears to be similar to its interim guidance issued in the wake of the ruling, which has been criticised by trans rights campaigners as discriminatory and has seen legal challenges launched against it. According to The Times, the guidance will mean trans women will be banned from spaces such as women's toilets and changing rooms. It will apply to any organisation that provides a service to the public, including schools, shops, hospitals, prisons, leisure centres and government departments. Private organisations or charities will also be subject to the guidance if they are providing a public service, and it is also reported that it will say transgender people can be excluded from single-sex sporting competitions. The EHRC told The Times that the code has not yet been finalised, but that it will 'remain consistent with the law as set out by the Supreme Court'. The guidance will be submitted to Bridget Phillipson, the women and equalities minister, who will approve it if she deems it to be in line with the law, before putting it before parliament. Trans rights campaigners have criticised the EHRC for its handling of the ruling, with legal challenges brought against the watchdog over its interpretation of the law. The Good Law Project is one group that has launched legal action against the EHRC, arguing the guidance 'goes far beyond' what the For Women Scotland judgment requires. It argues: 'It amounts to a bathroom ban for trans people, violating people's right to privacy in their everyday lives.' Following reports detailing the watchdog's updated guidance, the Good Law Project executive director, Jo Maugham, said: "The EHRC's guidance is subject to legal challenge – a hearing is scheduled for later this year – and a court will decide whether it is compatible with the Equality Act. 'Given the evident hostility of the guidance to the rights and dignities of trans people we are confident the Commission will lose." Campaigners have also criticised the EHRC's consultation process, questioning how 50,000 responses could have been analysed so quickly. The Good Law Project also wrote to the EHRC, accusing them of 'ignoring' transgender people's views as it used artificial intelligence to categorise the replies. A spokesperson for the EHRC told The Independent: 'We are using a combination of approaches to analyse the responses received to our consultation. With more than 50,000 responses received, we have commissioned an external supplier to support us in analysing them. Our approach will involve supervised use of AI alongside our expert legal assessment to ensure a balance of robustness, accuracy and speed, including promoting consistency and helping to avoid bias in managing this scale of responses." The Times reported the guidance, which is still being finalised, will not say services must provide single-sex spaces, but that if they do, they must only be used by biological women. It will also reportedly allow services to request birth certificates and make inquiries about a person's birth sex, but this could be discriminatory if not handled in a sensitive way. The guidance will also say services need to consider if there is an alternative for trans people to use, and that, in cases such as toilets, it would not be proportionate to leave a trans person with no facilities. A spokesman said: 'The code of practice has not yet been finalised. We received an extremely high volume of responses to the consultation and are grateful to everyone who shared their feedback. 'To ensure we give these responses the consideration they merit, we are working at pace to analyse them and are amending the draft code of practice text where necessary to make it as clear and helpful as possible. 'But our code will remain consistent with the law as set out by the Supreme Court.'
National Post
26-06-2025
- Politics
- National Post
Geoff Russ: The socialist madness of Zohran Mamdani is a spreading contagion
Article content A hardline critic of Israel, he refused to condemn the phrase 'Globalize the Intifada,' and pledged to arrest Benjamin Netanyahu if he sets foot in the city. Curiously, the war in Ukraine has attracted little to no attention from Mamdani, and that is a choice. Article content The left-wing dislike of Western institutions and alliances is eternal, and the war between Israel and Gaza is just the latest opportunity to project it. Gaza is their current cause célèbre, and Mamdani's admirers, both in the U.S. and elsewhere will be emboldened to toughen their anti-Israel rhetoric. Article content Some have even accused Mamdani of being an Islamist due to his support for the Palestinians and his Muslim faith. Were that the case, Mamdani would be the strangest one to have ever lifted. Article content He supports using public funds to subsidize transgender health care, and is a stalwart supporter of rights for sexual minorities across the board, none of which would be the beliefs held by an extreme religious insurgent. However, it is typical of modern left-wing populists who desire to loot the well-off so they can fund a government that seizes power over the economy. Article content It is a political style that utterly rejects the principles of the American Founding Fathers, and appropriate for a city hall that removed a 187-year old statue of Thomas Jefferson in 2021 due to his ownership of slaves. Article content The man authored the Declaration of Independence, but this does not matter to those who want to remake New York with thoroughly un-American ideas like socialism. Article content However, it was neither Mamdani's personal ideology nor his support for Gaza that drove his success in the Democratic primary. The main culprit of his victory was affordability, or New York's lack thereof, which should surprise nobody. Article content Mamdani's campaign promised rent caps, subsidized public housing, and expanded free city government services. This resonated with young New Yorkers who pay exorbitant rates for tiny apartments that they usually have to share with one too many roommates. Article content The cost of living is the best way to rally youth across the West right now, and no political faction has no monopoly upon that strategy. In Canada, Pierre Poilievre's Conservatives won the youth vote in large part due to their frustrations over sky-high rental costs and the impossibility of home ownership. Article content Although this failed to get the Conservatives into government in Canada, it is likely to work for Mamdani. Article content There is nothing wrong with wanting to address affordability, but the issue will be a Trojan Horse for a host of terrible ideas to accompany it, like hostility to law enforcement, driving out capital, and throwing a country's founding principles into the trash bin. Article content Mamdani is the most famous leftist in the West right now, and the future of the Democratic Party and their ideological branch plants. It's no wonder the NDP wasted no time in kowtowing to him, the man poised to lord over the most important city in the world. Article content
CNN
23-06-2025
- Politics
- CNN
Supreme Court prepares to release major opinions on birthright citizenship, LGBTQ books, porn sites
From digging into President Donald Trump's battle with the courts to deciding whether people can be required to identify themselves before viewing porn online, the Supreme Court in the coming days will deliver its most dramatic decisions of the year. With most of its pending rulings complete, the justices are now working toward issuing the final flurry of opinions that could have profound implications for the Trump administration, the First Amendment and millions of American people. Already, the conservative Supreme Court has allowed states to ban transgender care for minors — a blockbuster decision that could have far-reaching consequences — sided with the Food and Drug Administration's denial of vaping products and upheld Biden-era federal regulations that will make it easier to track 'ghost guns.' Here are some of the most important outstanding cases: The first argued appeal involving Trump's second term has quickly emerged as the most significant case the justices will decide in the coming days. The Justice Department claims that three lower courts vastly overstepped their authority by imposing nationwide injunctions that blocked the president from enforcing his order limiting birthright citizenship. Whatever the justices say about the power of courts to halt a president's executive order on a nationwide basis could have an impact beyond birthright citizenship. Trump has, for months, vociferously complained about courts pausing dozens of his policies with nationwide injunctions. While the question is important on its own — it could shift the balance of power between the judicial and executive branches — the case was supercharged by the policy at issue: Whether a president can sign an executive order that upends more than a century of understanding, the plain text of the 14th Amendment and multiple Supreme Court precedents pointing to the idea that people born in the US are US citizens. During the May 15 arguments, conservative and liberal justices seemed apprehensive to let the policy take effect. The high court is also set to decide whether a school district in suburban Washington, DC, burdened the religious rights of parents by declining to allow them to opt their elementary-school children out of reading LGBTQ books in the classroom. As part of its English curriculum, Montgomery County Public Schools approved a handful of books in 2022 at issue. One, 'Prince & Knight,' tells the story of a prince who does not want to marry any of the princesses in his realm. After teaming up with a knight to slay a dragon, the two fall in love, 'filling the king and queen with joy,' according to the school's summary. The parents said the reading of the books violated their religious beliefs. The case arrived at the Supreme Court at a moment when parents and public school districts have been engaged in a tense struggle over how much sway families should have over instruction. The Supreme Court's conservative majority signaled during arguments in late April that it would side with the parents in the case, continuing the court's yearslong push to expand religious rights. The court is juggling several major cases challenging the power of federal agencies. One of those deals with the creation of a task force that recommends which preventive health care services must be covered at no cost under Obamacare. Though the case deals with technical questions about who should appoint the members of a board that makes those recommendations, the decision could affect the ability of Americans to access cost-free services under the Affordable Care Act such as certain cancer screenings and PrEP drugs that help prevent HIV infections. During arguments in late April, the court signaled it may uphold the task force. The court also seemed skeptical of a conservative challenge to the Universal Service Fund, which Congress created in 1996 to pay for programs that expand broadband and phone service in rural and low-income communities. Phone companies contribute billions to that fund, a cost that is passed on to consumers. A conservative group challenged the fund as an unconstitutional 'delegation' of the power of Congress to levy taxes. If the court upholds the structure of the programs' funding, that would represent a departure from its trend in recent years of limiting the power of agencies to act without explicit approval from Congress. For years, the Supreme Court has considered whether congressional districts redrawn every decade violate the rights of Black voters under the landmark 1965 Voting Rights Act. This year, the justices are being asked by a group of White voters whether Louisiana went so far in adding a second Black-majority district that it violated the 14th Amendment. The years-old, messy legal battle over Louisiana's districts raises a fundamental question about how much state lawmakers may think about race when drawing congressional maps. The answer may have implications far beyond the Bayou State, particularly if a majority of the court believes it is time to move beyond policies intended to protect minority voters that were conceived during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s. Arguments in the case, which took place in March, were mixed. A ruling against Louisiana would likely jeopardize the state's second Black and Democratic-leaning congressional district, currently held by Rep. Cleo Fields, a Democrat. And any change to Fields' territory could affect the boundaries of districts held by House Speaker Mike Johnson and House Majority Leader Steve Scalise. The justices will also decide a fight that erupted in 2018 when South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster yanked Medicaid funding for the state's two Planned Parenthood clinics. Technically, the legal dispute isn't about abortion — federal and state law already bar Medicaid from paying for that procedure — but a win for South Carolina could represent a financial blow to an entity that provides access to abortion in many parts of the country. McMaster, a Republican, argued the payments were a taxpayer subsidy for abortion. McMaster's order had the effect of also blocking patients from receiving other services at Planned Parenthood. A patient named Julie Edwards, who has diabetes, and Planned Parenthood South Atlantic sued the state, noting that federal law gives Medicaid patients a right to access care at any qualified doctor's office willing to see them. The legal dispute for the court deals with whether Medicaid patients have a right to sue to enforce requirements included in spending laws approved by Congress — in this case, the mandate that patients can use the benefit at any qualified doctor's office. Without a right to sue, Planned Parenthood argues, it would be impossible to enforce those requirements. The Supreme Court has tended to view such rights-to-sue with skepticism, though a 7-2 majority found such a right in a related case two years ago. The court is expected to release more opinions Thursday and will need at least one other day — and possibly several more — to finish its work.
Associated Press
18-06-2025
- Politics
- Associated Press
Supreme Court work goes on with 16 cases to decide, including birthright citizenship
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court is in the homestretch of a term that has lately been dominated by the Trump administration's emergency appeals of lower court orders seeking to slow President Donald Trump's efforts to remake the federal government. But the justices also have 16 cases to resolve that were argued between December and mid-May. One of the argued cases was an emergency appeal, the administration's bid to be allowed to enforce Trump's executive order denying birthright citizenship to U.S.-born children of parents who are in the country illegally. The court typically aims to finish its work by the end of June. On Wednesday it decided one of its most closely watched cases, handing down an opinion that upheld a Tennessee ban on some healthcare for transgender minors. Here are some of the biggest remaining cases: Trump's birthright citizenship order has been blocked by lower courts The court rarely hears arguments over emergency appeals, but it took up the administration's plea to narrow orders that have prevented the citizenship changes from taking effect anywhere in the U.S. The issue before the justices is whether to limit the authority of judges to issue nationwide injunctions, which have plagued both Republican and Democratic administrations in the past 10 years. These nationwide court orders have emerged as an important check on Trump's efforts and a source of mounting frustration to the Republican president and his allies. At arguments last month, the court seemed intent on keeping a block on the citizenship restrictions while still looking for a way to scale back nationwide court orders. It was not clear what such a decision might look like, but a majority of the court expressed concerns about what would happen if the administration were allowed, even temporarily, to deny citizenship to children born to parents who are in the country illegally. Democratic-led states, immigrants and rights groups who sued over Trump's executive order argued that it would upset the settled understanding of birthright citizenship that has existed for more than 125 years. The court seems likely to side with Maryland parents in a religious rights case over LGBTQ storybooks in public schools Parents in the Montgomery County school system, in suburban Washington, want to be able to pull their children out of lessons that use the storybooks, which the county added to the curriculum to better reflect the district's diversity. The school system at one point allowed parents to remove their children from those lessons, but then reversed course because it found the opt-out policy to be disruptive. Sex education is the only area of instruction with an opt-out provision in the county's schools. The school district introduced the storybooks in 2022, with such titles as 'Prince and Knight' and 'Uncle Bobby's Wedding.' The case is one of several religious rights cases at the court this term. The justices have repeatedly endorsed claims of religious discrimination in recent years. The decision also comes amid increases in recent years in books being banned from public school and public libraries. A three-year battle over congressional districts in Louisiana is making its second trip to the Supreme Court Lower courts have struck down two Louisiana congressional maps since 2022 and the justices are weighing whether to send state lawmakers back to the map-drawing board for a third time. The case involves the interplay between race and politics in drawing political boundaries in front of a conservative-led court that has been skeptical of considerations of race in public life. At arguments in March, several of the court's conservative justices suggested they could vote to throw out the map and make it harder, if not impossible, to bring redistricting lawsuits under the Voting Rights Act. Before the court now is a map that created a second Black majority congressional district among Louisiana's six seats in the House of Representatives. The district elected a Black Democrat in 2024. A three-judge court found that the state relied too heavily on race in drawing the district, rejecting Louisiana's arguments that politics predominated, specifically the preservation of the seats of influential members of Congress, including Speaker Mike Johnson. The Supreme Court ordered the challenged map to be used last year while the case went on. Lawmakers only drew that map after civil rights advocates won a court ruling that a map with one Black majority district likely violated the landmark voting rights law. The justices are weighing a Texas law aimed at blocking kids from seeing online pornography Texas is among more than a dozen states with age verification laws. The states argue the laws are necessary as smartphones have made access to online porn, including hardcore obscene material, almost instantaneous. The question for the court is whether the measure infringes on the constitutional rights of adults as well. The Free Speech Coalition, an adult-entertainment industry trade group, agrees that children shouldn't be seeing pornography. But it says the Texas law is written too broadly and wrongly affects adults by requiring them to submit personal identifying information online that is vulnerable to hacking or tracking. The justices appeared open to upholding the law, though they also could return it to a lower court for additional work. Some justices worried the lower court hadn't applied a strict enough legal standard in determining whether the Texas law and others like that could run afoul of the First Amendment.
