Trans Women’s Rights Under Attack. Again.

There are days when it can seem as though the entire world is working against you. If you are a trans woman, today could be one of those days. One of the first headlines we saw this morning was one stating that the UK Supreme Court had ruled that the legal definition of a woman is based on biological sex. The 88-page report is full of all manner of legal mumbo jumbo, but ultimately, it can be broken down this way:

• A person with a Gender Recognition Certificate (GRC) in the female gender “does not come within the definition of a ‘woman’ under the Equality Act 2010, and the statutory guidance issued by the Scottish ministers is incorrect.”

• Gender reassignment and sex are separate bases for discrimination and inequality.
• The definition of sex under the Equality Act “makes clear that the concept of sex is binary, a person is either a woman or a man”.
• Interpreting ‘sex’ as certified sex “would cut across the definitions of ‘man’ and ‘woman’ and thus the protected characteristic of sex in an incoherent way.”
• The biological interpretation of terms in the Equality Act, “which we conclude is the only correct one, does not cause disadvantage to trans people, with or without a GRC (gender recognition certificate)”
• Nothing in the ruling “is intended to discourage the appointment of trans people to public boards or to minimise the importance of addressing their under-representation on such boards.”

Yes, that last one made our stomachs turn. What they are allowing is that single-sex spaces, such as restrooms or changing rooms, can exclude people with GRCs – a legal document saying someone has changed gender – “if it is proportionate to do so”. We call bullshit on that entire concept.

But while we were angrily reading the UK statement, our own transphobic shit-for-brains President announced that the administration is suing the state of Maine over the state’s insistence to include trans women in women’s sports. This is primarily a feud between President Punk and Maine’s governor, Janet Mills. Gov. Mills refuses to allow the federal government to run over and squash state laws. Maine’s laws hold that trans women are to be treated as other women. The President goes bananas anytime the topic is brought up.

“Today is the latest, expected salvo in an unprecedented campaign to pressure the State of Maine to ignore the Constitution and abandon the rule of law,” Mills said in a statement. “This matter has never been about school sports or the protection of women and girls, as has been claimed; it is about states’ rights and defending the rule of law against a federal government bent on imposing its will, instead of upholding the law.”

We know too many trans people, both women and men, to let this go without comment. Trans people are wonderful, they’re beautiful, they’re smart, they’re creative, and the vast majority of the time, the only way to tell who’s trans is to violate their privacy. We find it ridiculous that there are still closed-minded people who can’t see what’s obviously in front of them, creating a problem that wasn’t there until they opened their fat mouths.

Can we chat about this? We’ll try to limit the screaming. First off, at its heart, it’s about recognizing who someone is. Think about how you know your own gender identity – it’s usually just an internal sense of self, right? For transgender women, that deep, internal sense is that they are women. It’s not about pretending or playing dress-up; it’s about their fundamental identity. So, when we talk about treating trans women like women, the starting point is simply respecting that reality and acknowledging their identity with basic human dignity.

Legally speaking, our systems in many places, including here in the US, have increasingly moved towards recognizing this until the stupid people in the country elected a moron for President. Think about how people can often update their gender markers on official documents like driver’s licenses – right here in Indiana – or passports and social security records. This shows that the legal framework can and does acknowledge that a person’s legal gender may be different from the sex they were assigned at birth, regardless of what the President says in a funky memo. Furthermore, major legal developments, like the Supreme Court’s decision in Bostock v. Clayton County a few years back, established that discriminating against someone in employment because they are transgender is a form of sex discrimination, which is, so far, still illegal under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. The legal reasoning is essentially that you can’t discriminate based on someone being trans without considering their sex.  

Beyond that, major medical and psychological associations worldwide recognize that gender identity is a core aspect of a person’s self, affirm the reality of being transgender, and support treatments that help people align their lives and bodies with their identity. This isn’t a fringe idea; it’s supported by medical consensus.  

Ultimately, it really boils down to the core principles of equality and non-discrimination that are supposed to underpin our laws. If we believe that people shouldn’t be treated unfairly because of their sex, then that protection should extend to everyone who identifies and lives as that sex. Creating separate rules or denying trans women access to spaces, resources, or opportunities available to other women essentially singles them out for unequal treatment based on their identity. It suggests they are a “lesser” category of women, which goes against the fundamental idea of equal protection.

Treating trans women like women isn’t about ignoring anything; it’s about acknowledging their identity, upholding existing legal principles against sex discrimination, and affording them the same basic respect, safety, and opportunities as anyone else. It’s about letting people live their lives authentically and participate fully in society, which benefits everyone.

And J.K. Rowling can go hide forever under an invisibility cloak, thank you very much.