FFLAG is proud to add our voice as one of 146 organisations pressing our political representatives for action to protect trans inclusion, in a letter with Trans+ Solidarity Alliance.
Trans people in Britain are facing an existential threat, while businesses, employers and service providers are being dragged through the courts for defending their inclusive practices.
Trans people are already being excluded from every walk of life, and from organisations that want to remain proudly inclusive. Girl Guiding described their move to kick out trans girls as “a decision we would have preferred not to make”, while the Women’s Institute said that ending decades of happy inclusion was done with the “utmost regret and sadness”.
Fighting for inclusion is hard: 86% of respondents to the City of London’s recent Hampstead Heath swimming ponds consultation want to remain trans-inclusive, and yet the Corporation continues to face the prospect of expensive litigation.
They don’t want this. But we are concerned that lawfare against inclusive organisations will continue, whatever the courts decide, with public money and business budgets spent defending against it – unless our politicians act.
We know where exclusion leads: ‘bathroom ban’ policies in Trump-supporting US states have caused untold harm to trans people and to anybody who doesn’t conform to gender stereotypes, without making a single woman safer.
We have asked Parliamentarians to help us call for action from the government to:
- work to ensure our equalities law and guidance protects the norm of trans-inclusion. This is how the Equality Act has always worked, and it must be defended.
- commit to ensuring that all UK legislation protects the human rights of trans and gender non conforming people.
- act to protect everyone’s freedom of association, making sure that the many women’s and men’s groups who wish to remain inclusive are not forced to exclude.
- ensure that any equalities guidance is workable in its implementation, and protects organisations from expensive anti-trans lawfare.
Will you join us in taking action? We need your help to write to your local MP and urge them to defend inclusive spaces from expensive anti-trans lawfare. You can find a joint template from Trans+ Solidarity Alliance and TransActual here.