PortabelloBelle

It has been a difficult week for the trans community.

To think that it all started with the Scottish government making it easier for trans people to get a Gender Recognition Certificate (GRC). It was a move I wasn’t entirely comfortable with. I didn’t like the idea that someone could just declare themselves differently gendered, and it be universally accepted. Now, you could argue that I felt this way simply because I had to work hard to get mine, and to some extent you would likely be right, but not entirely, because I could see there may be those who would take issue with it for other reasons. I was not wrong.

In June of 2018, a group of women set up For Women Scotland. Describing themselves as a grass roots women’s group, in opposition to the Scottish government’s Gender Recognition Reform Bill, as I said, I have a certain amount of support for this opposition.

Simplistically, my agreement with For Women Scotland pretty much ends there, although there are other things they say which I agree with, but those are things any right minded individual would agree with, and this post is about something else.

That something else is the United Kingdom’s Supreme Court (UKSC) decision of 16th April.

Let’s go back to For Women Scotland (FWS,) and the government of their beautiful country for a moment, there is an issue of equality in employment in public bodies, such that there are more men, than women in roles associated with this kind of organisation, and with the attitude of the Scottish government that someone who has a Gender Recognition Certificate which states Female, counts as a woman, it could be argued, that disparity is larger than stated (at least as far as FWS are concerned.) So they went through some legal processes which finally led to the Supreme Court, and eventually to the decision that “For the purposes of the Equality Act 2010, the term “Woman” referred to biological women.”

So here I am, entitled to call myself a woman, by virtue of having a GRC, and having a Birth Certificate which states Sex: Girl, which was legally granted me on successful application for the said GRC, after having had Gender Reassignment Surgery, and yet now barred from (women’s) single sex spaces.

• Public Toilets
• Changing Rooms
• Hospital Ward
• Prison Cells
• and others

Now I have nowhere outside of my home to do something as natural as peeing, and unless there is a private room available in a hospital I can’t get a bed. There’s a lot more to the UKSC ruling and, for trans people, none of it is good.

Baroness Falkner described the judgement as a victory for common sense, but only if you recognised trans people, ” that they exist, they have rights, and their rights must be respected.”

Fine words, but words that carry little meaning. Why? Because no one was listening, FWS were too busy drinking champagne, and cheering themselves, and the trans community was reeling, having had the door of society slammed in their collective face.

There is talk now of “Third Spaces” facilities like toilets, and changing rooms, specifically for those who can’t use gender specific places, but even if organisations which might go to the expense of creating these third spaces, do indeed build them, it singles us out, points to our exclusion from society, and in the worst case, makes us into targets.

For a long time to come, gender, as it applies to Trans people is going to be a contentious issue. The most sad part of all of this, is that the genuinely transgendered person only wants to live their life, all the arguments levelled at us about things like, “a bloke can put on a dress, call himself a woman, and go into the ladies with ill intent.” are rare occurrences, if they happen at all.

I wish I were more eloquent almost as much as I wish I were more feminine, I could express myself better, but here I am, just a simple non-natal female, trying to get by in a hostile world.

If you got this far, thank you for taking the time. I had to do something with the feelings I was left with after the UKSC’s decision, and this post is what I did. I am not going to apologise for it, even with the knowledge that it hasn’t helped me at all. I still feel both angry, and hollowed out.