More Than 1,300 Actors and Industry Professionals Sign Open Letter in Support of Trans People

 

More than 1,300 actors, writers, producers, directors, and other members of the arts and media industry have signed an open letter expressing their support of trans people, and condemning the recent UK Supreme Court decision that has led to widespread transphobia and the roll back of trans rights.

The letter mentions both the Supreme Court Ruling, as well as the interim guidance from the Equalities and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), which calls for the segregation of trans people into spaces away from cisgender people, as being harmful.

The letter in part says, 'The UK film and television industry is at the forefront of cultural change. In recent years we have come together in response to the Me Too and Black Lives Matter movements to reflect upon our working practices and uplift a broad spectrum of voices in our society. We must now urgently work to ensure that our trans, non-binary, and intersex colleagues, collaborators and audiences are protected from discrimination and harassment in all areas of the industry - whether on set, in a production office, or at a cinema.

 'We applaud Equity’s response to the Supreme Court ruling and commitment to its trans members, and call upon our cultural institutions, including Bectu, BAFTA, BFI, Directors UK, Picturehouse, BBC, Writers Guild and Channel 4, to join us in condemning the Supreme Court ruling by using their public platforms to make meaningful commitments to protecting trans, non-binary, and intersex members, talent, and staff from discrimination within their respective organisations.  

'Film and television are powerful tools for empathy and education, and we believe passionately in the ability of the screen to change hearts and minds. This is our opportunity to be on the right side of history.'

Signatories of the letter include high profile names such as Bella Ramsey, Ncuti Gatwa, Nicola Coughlan, Emma Watson, Emma D'Arcy, Neve Campbell, Hailey Atwell, Ken Loach, Alice Oseman, Russell Tovey, Katie Leung, Sonam Kapoor, Arthur Darvil, and others.

The open letter can be found here.

This letter is one of many that have been created over the last week from various groups, including UK writers, sportspeople, and historians.

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Open Letter to the Football Association Demanding Reversal of Trans Player Ban

 

On the 1st June the Football Association (FA) announced that it would be banning trans women from playing football across England, following the Supreme Court ruling on the definition of sex in the Equality Act. This decision will affect players on teams down to the grass roots level, and will include children's games.

The announcement from the FA said 'This is a complex subject, and our position has always been that if there was a material change in law, science, or the operation of the policy in grassroots football then we would review it and change it if necessary.' It is worth noting that the Supreme Court ruling was not, in fact, a change to the law that requires the exclusion of trans people, but simply allows for organisations to be able to segregate them if they wish to.

'The Supreme Court’s ruling on the 16 April means that we will be changing our policy. Transgender women will no longer be able to play in women’s football in England, and this policy will be implemented from 1 June 2025.' They continued. 'We understand that this will be difficult for people who simply want to play the game they love in the gender by which they identify, and we are contacting the registered transgender women currently playing to explain the changes and how they can continue to stay involved in the game.'

This decision was met with loud applause from transphobes, idiots, and bigots, but has received harsh condemnation from the majority of people, including huge swathes of female football players, who have been open and welcoming to trans players on their teams. My own sister plays on a team that has happily played against multiple trans women, and has indicated shock and anger at this decision.

Goal Diggers FC, a non-profit football club open to all players, including trans and non-binary people, established in 2015 has created an open letter to the FA demanding that this unfair and unreasonable ban be reversed. The letter compares the ban on trans players to the 1921 ban on women playing football, and has described the Supreme Court ruling as a 'stain on this country's reputation'.

The letter is open to anyone involved in football to sign, and I urge anyone who is able to add their voice to this letter to help try to raise awareness, and attempt to force the FA to see reason and decency.

The letter can be found here.

The FA are only one sports body to use the Supreme Courts unscientific decision as an excuse to ban trans people from their games. England Netball has banned trans players from single sex categories and forced them to play in mixed games only, the England and Wales Cricket Board has banned trans women even down to the recreational level, and the Scottish Football Association has banned trans women from playing. These new bans follow on from a number of sporting and recreational bodies that banned trans players before the Supreme Court ruling.

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Biology is not Binary - A Letter From Doctors, Biologists, and Other Experts to the Minister For Women and Equalities

 

A group of UK biologists, doctors, and experts in science have created a letter to Bridget Phillipson, the Minister for Women and Equalities, outlining how sex is not only not binary, but that trying to create legislation that restricts people's rights under this assumption leads to active harm.

The letter, which has already been signed by dozens of people with expertise and knowledge in the field, urges Phillipson and the government to take action to restore the rights of trans and non-binary people in regards to their access of public spaces. The letter goes on to explain why a strict binary doesn't exist in biology, and breaks down how there are multiple factors that make up a persons sex.

The letter can be accessed here.

Those with relevant expertise in the field are urged to add their names to the list of signatories to try and show the government how this new ruling has no actual basis in science, and must be reversed.

The British Medical Association, which represents more than 50,000 young doctors, has also spoken out on the matter, calling the decision 'biologically nonsensical' and 'scientifically illiterate'. 

Anyone with a basic understanding of human biology and sexual development understands that sex isn't a strict binary, and that this is only told to very young children in order to give them a foundational understanding of human biology. Unfortunately, many transphobic campaigners only have a five-year-old's understanding of science, and are ignoring actual experts in the field. Hopefully this letter, and the BMA condemnation, will go some way to showing why this is a complex issue, and restricting rights based on unscientific views is dangerous.

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Barclays Bank To Ban Trans Women From Toilet Facilities

 

The chief executive of Barclays Bank, CS Venkatakrishnan, has confirmed to news outlets that Barclays branches will ban trans women from women's toilet facilities, claiming that they have made this decision to 'comply with the law'.

This decision comes in the wake of the UK Supreme Court ruling that woman is limited to 'biological woman' only, when it comes to the Equality Act 2010, and that sex means sex assigned at birth. The Supreme Court made this ruling without receiving any evidence or consultation from trans people or trans groups, but allowed evidence to be given by openly transphobic organisations. They have also failed to define what 'biological sex' actually is; something that is impossible to do as people exist on a spectrum of sex, and trying to define sex would lead to massive exclusion for people who do not fit a narrow, incorrect definition. 

Following the Supreme Court decision the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) rushed out interim guidance in the middle of the night that said trans people should not only be excluded from the single sex spaces that match their gender expression, as they have been doing forever, but that they should also be excluded from the spaces that match their assigned birth sex. This guidance effectively segregates trans people into a third space, or excludes them entirely. 

Neither the EHRC interim guidance, nor the Supreme Court ruling call for the exclusion of trans people from these spaces under law, but simply allow businesses to be able to do so if they so choose. As such Venkatakrishnan's claim that Barclays are barring trans women from women's spaces is to comply with law is blatantly false, as this is not law. Barclays have instead made an active, willing choice to make the lives of trans women harder, and to further marginalise them.

CS Venkatakrishnan, a man who talks about inclusivity
whilst harming his staff.

Venkatakrishnan told reporters 'Following the Supreme Court ruling… we believe that we have to comply with that by not allowing trans women to use female bathrooms.' He went on to add 'We strive in every way to make the appropriate facilities available in a comfortable way for people to use and to provide equality of opportunities and development.'

In perhaps the most tone deaf and insulting moment Venkatakrishnan claimed that Barclays was 'committed' to equality and equal opportunities for all of its staff, a statement completely undercut by his actions. 

'There should be an inclusive working environment where everybody should be comfortable and have the best form of personal expression.' He said, after announcing that that will not apply to trans women. Perhaps his ideal workplace where everyone is comfortable is a workspace that doesn't have trans people in them, something that his new toilet policy would be pushing for.

Barclays is a bank that is not safe for trans people. It's not safe to be there as a member of staff, and it will not be safe to bank with them. Their bosses spout buzzwords about inclusion, yet will introduce policies designed to segregate, humiliate, and harm a vulnerable minority group. I urge all those who bank with Barclays and believe in trans freedom and trans rights to move their accounts to another bank, and show these disgusting wankers (not, that's not a typo of bankers) that we will not approve of their bigotry.

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Questioning Supreme Court Gender Ruling 'Unacceptable' Says Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood

 

The Justice Secretary, Shabana Mahmood, has claimed that questioning the decision made by the Supreme Court in regards to their recent ruling on sex and gender under the Equality Act is 'absolutely unacceptable'.

Speaking to Parliament's Human Rights Joint Committee, Mahmood has condemned criticism of the ruling. She said 'I think it’s disappointing since then that some individuals have sought to question the validity of the Supreme Court or cast aspersions, which is absolutely unacceptable.

'I think they’ve done their job and I think they’ve sought to do it in a way that recognises that we’re talking about a balance of rights, but sought to give confidence to a minority community that they still have protections.' She went on to say that she believes the ruling 'provided legal clarity'.

This is not the first time that Mahmood has spoken out on topics that directly impact trans and queer people, and has been criticised in the past for taking positions against LGBTQ+ rights. In 2019 she came under fire for complaining about relationship and sex education and it's age appropriateness. She was criticised for this, as she only complained about LGBTQ+ relationships being taught, implying that primary school children learning about some families having two dads was somehow not acceptable, yet finding no issue with children of that age learning about heterosexual families.

She has also been vocally in support of 'gender critical' people (anti-trans activists and bigots), claiming that they have faced harsh treatment when they've been held accountable for holding awful views. Mahmood said that she agreed with 'gender critical' people on their stance of biological sex, and that she supported comments made by known transphobe JK Rowling.

It would appear that Shabana Mahmood is no stranger to skirting controversy around the queer community, and with having spoken out in defence of transphobes in the past she would seem to likely share many of their views on trans women, and the larger trans community. As such, it's no surprise that she has come out in defence of the Supreme Court ruling.

'Gender critical's' celebrating the loss of trans rights.

Now for some language that will probably be a little offensive, so I apologise for that in advance, but fuck Shabana Mahmood, and anyone else who claims that we should be unable to question this disgusting ruling. It is frankly offensive and insulting to suggest that people rightfully questioning the law, especially one that is being used to enforce segregation and strip a vulnerable minority group of rights, protections, and safety. I believe that it's unacceptable to not question that.

Two week after the Supreme Courts ruling that women under the Equality Act is defined as 'biological women', they have yet to clarify what this actually means. What is a biological woman? What is the necessary condition required for being a woman? Is it chromosomes, and if so what about all of the various chromosomal configurations that fall outside of this supposed binary the court has claimed exist? If it's the ability to produce eggs and have children, what about infertile women? If it's genitals, what about people with intersex conditions that don't have clear, defined genitals that fall into one of two rigid boxes? Of course we have to question this ruling Shabana, it makes no fucking sense! There is no clarity whatsoever, and the Supreme Court's response of 'well common sense' means absolutely nothing, differs from person to person, and is completely unenforceable.

This ruling has to be questioned because it's impractical. Organisations are falling over themselves to be the most exclusionary ones around, introducing policies that ban trans people from all single sex spaces. But how will that be enforced? Are we going to have to show ID to use public bathrooms and changing rooms? Will there be someone there to test chromosomes? Are we going to have to undergo genital inspections before being let through the door? Again, none of this has been explained, so of course it needs to be questioned. But then also anyone with an ounce of real sense knows that it's only ever going to be enforced by bigots who are going to judge based on appearance, and that we're going to see a huge uptick in people being harassed for not looking 'woman enough' to be in certain spaces; something that will affect trans and cis women equally.

All of this is ignoring the fact that the UK Supreme Court doesn't create the law, it simply interprets the law, and that the government has parliamentary supremacy, which means that we could simply create a new law that makes things fair and clear, rather than listening to this ridiculous decision that's already started to ruin lives and makes no sense.

Question this law. Question most laws. If people didn't question the fairness, validity, and worthiness of laws there would still be countless injustices happening in the world that were at one time fully legal and acceptable that we've now agreed are terrible things. The ill treatment of trans people is of course unjustifiable. It's a reactionary hate movement based on recycled prejudices and open hate that is actively making the world worse. Not only should it be questioned, it should be openly opposed at every turn.

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British Medical Association Condemns Supreme Court Trans Ruling

 

Doctors in the British Medical Association have voted to condemn the recent UK Supreme Court ruling that redefined woman in the Equality Act 2010 to mean 'biological woman only' as both 'biologically nonsensical', and 'scientifically illiterate'.

During a conference of the resident doctors wing of the BMA, held on Saturday the 26th, the union passed a motion critical of the Supreme Court ruling. The group, which represents 50,000 young doctors across the United Kingdom, said that it 'condemns scientifically illiterate rulings from the Supreme Court, made without consulting relevant experts and stakeholders, that will cause real-world harm to the trans, non-binary and intersex communities in this country'.

They went on to say that the Supreme Court's decision 'has no basis in science or medicine while being actively harmful to transgender and gender-diverse people'. The Supreme Court, despite ruling that legal sex under the Equality Act is determined by 'biological sex' have yet to clarify by what metric this is determined, and have yet to state clearly what aspect of biology makes someone a man or woman, or how determining this would work in real world circumstances, such as if chromosomal checks would be required in order to access single sex spaces.

A spokesperson at the BMA said that the official policy would be revealed in June at the Annual Representative Meeting (ARM), but that 'The BMA respects trans patients’ dignity, autonomy, and human rights and continues to believe that trans doctors, NHS workers and patients deserve dignity, safety, and equitable access to healthcare and healthcare facilities.'

British Medical Association members supporting queer rights, Pride London 2019.

They went on to say, 'This meeting condemns the Supreme Court ruling defining the term ‘woman’ with respect to the Equality Act as being based on ‘biological sex’, which they refer to as a person who was at birth of the female sex, as reductive, trans and intersex-exclusionary and biologically nonsensical. We recognise as doctors that sex and gender are complex and multifaceted aspects of the human condition and attempting to impose a rigid binary has no basis in science or medicine while being actively harmful to transgender and gender diverse people.'

The BMA has previously spoken out for the rights of trans and gender diverse people in the UK, having publicly rejected the findings of the Cass Review last year. They went on to condemn the ban on puberty blockers for trans people under 18 (a treatment that is still available to cisgender children), and urged the government to end the ban, something that Labour have yet to do.

Despite the BMA being made up of medically trained professionals, a number of transphobic and bigoted groups and individuals in the UK have spoken out against them, claiming that they are incorrect in their beliefs. 

Noted anti-trans campaigner Helen Joyce has said 'It’s terrifying that a group of young doctors, all of whom have been through several years of advanced education and training in biology, have been indoctrinated by trans activism to such an extent that they claim categorisation by sex — male and female — is ‘reductive’ and has ‘no basis in science or medicine’.

'These junior doctors are an embarrassment to their profession. What next: young geographers claiming that the Earth is flat, or junior vets who think it’s bigoted to suggest that cats can’t identify as dogs? The consequences of these counterfactual beliefs were visible in the case of nurse Sandie Peggie, whose male colleague Dr Beth Upton used female changing rooms, claiming that he was ‘biologically female’ and that the term biological sex is a ‘nebulous dog whistle’.

Notable transphobe Helen Joyce.

'These junior doctors wildly misunderstand the role of the Supreme Court, which interprets the law rather than creating it or reflecting public opinion. They also seem to have missed the fact that no trans rights group such as Stonewall applied to intervene.'

On a personal note, I think that it's incredibly amusing that someone with no medical training or scientific knowledge would claim that an organisation of 50,000 doctors, who are simply agreeing with every recognised and credited medical organisation around, have been brainwashed into believing a lie, rather than considering that she herself might in fact be wrong. We've known that many of these transphobic 'activists' are in a sunk cost fallacy when it comes to their bigotry, but showing the entire world how deep you are into it by saying that you know better than the British Medical Association is one of the most pathetic and ridiculous things I've seen from a TERF in a long time. I would urge you to seek help Helen, but with how you seem to view doctors I suspect that would fall on deaf ears.

Despite some of the loudest voices on the Supreme Court ruling being those from transphobes, more sensible and decent people have spoken out, even if they've not been featured in the mainstream media. Helen Belcher, the chair of the campaign group TransActual said that officials have 'not thought through any of the vast and disturbing consequences raised by the Supreme Court ruling', and 'instead of bringing clarity, the Supreme Court has made a ruling which appears to contain a number of contradictions', something which seems to have bore out as true after the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) released interim guidance calling to segregate trans people.

The Supreme Court decision has sparked outrage amongst the general public, with dozens of pro-trans protests having already taken place across Britain (and more to come) that has been attended by tens of thousands of trans people and trans allies. Multiple celebrities, politicians, and other public figures have also raised their voices in support of the trans community, raising both awareness and money for the cause. It would seem that whilst this decision has been praised by the media and anti-trans voices, who have falsely claimed that it 'brings clarity' to the issue this is a small, incorrect minority.

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Night Call - Film Review

 

Most people go their entire lives without brushing up against the world of organised crime, gangs, and extreme violence. It's a thing to be found in the movies or on the news, not suddenly injected into your everyday life. Night Call, the directorial debut of Belgian filmmaker Michiel Blanchart, takes this idea of a normal person finding their life thrown upside down by criminals and takes it to the extreme as Mady (Jonathan Feltre), a locksmith working night shifts, is dragged into a world of danger and murder by a call gone wrong.

The film begins by following Mady through a typical night, helping people get inside their homes when they've lost their keys, grabbing food from corner shops, and listening to classic music as he drives around the city. It's painted as a quiet, slow job that seems to suit him well. However, this all changes when he receives a call from Claire (Natacha Krief), a young woman who's locked her keys in her apartment and needs help. Arriving on the scene, Mady is ready to assist her, but when she can't pay him up front or show him her ID, both things she claims are locked inside, he goes against regulations and takes a chance on her, opening up the door. Claire goes inside to grab the cash, but realises she needs to head to the ATM downstairs, but invites him to wait in the apartment for her. Oh, and she's tossing out a bag of rubbish as she goes too.

Whilst waiting inside the apartment for Claire she calls his phone, telling him he has to leave quick before the real owner comes home and finds him there. However, it's too late for that, as Mady is attacked. During the fight Mady accidentally kills the attacker, and in a panic goes to call the police to turn himself in. But it's the news reports about BLM protests in the city, and footage of police brutality that makes him think perhaps a young Black man calling the cops to arrest him for murder isn't the best idea. Instead, he decides to try and clean up the crime scene and cover his tacks. But when more of the mans friends arrive on the scene Mady is captured and brought before a local gang leader, Yannick (Romain Duris), who tells Mady that Claire stole a load of money from him, and that he's got until morning to find her and get it back, or he dies in her place.

Mady is essentially an everyman, a regular person who is ill prepared for the situation he now finds himself in. And Feltre plays this role well. A lot of these kind of thrillers begin with an everyman type character, but often end up with them having more unrealised skills than some secret agents, able to fight of gangsters like they're a hired killer. Mady, on the other hand, rarely gets through situations with any kind of skill, and ends up either with things getting worse for him, or with him getting injured. He uses the skills he has, such as his locksmithing, but essentially makes up his plan as he goes along, just trying to stay alive until morning. Feltre injects a lot of humanity into Mady, with various looks of panic or sadness on his face the majority of times. It's moments of him failing to be the tough guy, literally breaking down in tears after hurting someone for information at one point, that makes him feel genuine and believable.

There are moments of violence in the film, and none of them are made to feel like action scenes where the protagonist is rising up over the challenge and being a hero. Instead, things feel brutal and shocking, and the violence, whilst not gratuitous, is harsh enough that it feels frightening, and you end up worrying for Mady. Blanchart handles these moments wonderfully, and manages to create a film that looks really well polished yet retains an almost gritty and horrible emotional undercurrent to it. The film is visually engaging, and pretty enough that you forget you're watching a debut movie. 

The films backdrop of a city being divided by BLM protests also works in the story's favour. Perhaps the smartest thing it does is that it allows the perfect excuse of why Mady, a man who would never normally try to get away with murder, would be ready to cut up and dispose of a body. The fear of a police force who he's seeing literally beating and killing people who look like him is not only perfectly understandable, but makes it so that you never question why he never goes for help at any point. It also plays into the ending in a wonderfully twisted and beautiful ending that feels both surprising, and completely expected.

Night Call was a surprisingly well crafted, and engaging movie that manages to do a lot over its relatively short runtime. It creates a character that you end up feeling a lot for, and creates a story that can be taken as a relatively straightforward crime thriller, or one that has deeper meaning and extra layers for those who are looking for it. I hope to see more from both Blanchart and Feltre in the future, as this film left me incredibly impressed.

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Equality and Human Rights Commission Tells Organisations to Segregate Trans People

 

The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), an organisation that the trans community in Britain has been aware for a while now does not have the rights, protection, or safety of the trans community in mind at all, has released interim guidance following the Supreme Court ruling that explicitly calls for trans segregation. The guidance tells organisations that manage public spaces, as well as workplaces, that they will need to create segregated spaces for trans people when it comes to bathrooms, changing rooms, and washing facilities.

The decision of the EHRC seems to be based in the Supreme Courts ruling that same-sex spaces must align with 'biological sex'. It's worth noting, however, that biological sex, and the necessary conditions to be classed as either a man or woman, have not been provided beyond what is listed on a birth certificate. Despite ruling that biological sex is all that matters we have yet to be told if this is based on genotypic sex, or phenotypic sex characteristics, or what happens when people fall outside of these deciding factors. But as anyone with more than a basic understanding of biology knows, there is no singular necessary condition to define biological sex, that sex is bimodal with a spectrum and not binary, and that there is no basis in any science for this ruling. 

However, with the Supreme Court making a declaration that single-sex spaces must now be split by biology what does this mean for trans people? Well, before the EHRC guidance (which was published late Friday night), it was assumed that this would force trans women into male spaces, and trans men into women's spaces. There were caveats in the ruling that outlined that some people, such as trans men, could be barred from women's spaces as it was decided that despite not being men, they were too much men to be put with women. This seems to be where the EHRC has drawn inspiration for its guidance, as it has now issued instructions that call for the segregation of trans people completely.

The guidance states the following:

'trans women should not be permitted to use the women’s facilities and trans men should not be permitted to use the men’s facilities, as this will mean that they are no longer single-sex facilities and must be open to all users of the opposite sex'

'in some circumstances the law also allows trans women not to be permitted to use the men’s facilities, and trans men not to be permitted to use the women’s facilities'

'however where facilities are available to both men and women, trans people should not be put in a position where there are no facilities for them to use'

'where possible, mixed-sex toilet, washing or changing facilities in addition to sufficient single-sex facilities should be provided'

Perhaps it's my interpretation of what's being said here, and I'll admit that I'm not qualified in law, but it does seem that the EHRC is saying that trans people cannot use spaces that align with either their gender, or their 'biological sex', but that they should not be left without a space, therefor requiring the implementation of a separate space for them. A separate space where they can be segregated from cis people. If this is the case this comes as a truly horrifying piece of guidance, one that seeks to both overstep the bounds of the Supreme Court ruling, and to explicitly harm trans people across the UK. It is also worth noting that this guidance also applies to trans people with a Gender Recognition Certificate.

As this is interim guidance it is possible that this may go no further, that this guidance will be quietly ignored. However, if this were made statutory it would effect public spaces, schools, workplaces, clubs, sporting facilities, and other important places across the UK, and would become one of the biggest rollbacks on equality rights and protections that we've ever seen, and would turn Britain into a country that practices segregation and discrimination.

It is also worth considering how such guidance would be implemented. If made statutory it would require that any space offering single-sex facilities for men and women would then have to provide another space for trans people. Would every business and public space be expected to spend thousands to build these new facilities, would trans people simply be lumped into disabled spaces, or would places simply make all of their facilities gender neutral, thereby sidestepping the issue? If it's the latter option, which would likely be the cheapest and easiest of them, it would seem that the transphobic position of 'protecting women's spaces' would have failed by effectively removing many of them from existence.

The new interim guidance doesn't just talk about single-sex spaces, however, and goes on to talks about clubs and organisations that consist of twenty five members or more, and specifically uses queer spaces as an example. It instructs that lesbian only spaces should not admit trans women, and gay spaces should not admit trans men, effectively trying to police the queer community and telling us what is and isn't acceptable for the gay and lesbian community. 

Despite this guidance being less than a day old it has already been declared as a human rights disaster by multiple groups and individuals, particularly by members of the trans community and their allies, who have compared it to racial segregation, and apartheid. It would also seem that the EHRC has overstepped what was laid out in the Supreme Court ruling. But for those of us who are aware of the EHRC's past stance on trans people this comes as little surprise. The EHRC has been condemned by queer rights groups on multiple occassions for its overtly transphobic policies, and there have been multiple leaked documents that have revealed they have been working in opposition to the trans community. More on this can be found at TransActual.

Whatever becomes of this interim guidance, whether it's rolled back, or if it becomes statutory, it's clear that this is only the beginning. We're barely more than a week beyond the Supreme Court ruling and we've already seen an increase in anti-trans sentiment, the news media have praised the ruling and demonised the trans community, and more anti-trans guidance is being pushed. This is only the beginning of this fight, and things could get much, much worse from here; but there is also a fight back happening. There are pro-trans protests and demonstrations happening across the UK on an almost weekly basis. The trans community has mass support, and we are loved, even if it doesn't seem that way.

It's easy to be disheartened by this news, and everything else that's been happening. I've been going from feeling absolutely without hope to being ready to fight this every day. There are times when I think that it's pointless, and that there's no way to win, but then I see the support we have, I see the action being taken to protect us and our rights and it restores my hope. Don't give up. Keep fighting. This is going to be a long, dark road, but we will make it through.

Update: Robin Moira White, Discrimination Barrister, and first barrister to transition in the UK, has claimed that the new guidance from the EHRC appears to 'be in potential breach of Articles 3,8, and 14 of the European Convention of Human Rights, and as such the guidance should not be followed.

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UK Supreme Court Ruling and Fighting Back As a Trans Person

 

Last week the UK Supreme Court ruled that sex as listed in the Equality Act 2010 will now be defined as a person's observed sex at birth. This news was met by celebration by 'Gender Criticals' or 'TERFs (Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminists)', or more accurately, bigots who hate trans people, whilst the trans community, their allies, and anyone with an ounce of common sense saw this as a terrible decision that would have long reaching effects that would harm a wide range of people.

As a trans person living in the UK I was shocked by this news, but not hugely surprised. Over the last decade I'd watched as trans people went from largely ignored, allowed to get on with our lives, to being the flavour of the month minority group who were celebrated for being 'brave', to having become so demonised that small but influential groups of bigots have been campaigning non-stop to have us made into third class citizens. This ruling was something that should shock and sicken, and has for a lot of people, but for those of us who have been living this everyday it felt like the natural next step in this campaign to eradicate trans people.

That language might sound inflammatory to some, and I'm sure that people are already scoffing at the word and accusing me of 'overreacting', but that's what's been happening. People want the trans population gone. We're something that they hate, something that they're frightened of, something that they take disgust in, and these people have dedicated their lives to erasing us. For now it's about doing it legally, removing rights and protections, but I'm sure if allowed to continue this way it will progress to removing the ability to transition at all, with the end goal being trans people existing outside of the closet being impossible. 

When I first started writing on this blog it was an outlet for me, with me having only just come out of the closet to myself. I'd been struggling with severe depression for most of my life, and I didn't know why I felt that way until one day something just clicked inside me and I realised I was trans. I came out to a small circle of people, and I was awaiting the chance to medically transition, and I felt like I was stuck in a limbo with no outlet; so I started writing. I wrote about whatever I wanted, with no real direction in mind. It could be writing about a film I'd watched, about being trans, or about personal experiences and hopes for the future.

Over the years I kept writing, and I wrote more about being trans and about things happening to trans people around the world. I was asked to contribute to a number of trans focused outlets, and I gained some attention online. Sadly, being openly, vocally trans online can draw negative attention, and through the combination of threats and abuse, constant negative stories, and my own personal issues at the time, I burned out. I got to the point where I had to step back from writing about trans issues, and I focused on other work. I ended up working with an entertainment outlet, where my book reviews took over much of my writing time, and I even ended up on the editorial team. Trans issues never left my life, never became something that I stopped caring about, but life kind of shifted them to being something I didn't write about myself anymore.

I've always felt a little guilty about that. I know I was never anyone important, that I never mattered, I wasn't some big figure in the trans community, or even a small one. I was just one voice that occasionally spoke up that may have been doing something good. But despite that, I felt like I'd let the trans community down and that by writing about frivolous things like comics and movies over the struggles of my community I'd done something that I should feel ashamed about, and I was always a little bit afraid of trying to go back to doing something. I tried to do a little, such as writing about the lives lost in the community on Trans Day of Remembrance, but it felt like it wasn't enough, and I felt guilty for even trying.

But then last week rolled around, and trans people in the UK lost their rights. The bigots were able to sway the court to their side. Trans people were excluded from proceedings, lies were allowed to be told about us, and we lost rights and protections. Overnight bigots started to act as if we'd become third class citizens, a large part of our existence was made illegal, and our futures became dark and uncertain. That, coupled with images and videos of bigots drinking champagne, cheering and celebrating outside of court, and smoking their victory cigars as they lauded the this ruling over us as a victory, broke something inside me.

I hadn't felt this depressed in almost a decade. Things felt hopeless. I didn't know if I was going to be safe outside my home anymore. I was suddenly back to being that newly out trans woman, afraid for her future, crying herself to sleep, drinking to numb the pain, and wondering if life was worth living anymore. And this is as someone with a support network around her, someone with safety, who even if things become worse will likely be okay. I couldn't imagine how hard last week was for those who didn't have that, for those newly out, for those without family and friends, for those without a secure home. 

Since the ruling came out I've gone from feeling utterly broken to feeling enraged. I look at the world and I feel so much anger that we've gotten to this point. I hate that the people who hate us have such elevated voices, that they have so much power to influence the world for the worse. I hate that they've twisted the narrative so much that trans existence is painted as a threat, that we've been made into the monsters that prey upon 'real' women and girls, and that women's rights have been so harmed in the fight against us. And I hate that they make me feel so much hate. I want to hope for a better tomorrow, for a world where trans people need not be afraid for their futures, where we're allowed to just exist and be ourselves without being made into monsters or victims. But his isn't a time for hope alone, hope without action won't do anything.

I'm just one voice, a voice who doesn't really matter, but I'm going to be using my voice again. I let myself and my community down for a long time by doing nothing. I'm one voice, and one voice alone can be forgotten, and can go unheard. But if all of us start shouting then those lone voices become something more, and we can start making ourselves heard. I will do what I can, even if all I can do is start talking about trans people and our fight more. I wish I could do more, I wish I wasn't so sick all the time, that I could take to the streets as part of the protests, that I could take more action, but I will use the platform I have, as little as it is.

I want to say that I'm sorry though. I've been content to do little for so long, to allow others to take up the cause, to shy away and keep myself safe and focus on my self. Yes, I've been sick, and dealing with my disability and the impact it's had on my life has taken up a lot of my time, but I can't use that as an excuse, because those coming for us won't give me a free pass because of that. I should never have stopped talking about trans people. I should never have let my voice falter. So, I'm sorry. But that stops now. This is a fight, and I will do whatever I can to help in that fight. 

I don't know what that means for my blog, how it's going to change things for those who've been reading it for all this time with it becoming a mixture of entertainment articles and trans focused writing. I don't know if it will lose me readers and subscribers, if it might even lose me relationships with the people I work with, if it will cost me the opportunity to get review copies of things and it effectively ends my ability to do what I've been doing for years now; because standing up for the trans community and drawing attention to our fight is more important than those things. 

I don't know how long this road is going to be, or how hard this fight will end up, but it's not a fight I can just ignore. I will never stop being me, I will never stop existing as long as I'm alive, no matter how much bigots try to make this world unsafe for trans people. Trans lives matter. We exist, and we will keep fighting.

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Black Cab - Film Review

 

Sometimes all you need to make a good story work is a confined space and a couple of really good actors. Black Cab, the latest Shudder film to get a Blu-ray release so that those who don't subscribe to the streaming service can get a chance to watch it, tries this by putting its two leads into a London black cab and ramping the tension up; however, thanks to a fairly lacklustre script there's little here to keep you engaged other than Nick Frost's charm (please note, this review was written before Nick Frost was announced to be in the new Harry Potter television series).

Black Cab follows Anne (Synnøve Karlsen), a young woman dealing with the stress of her unstable relationship with a boyfriend, Patrick (Luke Norris), who looks to be an abusive womaniser. Anne is dealing with the uncertainty of their relationship, her pregnancy, and the ghost that's following her and giving her strange nightmares about a black cab. The early scenes have an almost Where's Wally? thing going on with the ghostly figure as you catch small glimpses of her in reflective surfaces, or see fading handprints she leaves behind on things. 

After an awkward dinner with some friends, where Patrick tells shitty stories, gets very drunk, and announces that he and Anne are engaged (seemingly something even Anne didn't know), the two of them jump in the back of a black cab driven by Ian (Nick Frost). At first Ian seems to be a decent guy, even offering to throw Patrick out for Anne, sensing the tension between the two of them. Bombarding them with stories, a running commentary, and even joining in with songs on the radio, Ian comes across as the embodiment of the overly talkative London cabbie. It's when he mentions having recently picked up Anne from the hospital maternity ward that things begin to take a turn, having just accidentally revealed to Patrick that Anne is pregnant.

However, this awkward moment is quickly overshadowed when Ian, who's pretending to need to get a map from the back of the cab, attacks the young couple with a stun gun, knocking Patrick unconscious. With Anne and Patrick zip-tied in the back of the cab, Ian starts a journey to a distant stretch of supposedly haunted road, where he needs Anne and her unborn baby to make a deal.

Black Cab doesn't have a bad premise, on paper at least. Being a young pregnant woman trapped in the rear of a vehicle driven by a madman with a weapon and some strange agenda for you is a pretty frightening concept, one that leans into very real fears that a lot of women have to deal with on an almost everyday basis. However, the film never really does much beyond this initial concept. The movie toys with the supernatural throughout, yet doesn't really commit to it until the final act, and by then it's been used so sparsely that it almost feels a bit ridiculous when the film makes one of its main characters a ghost.

It also doesn't help that two thirds of its main cast, Anne and Patrick, feel very underdeveloped. Patrick spends much of the movie unconscious, and as such you either forget he's there, or think of him as little more than an annoying prick boyfriend. This is fine in a way, as the film isn't really about him, and despite being there for much of the film he's little more than a supporting character. But even then, I'm finding it hard to describe his character in any great detail. He's fairly shallow, with a surface level character trait that never gets expanded upon. If he was the only one it might not stand out so much, but the fact that Anne, our lead character, is similar in a lot of ways, makes it feel less of an importance thing, and more that the writing is just pretty weak.

Anne's character can be summed up very simply as 'frightened victim', with little else to her. Whether that's her being scared around her partner, or terrified that Ian is going to kill her, she spends much of the film being scared. You might be asking what's wrong with that, she is a female lead in a horror film after all, that's what most of them do, but when compared to other final girls it's shockingly clear that Anne has no character. Compared to Sarah Connor, Laurie Strode, Sidney Prescott, or Ellen Ripley, all of whom have strong characters and interesting arcs in their first films, Anne falls pretty flat. I feel bad in saying that, as Karlsen does a decent job throughout, and comes across as a very charming person, but it's more of a lack of material she has to work with rather than any lack of acting ability.

The only character who seems to have any real presence is Ian, and I can't help but feel that much of this comes down to Nick Frost over the actual script. Frost is able to make himself very charming when needed, and he injects a lot of humour into various moments in the film too, simply from how he puts certain inflection into lines that could have been delivered much more normally. It's not hard to watch half of his scenes and think that another actor would be delivering a much less interesting performance. He's able to make you like Ian very quickly, and there are several moments even after he's revealed he's the villain of the piece where you kind of still like him. The times where the charm drops and he turns sinister are much more impactful because of this too, and it's often quite shocking when the jovial cab driver suddenly screams at Anne, threatening to harm her. In many ways Nick Frost carries this film, and if it wasn't for his performance it would be hard to enjoy much of the movie.

Black Cab is a fairly short film, yet feels overly long when you're watching it. This comes down to the weird pacing that it has, and the fact that not a huge amount happens for the first hour. Little time is given over to character development, and plot seems to just circle around for a while. Thinking back on the movie it feels like a concept for a short film that was stretched out into a feature length piece, one that didn't have enough material to make that change feel worthwhile or substantial. 

It's not just the film that feels lacking, sadly, as the Blu-ray release comes with nothing but a behind the scenes photo gallery as it's extra features. The lack of anything like trailers, interviews, behind the scenes making of pieces, or commentaries, makes the physical release feel kind of cheap, and as if no real care was put into making it. For those who don't have Shudder and see a Black Cab sitting on shop shelves and find their interest piqued by a Nick Frost horror film (as mine was initially), perhaps wait until the film is in the bargain bin, as the way it is at the moment it feels like the full asking price is much steeper than it should be.

Black Cab is available no on both DVD and Blu-ray.

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