‘Rights can be knocked out in a second’: older transwomen shocked by SC ruling

[RethinkingLife]

People may recognise the photograph and name of Christine Burns (Press for Change).

https://gendercriticalwoman.blog/category/christine-burns/

Christine Burns, a retired activist and internationally recognised health adviser, charts “a fairly straight line of progress” towards the passing of the Gender Recognition Act in 2004, which allowed trans people to change gender on their birth certificate, marry to reflect their chosen identity and gave them privacy around their transition. That legislation “mattered so much to people” says Burns, while acknowledging that only a minority of the community have gone on to apply for a GRC.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/apr/27/older-trans-women-shocked-by-supreme-court-ruling

The usual hyperbole with feeling “their safety and security has suddenly been removed”. Whittle features, of course. As does Roz Kaveney who neutrally would say to young people: “”don’t be scared, just be prepared to fight for your lives”.

I have a very bright and distinct memory of it not happening.

I've read the guardian for decades. This issue has me done with it.

But I don't remember trans rights being associated with any political movement, progressive or otherwise, in the 80s and 90s. (Not sure we would have used the word 'progressive' then, but can't think of a different word).

Gay rights, yes, definitely - section 28, the impact of AIDs and years of famous men being outed - had a huge cultural impact.

Jan Morris was the only person I can remember being slightly in the public eye, but I can't remember any connection to politics or women's rights.

Trans sexuals obviously existed, but they just popped up very occasionally in human interest documentaries, not as part part of the cultural or political zeitgeist.

I can remember Chandler's dad in friends, and 'I'm a Lady' in Little Britain (and that was 2000s), but I can't remember anyone - even the Guardian - being concerned that these TV programmes were offensive.

Nadia on Big Brother... maybe? But I don't think anyone made a connection with politics and that was 2004.

You cant lose legal rights you never legally had.

It's always previously been framed as 'an honour' system for toilets.

Except this wasn't law. It wasn't a right. And women didn't consent and politicians never legally wrote this into law.

I was a student in the late 80s/early 90s. I was a political teen and involved in the NUS from age 16. I was a delegate several times to the NUS Women’s conferences, as well as the main conference. LGB rights were very much discussed/campaigned for at Women’s conferences during this period.
Trans issues? - nope, nada… it was not discussed, was not an issue for female students back then and transwomen were not involved with any of our campaigning. I met a lot of interesting and diverse student campaigners - I don’t recall meeting a single transwomen involved in student politics during this time.

I think this probably another example of 'There have always been transgender people /The Stonewall Riots* were started by transwomen of colour'. rewriting of history🙄

• [at the NYC bar of that name in 1969, not the ailing organisation named after it, just to be clear! ]

I definitely remember the 80s and 90s and was both politically active and heavily into women's rights. I have absolutely no recollection of this happening at all in Manchester where I lived then, or anywhere else.

I see Ed Davie and Carla Denyer are on the BBC website looking all sad faced, saying the guidelines have been rushed through, calling for the single sex guidance to be withdrawn. Thank goodness neither of them will ever win a general election.

Apparently the guidelines need more clarity 🙄. I'd say they were crystal clear 😁

Men were lied to by Stonewall et al. They didn’t have the right anyway.

They all passed so well that we never knew they were there.
🙄

Rights Goodwill can be knocked out in a second.

There, fixed that for you.

Respectfully raping, assaulting, harassing, destroying women's groups, invading their spaces, getting them arrested for asking for spaces of their own or even stating words of their own, getting them fired from their jobs, destroying their access to refuges and support groups, respectfully and constantly threatening to sexually assault and kill them in ways that would make a psychiatrist's eyebrows raise.... but women merely fought through the courts for years against all the threats and hardships because they maliciously wanted to upset men for shits and giggles.

you cannot communicate with someone this lost in delusion. Women have the evidence of all this, it's as real and obvious as biological sex is. It cannot be burbled and dramatically hyperboled away.

What he means is long cons can be rumbled in a second.

Trans women have, for years, pointed out that they have no platform and people listen to women and not them.

Rubbish - or better bollocks. Stonewall has completed captured a vast number of institutions and women have had to fight court battles to get their voices heard.

How many more who haven't got the money and stamina to go to Court have been silenced? Me for one and I bet that goes for 90% of my women friends.

Sorry not time to read comments made so far, but the article fails to spell out what the change was.

This was when the EA was written to bring together all the equality laws under one (hate to us this word) umbrella.

And in compiling this into one unified law, the politicians decided that one protected characteristic, sex could be made subservient to another (gender re-assignment) ie creating the concept of "legal women" as well as women (biological).

Whether those who wrote the law did this deliberately (to my mind it is social engineering to use the law to impose a belief set on everyone), or because they thought women just wont mind and anyway we have given them the SSE, makes not difference, because whatever the reason, it became the trojan horse.

And of course following on from that the misinterpretation of the law by Stonewall etc. to insist the self identification had the same status as a GRC.

I have no doubt that in the early days, given the very limited number of men who had transitioned surgically and got a GRC were by and large if not treated well, not harassed or worse.

But they are very different to the situation nowadays where a man can just claim they are now a woman and claim they have the right to be in women's toilets, sport etc..

Yes rights can be taken away.

As women slowly came to realise how the new all encompassing EA had far from making sex a protected characteristic in its own right, was only a right conditional of the rights given by the GRA.

As said on many other threads, if early transitioners and modern day identifiers want to be angry, but angry with the actual law makers and the queer campaigners who have steadily infiltrated campaigns and work places to under mine "norms".

The law makers promised something that was not real. That having a GRC = being a biological woman.

And the campaigners claimed something that was not real. That just by identifying you can magical deny the reality of your biological sex.

Trans women have, for years, pointed out that they have no platform and people listen to women and not them.

I remember distinctly that the Trans “community” wanted nothing to do with the Gay Pride & Lesbian Strength marches of the early 80s.

The Beaumont Society - the main org for fetishistic men - were horrified to be lumped in with us & very clear they were not anything like those “degenerates”.

‘Rights can be knocked out in a second’ says older transwomen campaigning to remove the legally established rights of women (again).

No. Total bollocks, as usual.

Well, that’s quite interesting. How did they come to be stuck to the LGB to make the whole LGBTQIAWTF? Did they get over themselves with regards gay people not being “degenerates” or did they see the rising acceptance of gay rights as particularly effective cover?

"The law makers promised something that was not real. That having a GRC = being a biological woman."

They didn't even promise that. The GRA made a clear distinction when it came to inheritance, sport and parental status.

The GRA legislation has always been contradictory.

women merely fought through the courts for years against all the threats and hardships because they maliciously wanted to upset men

CLAWs eh. What can you do with conspicuously law-abiding women H/T Naomi Cunningham).

Well you can actually convert to Judaism. It is a recognised process. My dh is the son of a German convert and she also went through an orthodox conversion. I am also a convert (had a liberal conversion).

In germany though there is an issue where apparently many leadership positions are taken up by converts though this is less of an issue in uk where only 5% of UK jewish population are converts (mainly reform or liberal), number of orthodox converts are double digit every year. There is a principle in Judaism that one must love the convert. In fact in orthodox circles you can't even mention that a convert wasn't jewish before and liberal/reform synagogues generally are very welcoming towards converts. Also in Judaism even if you stuff your face with pork after the conversion the conversion still stands which is why the process is strict as they only want committed people.

What happened to the convention of using only 1 of your academic titles?

Yes, the community in Germany has some specific challenges. The thing about some young Germans hallucinating a Jewish ancestry that they don't really have seems to be about Germany's own troubled history.

It probably muddies the waters further that a huge part of the community are immigrants from the former Soviet Union, and some of them might have question marks over their Jewishness.