Transgender campaigners call for European rights body to report on UK

[BeeSouriante]

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/jun/28/transgender-campaigners-council-of-europe-report-on-uk

edit: The Council of Europe has previously been very critical of how the UK deals with its trans citizens, it will be interesting to see if anything comes of this.

Thank the gods for AI:

I want to understand YOU, so why can't you explain your thoughts on the article? Don't you read the body of any article at all and just get AI to summarise it for you, because going that route is asking for trouble - you don't know what AI has left out that might actually be really relevant to the whole conversation.

What rights do you believe trans not have that others do? And i mean you, not AI.

Classic example of man in women's space, demanding a whole lot of attention, showing a great deal of issues, particularly with women, and desperate to use those women for his own need-meeting. I really don't know or care what that is.
Not feeding this any further.

Exactly.

I'm sure there are loads of women on here, like me, who aren't actually talking to Bee at all in their responses. I know exactly what he thinks and what he wants,

Any post I make addressing Bee's comments is being directed at lurkers.

Exposing transactivists, and transactivism, for what they are, is the quickest route to terfdom.

'Scolding, sneering and dictating' not generally considered persuasive.

If you can't deal with actually responding to points made, what does that say about your movement?

Do you consider yourself an effective and authentic representative of your movement?

So the European Commission just finished their consultation on their LGBTQ+ strategy 2026-2030. Is this where the transgender campaigners urged the EC to berate the UK for finding a balance between gender identity and sex based rights? Because I read quite a few and responded myself and it was about 50-50 promote gender identity versus ‘also protect women, children and homosexual people, so don’t take it too far’, out of a total 1682 responses.

A lot of the responses pro gender identity were obvious cut and paste exercises or from lobby groups. The pro sex based rights came in all different shape and sizes and were more often from ordinary people. And of course there were a few very religious answers, but people’s religion based answers also have to be taken into account, as those people have rights too.

It will be interesting to see where the EC lands. If they don’t take the respondents for sex based rights seriously, then they risk alienating the ordinary citizens of the European countries even further and destabilizing the support for the EU. If they balance both conflicting rights, then they risk irritating a small minority of people. I know which one I would chose, so lets see what happens. For the UK government, I would just ignore this all, it has nothing to do with them.

I've been mulling over this comment. Who invited OP to MN, and why did OP need an invite anyway? Did OP think the invite was from a person of MN power which gave them bigger rights over us ordinary posters? Was it implied within the invite that FWR was desperate to change its wicked thoughts and needed someone of OPs calibre and intelligence to beat FWR into submission? It's a very weird statement to make.

Feel free to tell me to piss off and I will go - you asked me to be here and I responded ffs.

I suspect we're in the flouncing stage of Spamming, complaining and flouncing.

This X a million.

No man has ever experienced a single sex female space and no man ever can. What a waste of a life to chase an impossible dream. Fucking capitalism.

You mean flouncing off this thread, or in general?

I think Bee has become a bit of a fixture, starting threads with poorly-researched statements and dodgy sources, failing to engage in any debate or answer any simple questions: what is wrong with using the men's toilet? what rights do trans people not have in the UK?

The only reaction will be that we are being horrid and unfair, as proven by the fact that the Feminism: Sex and gender discussions is full of discussions about ....feminism, sex and gender!

Bee seems too committed to spreading his mansplaining around the very limited bit of MN he is familiar with - I asked him on another thread if he goes onto the MN Pets board and berates them for talking about non-human life forms all the time, but I think he only targets this board.

Do please piss off.

https://archive.is/rrHG5

Here is the archive link by the way.

In any case, this quote from the article is rather farcical. From
Rebecca Don Kennedy, chief executive of Equality Network

“Trans people have a right to public life, and dignity in social interaction, they have a right to use the toilet safely, to leave their homes knowing that they can. They have a right to privacy, a right to engage with the world as themselves, to join clubs that fully celebrate and welcome them as who they are.”

Mmm. And female people? Let’s just change the focus…

Female people have a right to public life, and dignity in social interaction, they have a right to use the toilet safely, to leave their homes knowing that they can. They have a right to privacy, a right to engage with the world as themselves, to join clubs that fully celebrate and welcome them as who they are.

It really is something to see the neglect of female people in this focus on prioritising male people. Particularly from a group calling themselves the equality group.

I suspect it is not about female equality at all.

“Transgender campaigners call for European rights body to report on UK”

Well they would, wouldn’t they? They’ve literally nobody else to appeal to in the UK and they know many of the big international bodies are well and truly captured.

Face it Bee, you’re going to have to buckle down and use the men’s where you belong, unless you want to go live somewhere other than the UK. Even there, they’ll catch up eventually because using the opposite sex’s spaces is not a human right, it’s an imposition.

At this stage in the game, I really don't think Bee actually believes that gender identity is anything other than a load of old nonsense either.

Here is the letter the article refers to.

https://x.com/feministroar/status/1939272711546499146?s=46

To the Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights and the Sub-Committee on Human Rights,

The undersigned are organisations which advocate for the human rights of trans people in the United Kingdom. We are writing to express our grave concerns about the developing situation regarding trans people's human rights in this country and to ask the Committee to take action.

Following a decision of the UK Supreme Court in April, the Equality and Human Rights Commission - the UK's National Human Rights Institution - has issued an interim update which encourages and in some cases mandates the exclusion of trans people from single-sex spaces and services, in violation of their human rights.' This has been followed by draft guidance which seeks to make such an approach statutory? The EHRC has made clear that it is not seeking input on its legal approach, only on how this approach is best communicated.?

The draft guidance, if it were to become law, would impose an obligation on employers and service providers to implement a bathroom ban on trans people using toilet and changing facilities in line with their acquired sex, instead requiring in practice that they use only gender neutral facilities. Such gender neutral facilities are frequently unavailable, and mandating their usage may require trans people to out themselves. The guidance would also prohibit associations for women and lesbians operating on a basis which would allow trans women to participate, even if the association desires to do so. This would also be true for men's organisations wanting to include trans men.

This draft guidance is being consulted on in the wider context following For Women Scotland, in which government ministers and public bodies have made comments about trans people's rights. The UK Minister for Women and Equalities has stated that trans people are required to use the toilets associated with their sex as recorded at birth, even where their change in sex is recognised by a Gender Recognition Certificate.' The National Police Chiefs' Council have announced that
male officers should now conduct intimate searches of trans women.'

In Christine Goodwin v UK, the European Court of Human Rights held that refusing to legally recognise the lived sex of trans people - and placing them into an 'intermediate zone' where they are not quite one sex or the other - was a violation of their right to respect for private life under Article 8 of the Convention. This protection was reaffirmed by the Court in the very recent decision of T.H. It is a core principle of the Convention that rights must be practical and effective, not theoretical and illusory.

We believe that in the UK, trans people are being returned to this intermediate zone, placing the State - once again - in violation of its positive obligations under the Convention. The legal recognition afforded by Gender Recognition Certificates is now illusory, and inapplicable to practical lived realities of trans people in this
country.

We ask that the Council of Europe take immediate action to protect the human rights of trans people in the UK. We ask that you conduct a report into the state of trans human rights in the UK. We note that the situation is urgent and without intervention, it seems likely to further deteriorate.

Kind regards,

Trans+ Solidarity Alliance
TransActual
Equality Network and Scottish Trans
Trans Safety Network
Feminist Gender Equality Network

The Equality and Human Rights Commission's guidance following the ruling has further marginalized transgender rights.

Transgender rights are the same as everybody else's....they just no longer have the right to believe that theirs trumps women's. A group of men have been told "no" and their fragile egos can't deal with it. If they had spent the last few years fighting for 3rd space toilet/changing facilities, setting up their own various sports teams/leagues etc, instead of demanding women give up theirs and holding banners calling for the death of those that disagree with them then all of this could have been avoided.
I have no issue whatsoever when it comes to transfolk but, as the saying goes, I'm not going to set myself on fire just to keep them warm.

“In Christine Goodwin v UK, the European Court of Human Rights held that refusing to legally recognise the lived sex of trans people - and placing them into an 'intermediate zone' where they are not quite one sex or the other”

The Supreme Court has not left anyone in doubt of the sex class they belong to though. And it is a group of people refusing to recognise their own sex class that is the issue.

Again, this letter fails to mention how the needs of female people are to be recognised and balanced. Even though this is key for ‘Human Rights’, rather than additional privileges being demanded by one group of people.

I don’t understand how using gender neutral facilities puts anyone. As what? Someone supportive of mixed sex spaces, presumably.

Unless Owen Jones popping into a gender neutral bog would make everyone think Elliot Page was in the house.

“an interim update which encourages and in some cases mandates the exclusion of trans people from THE single-sex spaces and services THEY WISH TO USE IN PLACE OF THEIR OWN, which is obviously not in violation of their human rights.'”

Corrected a lie I found in their letter.

😆😆😆
Bee, a discussion is when people respond to each others’ point, not one person posting something a bit controversial, then ignoring any questions or points made, and just popping back up to scold 🙄

Lots of us have genuine questions about why trans people respond the way they do. See upthread - but here’s a few
what rights do you think trans people have actually lost?
why do you think it’s ok to remove some women’s access to previously single-sex spaces?
(from another thread) why can’t you just swim in the mixed pool, what benefit do you get by being in the women’s pool which is not about using unconsenting women for validation (or something far creepier which I would not suggest was your motivation)?

It boils down to a binary decision - whether the law specifies for a sex classification based on biology or not. UK law does. The Council of Europe may think this a good or bad thing, or they may be indifferent. They may want to share their opinion on this or not - either is fine.

Goodwin highlighted the requirement of a government to provide a legal system for certifying a persons acquired gender. It did not explicitly or implicitly demonstrate that single sex provision is a human rights violation.

Third spaces/ provision is the legal solution to address determinant that might arise from having single sex provision. So long as the third space delivers the same benefits/ protections as the single sex ones, it’ll be hard to convince anyone that they represent a human rights violation

Sex is not and never has been gender.

Because it can't be.

I don't want you to piss off but it would be good if you prorperly engaged on the previous threads you are on rather than starting yet another new one. Eg you still haven't responded here and in various other posts to a number of posters including me asking you to specifically detail exactly what "rights" you don't have which you feel you ought to, given that full rights and non-discrimination protections are already enshrined in law for trans people.

Coopting non-consenting people to participate in a demonstration of a belief system they don't share is not a right you have or should ever have, and is a direct infringement of their rights to not be subject to degrading treatment (being used as an unconsenting prop in someone else's fantasy), rights to freedom of belief and expression, and rights to privacy. There is no barrier to a trans person accessing their rights in full without trampling on the rights of others.

The most that could possibly come out of this review, if it happens, could be that the UK is advised to strengthen the mandates for unisex options to be available wherever practical and reasonable without reducing the availability of single-sex provision where needed (and this would be fine). They have no power to remove womens rights.

why hasn't the trans lobby campaigned for better provision of unisex facilities over the past decades? I am sure any such campaign would have been successful years ago. Oh yes, it's because for some people (not all) the point of the whole thing is to ensure women cannot have anything that is inaccessible to males.

P.s. and (hopefully) before you challenge it,, I did have a think about the use of the word "fantasy" above. I realise that to believers it isn't a fantasy, but all kinds of believers in all kinds of beliefs need to be ok with non-believers thinking that their beliefs are fantasy for any kind of multicultural pluralistic society to work. I would fight against any other state-mandated required beliefs just as much and in the same terms.

Not really surprised by this. It's clear that trans campaigners don't respect anyone female so not surprising they're trying to overturn a ruling that upholds women's rights.
And of course, gender reassignment is still a protected characteristic, so trans people are still protected against discrimination as they always were.
Such a shame that gender extremists are still trying to remove women's rights but I don't think they'll get further with it fortunately.

We need to start saying that some activists are full on transcels.

Cos they actively do have a massive problem with women and aren't remotely interested in equality and principles of human rights. They are mens rights activists.