Judge McCloud seeks re-hearing of the Supreme Court FWS appeal

[ArabellaScott]

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/aug/18/transgender-judge-supreme-court-case-biological-sex

'The UK’s first transgender judge has launched a case against the UK in the European court of human rights challenging the process that led to the supreme court’s ruling on biological sex.
The retired judge Victoria McCloud, who is now a litigation strategist at W-Legal, is seeking a rehearing of the case, arguing that the supreme court undermined her article 6 rights to a fair trial when it refused to hear representation from her and did not hear evidence from any other trans individuals or groups.'

The Amnesty representative was, I believe, non-binary?

Well as he was living in a foreign country at the time he applied to intervene and had no standing to intervene hes on a hiding to nothing with this performative bs. Let him waste his time if he wants

No representation or evidence had been included from us in the 8,500 group [the estimated UK population of people with GRCs who are diagnosed as transsexual]. I was refused. The court gave no reasoning.

I thought the supreme court had given their reasons for refusing mccloud (and whittle). No other trans groups applied to intervene

Is that an unusual use of "trial"? Who was being tried? How was their non-trial unfair?

I saw this - love it. No info on there at all about the process and why he thinks it’s wrong, just ‘they didn’t listen to meeeeee.’
Bring it on I say, any rebuttal will have a clear explanation that we can all circulate.

He will not get anywhere with this.

I'm surprised that Jolyon Maugham/GLP aren't mentioned as being involved, especially since the article was written by his friend & stenographer Libby Brooks.
Imagine - a legal case so hopeless even the fox-clubber won't touch it 😁

Can anyone work out how the Supreme Court ruling would impact on 'right to a fair trial' - which to me (not a lawyer) means a criminal court case - the only impact on a trial I can see if what pronouns are used for the defendant.

“We are told we must use dangerous spaces such as male changing rooms and loos when we have female anatomy. If we are raped we must go to male rape crisis. We are searched by male police, to ‘protect’ female police from, I assume, our female anatomy.”

What’s with the repeated claim of having ‘female anatomy’? He doesn’t have female anatomy, never has done and never will. Women aren’t low-testosterone men with breasts who lack a penis and testicles.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/apr/29/uks-first-trans-judge-victoria-mccloud-appeals-to-european-court-over-supreme-court-ruling

How is this article different to this story from April?

I'm struggling to understand what is new.

.

Given that most trans women have not had 'bottom surgery', it's not really clear where he is going with this argument.

The main difference is that Libby has moved to Scotland?

They don’t have to go to “male rape crisis”, they can go to one of the many mixed sex services. Just not the female only ones.

I came here to start a thread on the same article.

His "female anatomy", yeah, right.

So is he arguing that it shouldn’t apply to those transwomen who have had full “bottom surgery”. That these people are a different case and so should be treated differently to “Pete the Plumber who put on a dress and now is announcing he is a woman”.

Because I am pretty sure that that is heresy as far as the average TRA is concerned.

Interestingly 5 years ago I probably would have agreed but we are well past that point now.

So as the new Scotland Correspondent she is just refiling any of her old articles that mentioned Scotland?

Does her editor know this?

He doesn’t have female anatomy. Me me me me me. Not a mention of women.

Why do these people think the Supreme Court is supposed to consult trans people (or any other group) on matters of law?

Supreme Court judges are the country's best legal experts. Why would they seek the opinions of people who know considerably less about the law than they do? It's not like Strictly Come Dancing, where the expert judges give their opinions but the general public also gets a say.

The Supreme Court has literally one job, which is to interpret and uphold the laws passed by Parliament. Even if the law passed by Parliament has a negative impact on trans people, the Supreme Court still has to uphold it. They don't get to disapply it just because some people are upset.

If there is an issue with the law, it is for Parliament to do something about it, using the correct democratic process.

The European Court of Human Rights has no jurisdiction here either. If they want to say that the Equality Act is incompatible with the European Convention on Human Rights, they need to show some actual conflict with the obligations the UK actually agreed to in 1953 when the treaty was ratified, which is going to be pretty tricky in this scenario. They were already massively overreaching when they said that the treaty requires member countries to have a gender recognition process. It really doesn't.

I wonder what ‘representations’ he could possibly make that he thinks would have any impact on the SC ruling?
This seems to be a case of supreme male confidence that he is right and everyone else is wrong? Or just wishful thinking exacerbated by a divorce from reality?

As he seems blissfully unaware of legal procedure or the fact that this wasn’t a trial, I’m not sure the SC should be too worried.

Article 6 covers civil matters as well as criminal.

But where was Stonewall in all of this? The UK’s biggest LGBTQI+++++ charity did the square root of fuck all for the trans community they’ve been so keen to advocate for.

McCloud is making the same arguments he made before which are tied into the GLP case which he is involved in which has failed utterly so far.

McCloud is undermining his own position. In fact like GLP stuff in general his involvement is good news for our side because legal incompetence helps our side.

A look at MCloud's position

Dennis Noel Kavanagh
https://x.com/Jebadoo2/status/1957347384049975591

1/ Would be Intervenors in the Supreme Court must obtain permission by demonstrating they are raising significant points of law of public importance. Here permission was rightly denied because the SC does not entertain anecdotes or repetition.

2/ In this misleading Guardian piece McCould singularly fails to say that both the Scottish Government and Amnesty were raising precisely the same arguments he wanted to make. Both were extremely well funded and his anecdotes would add nothing in law.

3/ It is of significance that the lesbian intervenors met this test and the Law Lords ruled that their opponents case would have rendered the same sex orientation protected characteristic “meaningless” in law. McCloud of course doesn’t bother to mention this, he doesn’t care.

4/ Instead, he variously reels off articles of the convention without reference to the wide margin of appreciation the European Court affords signatories in the matter of sex classes in law. As a former Judge, He must know this is a weak submission.

5/ The solipsism and inaccuracy of this statement is breathtaking. No rights were reversed, that is simply a misstatement of the law. There is no consideration here at all for anyone female conducting a search or using a changing room. Not even an acknowledgment of a conflict.

6/ What I find remarkable about this public campaign to discredit and delegitimise and circumvent the Supreme Court is that it is carried out by a former Judge who (a) must know exactly why he was refused permission to intervene and (b) why human rights arguments here are weak

7/ The fact of the matter is McCloud has to meet the same test as every other intervenors and he failed. This is now being misrepresented by many who should know better as “excluding transvestite voices”. This is profoundly unfair and I regard it as scurrilous.

8/ What is happening here is an attempt to replicate Goodwin v UK, to try to secure a European Judgment to force domestic legal change. Times have moved on. This is likely to be doomed to fail, but the misrepresentations around this campaign will do lasting damage to faith in the rule of law.

I'm surprised that there hasn't been more campaigning to change the law through parliament.

All the noise seems to be coming from organisations like the GLP, but any legal challenge is likely to take years, even with the benefit of being based on a coherent argument. In contrast, parliament seems to be able to pass some laws quickly.

I think this is a covert acknowledgment that the SC judgement and the EA as it stands are representative of public opinion.

I think because if there was some way of getting the Supreme Court judgment thrown out or overturned (there isn't), they could just say, "Stupid Supreme Court judges got it wrong, now back to business as usual", whereas changing the law would require a majority of MPs to debate on and actually vote in favour of erasing women in law. And even MPs who think they are "allies" don't want to lose their jobs at the next election.

Good spot! I'd even checked the date before posting and it's dated today.