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?

This. And outside of their echo chambers, people aren’t aware of just how mad this movement is.

McCloud's PR blitz is impressive on one level it shows how much people in media like the drama. It gets clicks for sure whether from people who want to try and find loopholes in the law, or also a huge amount of ragebait.

Yes "trans" people were more accepted in the 90s because there wasn't an mass assault on women's sport and places and also less covering up for criminals.

However note how McCloud doesn't exp[lore what his side has got wrong. He doesn't implicitly attack "trans" criminals or the pronoun police. Or why even Maugham thinks his case is weak.

When the case fails what then though.

I find it shocking the amount of hyperbole from an ex judge no less

lesbians and none conforming women getting chucked out of loos all over the place my arse

Meanwhile all these MTF have apparently been using womens bogs with nobody noticing for years.

They've evidently decided that as the claim that "women take their male babies toddlers into changing rooms when they undress so us middle aged men must be given the same "privilege" is a non starter. Too much hilarity in response.

So we're now being drowned in weasel words about tall women because a tall woman looks just like a man 😂

Do they ever listen to their own arguments?

I do too. McCloud was by all account highly accomplished and well regarded, and was in a very powerful position. But this is someone who couldn't possible be trusted to properly adjudicate a case involving trans issues, nor recuse himself from such a case. I find it very disturbing to think that being trans would disqualify you for judgeship, but in the case of McCloud what else are we supposed to conclude?

As someone who appeared in front of McCloud a fair bit, this is not wholly suprising. I certainly noticed a change post Covid in a number of ways, and I don't think many were suprised when things made the turn they did.

I wonder if there are other Bear Garden visitors on MN who also have a view.

I have name changed for obvious reasons!

Have said the same thing on here numerous times (& may have discussed with you in real life, who knows 😀) Covid was definitely the sea change.
Sad times.

I have known professionally and got on well with VM for many years - over 15 - and have always rated VMs intellect and humanity. She was placed under appalling pressure amounting to bullying from the senior judiciary in relation to her views (correct, as the CA eventually determined) on the pensions issue and over the subsequent litigation, and I admired her steadfastness. It took its toll, however. The pressure was unbearable. I did not see VM much over Covid and so I did not spot the changes @Lilyfreedom and @Llamasarellovely are talking about. The way that VM took to social media suddenly was entirely out of character, though, I felt. It really surprised me. We never discussed those issues as it was clear to me it would damage our friendship. Now that she has nailed her colours so publically and left the judiciary I am not surprised that she is forging a second career as an activist and media pundit.

I do understand the fact that in theory, you could get a man who says, ‘I’m a woman’, and walks in and attacks someone, but they can walk in any anyway.

The difference is whether the man who ‘walks in anyway’ can be asked to leave or has a legal right to use the facility of his choice.

It’s odd that a judge can’t understand this distinction,

That is really interesting, @Delphigirl and @Llamasarellovely. I did not know VM particularly well on a professional or personal level, although I found them to be pleasant to be in front of (as we know, not a universal experience along the Masters corridor) and someone who always stuck to their principles, despite, as you say, pressure from on high.

I am with @Llamasarellovely - the overwhelming emotion is sadness. It saddens me that someone who spent many years successfully being able to balance two sides of an argument has so little understanding of the opposing viewpoint here and has descended into a caricature of what they once were.

So you always knew he was a misogynist? Or do you think he hid it well? Could it have been a mix of mid life crisis and covid thst finally allowed him to stop pretending to respect women? I’ve seen that in quite a few men lately. Makes me long for the days they’d just dye their hair and buy a motorbike.

I think that is a good question.

Was the misogyny just hidden for years or did people ignore it? Or it never came up in conversations ?

No sign of misogyny at all.

So either well hidden (not come
up in conversation) or a reaction to something that developed since you knew McCloud.

I agree that this is an interesting distinction. VM transitioned decades ago when transsexual and transvestite were two very different groups. VM appears to be what I would call a transsexual with gender dysphoria. VM has a GRC and clearly sits in the c8000 people who were under discussion in FWS.

I can see how VM feels undermined by the widening of the trans umbrella which brought in a much larger but disparate group of people and, as I have posted before, this has had a negative impact on this very small cohort. Unfortunately failing to stop the forced teaming under the trans umbrella has backfired spectacularly on that small cohort.

This post nails it. As a lawyer, VM knows that things need to be defined to be workable in law.

FWS exposed the flaws in the narrative of women + men with a GRC, but VM cannot see that, as VM believes trans people with GRCs are the goodies who have made a proper effort.

I doubt very much that VM believes in self ID, which will put them in conflict with many TRAs, not least Oscar Davies.

”Unfortunately failing to stop the forced teaming under the trans umbrella has backfired spectacularly on that small cohort”

Yes. It highlighted that that small cohort is just as much not a woman or girl as any other male person making that claim.

What happened to him during Covid?

The other "backfire" is the weird insistence that the existence of a GRC must be so personal and private that it's considered wrong to ask anyone if they have one unless you absolutely have to, and then if you do you can't communicate about it, because this would be "outing" a "woman" as "trans". This is built upon the concept that everyone is supposed to participate in a massive faith-exercise of pretending to fully believe that the transwoman passes and that without knowledge of the GRC they will be perceived as female.

Like @Lilyfreedom says, for something to be workable in law it has to be definable, and also needs to be universally verifiable. Whilst this would meet the test of being definable, you can't have a definition of people who can use women’s spaces that includes "transwomen with a GRC" at the same time as upholding the concept that the existence of a GRC can be kept private. (Not that feminists wouldn't fight that too) - If it is used as a criterion then it has to be a public document. I'm not arguing for that to be an agreed definition, but it's the fantasy of the fully-passing transwoman that has openned the proposed definition to effectively "any male who expresses a wish to enter" and that's why there is so much pushback.

If way back when the GRA was passed they had thought through these consequences and omitted the "secrecy" part, there might have been wider acceptance of inclusion that was only ever for those with a GRC, if the gatekeeping on a GRC had kept very strictly to those with a confirmed diagnosis of severe dysphoria that can't be relieved by any other means than medical and surgical body modifications. There still would have been opposition to that, but it wouldn't have got so strong.

There's no other protected characteristic under the Equality Act where you are supposed to be able to keep your status of having that characteristic "secret" and yet also simultaneously gain extra rights by virtue of that status. That's obviously unworkable.

Given that VM was responsible for the book telling victims to use the preferred pronouns of rapists with sudden onset post arrest dysphoria, it’s not clear who else can be blamed for the widening of the umbrella.

Fair point.

This is true. And also this also points to that misogyny.

Either McCloud was always misogynistic and kept it hidden or avoided conversations that would show it. Or McCloud had some kind of breakdown where McCloud’s personality changed.

I know which one I suspect is correct. Anyone who believed that it was ever appropriate for a rape assault victim to have to refer to their attacker as female when they were male (or vice versa) tells me that there is some deeply entrenched misogyny there. I think the more we see these male people with transgender identities interact with society, the more I believe that some (many) of them are capable of hiding their ‘true’ selves behind a false persona that they can keep up for years.

In addition, how many times do we encounter male posters who absolutely believe that they are posting in keeping with this feminine persona of grace and love, until they are told ‘no’ by about 50 women on FWR? Told that ‘no, you are never any woman’ and ‘no, you have no fucking idea’. Only to revert to male pattern aggression in the flounce.

There's no other protected characteristic under the Equality Act where you are supposed to be able to keep your status of having that characteristic "secret" and yet also simultaneously gain extra rights by virtue of that status. That's obviously unworkable.

Its just giving men extra rights. I think in some ways its a corrective to the laws made to protect women who were at a disadvantage because of sex discrimination. Some men are jealous of women having extra protections and wanted to take those rights back. Its sheer rage and entitlement and hatred of women, at its very root, but then so is the idea that a man knows what a woman thinks and feels.

I can't think of a stronger example of mansplaining than men telling women they know they are women and are therefore entitled to.womens rights, plus entitled to.expect some.extra sympathy and admiration for the trouble they've taken.

“I’m very cautious. When I come over, I don’t see it as a safe place to go. Lovely cis[gender] friends are great at helping me to stay out of risky situations where I might be confronted or even potentially assaulted, because, of course, my face is quite well known.
“I’m particularly at risk of becoming a target of some of the more extreme people from the gender critical ideological movement. And that’s a worry. But I think it’s important that I do carry on, and I do have to come back for things like media interviews and so on occasionally,” she said.

Nobody knows who you are without the wig, mate, I promise.