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The early 21st century has seen a rise in and increasing organisation around anti-transgender sentiments in the United Kingdom. [1] The most common strain is that of gender-critical feminism, [2] although these views are not confined to any specific political alignment. [3] This development has caused some to refer to the United Kingdom by the nickname "TERF Island", [4] [5] and has led to substantial rollbacks in the rights of transgender people, including in the areas of gender self-identification, access to gender-affirming care, education, sports, the justice system, and access to social services. [6]
In 1970, a judge ruled that transgender individuals in the United Kingdom could not change the sex recorded on their birth certificates. Following legal advocacy by trans rights organizations, the European Court of Human Rights issued a ruling that the UK government's policy was in breach of human rights. This led to the implementation of the Gender Recognition Act 2004 (GRA). [7] The GRA allowed trans individuals to change their legal sex if they obtained a medical diagnosis of gender dysphoria and had lived for two years in their "acquired" gender. [8]
In June 2020, the European Commission argued these medical requirements as "intrusive" and inconsistent with international human rights standards. [9] In 2021, the House of Commons' Women and Equalities Committee and the United Nations Independent Expert on sexual orientation and gender identity also called for the adoption of gender self-identification to be the policy. [8]
Gender-critical feminism, also known as trans-exclusionary radical feminism or TERFism, [10] [11] [12] [13] is an ideology or movement that opposes what it refers to as "gender ideology", [14] the concept of gender identity and transgender rights, particularly gender self-identification. Gender-critical feminists believe that sex is biological and immutable, [15] and believe gender, including both gender identity and gender roles, is inherently oppressive. They reject the concept of transgender identities. [16]
Feminist and scholarly critics have described gender-critical feminism as transphobic, [10] [13] and it is opposed by numerous feminist, LGBTQ rights, and human rights organisations. [17] [18] The Council of Europe has condemned gender-critical ideology, along with other ideologies, linking it to "virulent attacks on the rights of LGBTI people" in countries such as Hungary, Poland, Russia, Turkey, and the United Kingdom. [19] UN Women has categorized the gender-critical movement as one of several extreme anti-rights movements that utilize hate propaganda and disinformation. [20] [21]
In several countries, including the United Kingdom, gender-critical feminist groups have formed alliances with right-wing, far-right, and anti-feminist organisations. [22] [23] [24] [25]
Starting in the 2010s, numerous small but influential anti-trans organizations were founded. [26]
In 2016, the House of Commons' Women and Equalities Committee issued a report recommending that the Gender Recognition Act 2004 be updated "in line with the principles of gender self-declaration". [27] [28]
Later in 2016, in England and Wales, the government of Prime Minister Theresa May proposed revising the Act to allow for self-identification, with a public consultation on the reforms launched in 2018. [27] [29] A majority of respondents expressed support for the proposed reforms. [30]
In Scotland, ahead of the 2016 Scottish Parliament election, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon pledged to review and reform the way that trans people change their legal gender. [31] Subsequently, Sturgeon's government held two consultations on how to reform the Gender Recognition Act, one in 2018 and one in 2019. [27]
The 2016 report by the Women and Equalities Committee caused advocacy groups to form and to campaign on social media saying that these reforms would degrade or damage women's rights. [27] These groups included Woman's Place UK and Fair Play for Women. [27] In Scotland, Women and Girls in Scotland, For Women Scotland and Women's Spaces in Scotland formed in this period. [27]
Some academics have described the groups as a "women's cooperative constellation" [32] (a term referring to a "network of actors from the organisations of the state, civil society, and universities and consultancies" [27] ) that directly opposes the plans of the Sturgeon government. [27]
Groups of "gender critical" people gathered within political parties, including Labour Women's Declaration, Liberal Voice for Women and SNP Women's Pledge. [27]
In 2019, Women's Declaration International (initially formed as the Women's Human Rights Campaign) was co-founded by gender-critical feminist Sheila Jeffreys and Heather Brunskell-Evans to respond to the inquiry into the Gender Recognition Act. The organization published the Declaration on Women's Sex-Based Rights, which argued that recognising trans women as women "constitutes discrimination against women" and called for the "elimination" of gender recognition laws. [33] [34] Organisations that supported the Women's Human Rights Campaign include LGB Alliance, Transgender Trend, Labour Women's Declaration, WoLF (Women's Liberation Front), Standing For Women, Safe Schools Alliance UK, OBJECT (which wants to make gender-affirming healthcare illegal for anyone under the age of 25) and For Women Scotland. [33]
However, opposition to trans rights and related policies has not been confined to these groups, as efforts to restrict transgender rights have arisen across the political spectrum. [3] [35] These groups all oppose changes to the Gender Recognition Act and all reject that they are "anti-trans or transphobic". [33]
The stance of LGBTQ rights charity Stonewall on transgender issues also became a point of contention for the gender-critical movement. In 2015, Stonewall began actively campaigning for transgender equality, with its then-leader Ruth Hunt issuing an apology for the organization's prior lack of advocacy on trans issues. [36]
In 2019, the LGB Alliance was established in opposition to Stonewall's 2015 pivot towards supporting trans rights. The LGB Alliance accused Stonewall of "undermining women's sex-based rights and protections" and "introducing confusion between biological sex and the notion of gender." [36] [37] Sociologist Craig McLean describes the LGB Alliance as part of the "anti-transgender movement in the United Kingdom". [5] The LGB Alliance has said it is "not anti-trans". [38]
In 2021, Genspect was founded with close ties to the American lobby group The Society for Evidence-Based Gender Medicine. Both organizations have been designated as anti-LGBTQ hate groups by the Southern Poverty Law Center. Their activities have focused primarily on lobbying within politics and the medical field against access to gender-affirming care. [39] [40] [41] [42] Genspect opposes gender-affirming care, as well as social and medical transition for transgender people. [43]
Beginning in the late 2010s, British media outlets across the political spectrum began publishing articles framing transgender rights as being in direct conflict with the rights of women and children. [44] [35] According to political economist Lisa Tilley of the University of London, the British media created an environment where "male violence is also displaced from the real culprits onto vulnerable transgender people, who are demonized collectively as abusers, rather than more accurately represented as victims and survivors of abuse". [45] Transgender activist Christine Burns noted in a CNN article that The Times and The Sunday Times newspapers published six trans-related articles in 2016, over 150 in 2017, and similarly high numbers in subsequent years, portraying trans rights as dangerous and censorious. Other media outlets, including Sky News, The Guardian , and the BBC, also contributed to this trend. [44] [45]
In December 2020, the Independent Press Standards Organisation reported a 414% increase in the average number of UK media stories about trans rights, rising from 34 per month in May 2014 to 176 per month in May 2019, with an additional rise to 224 stories per month in the year prior to the report. [46] According to the report, language had become more "respectful" over this period, although coverage of debate on Gender Recognition Act reform had become "heated" and "strident". [46]
Trans activists have accused the British media of "stoking anti-trans sentiments". [47] A prominent example was a 2021 BBC article titled "We're being pressured into sex by some trans women", which cited a social media poll from an anti-trans activist group to claim that cisgender lesbians were being coerced into sexual activity with transgender women under threat of being labeled transphobic. The article included statements from the LGB Alliance and an individual who, shortly after the article's publication, called for the execution of all trans women. No statements from trans individuals were included in the article. [48] [49]
Changes in policy regarding trans rights and associated views have covered a vast area of topics. [35]
In 2021, Forstater v Centre for Global Development Europe established that gender-critical beliefs are "worthy of respect" and are protected under discrimination laws, on par with religious beliefs. While this ruling recognized such views as a protected belief, it explicitly did not permit holders of these beliefs to discriminate against transgender individuals. [50] The case arose whenMaya Forstater sued her employer, the Centre for Global Development Europe, after her contract was not renewed due to her expression of gender-critical beliefs. [51]
In April 2021, the British Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) submitted evidence supporting Forstater in the case. [51] The EHRC stated, "We think that a 'gender critical' belief that 'trans women are men and trans men are women' is a philosophical belief which is protected under the Equality Act." [52]
In the late 2010s, several groups were formed in response to the proposed reforms to the Gender Recognition Act, including Fair Play for Women, For Women Scotland, and Woman's Place UK. [30]
In January 2022, the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) issued statements opposing the removal of administrative barriers for transgender people to obtain legal recognition in Scotland and recommending that the ban on conversion therapy in England and Wales exclude therapies aimed at transgender individuals. [53] [54]
In February 2022, Vice News reported on leaked sections of an unpublished 2021 EHRC guidance document advising businesses and organizations to exclude transgender individuals from single-sex spaces—such as toilets, hospital wards, and changing rooms—unless they possessed a Gender Recognition Certificate (GRC). According to the report, the guidance, intended for release in January 2022 but unpublished as of February, was framed as protecting women. It also noted that 1% of transgender people in the UK held a GRC. [55]
In June 2022, the EHRC stated that transgender people could be excluded from single-sex spaces as long as it serves a legitimate aim, such as "privacy, decency, to prevent trauma or to ensure health and safety". [56]
In July 2024, the EHRC issued further guidance clarifying that sex-based occupational requirements included sex as defined by a GRC. However, under Schedule 9 of the Equality Act 2010, employers were allowed to exclude transgender individuals, including those with a GRC, from roles with sex-based occupational restrictions. The guidance emphasized that the basis and justification for any such restrictions must be clearly stated in job advertisements. [57] [58]
In 2015, health organizations across the UK signed the Memorandum of Understanding on Conversion Therapy (MoU), a statement opposing conversion therapy for lesbian, gay, and bisexual individuals. In 2017, the MoU was updated to include opposition to conversion therapy for transgender individuals. [59]
In 2022, the Conservative government under Boris Johnson reversed plans to include conversion therapy targeting gender identity in a proposed ban on the practice. This decision followed lobbying by gender-critical groups and drew condemnation from the coalition behind the MoU, which published an open letter criticizing the government's decision. In response to the backlash, the government cancelled its first LGBTQ conference after members withdrew in protest. The gender-critical group Transgender Trend criticized the coalition's letter, referencing the interim findings of the Cass Review. [60]
The Cass Review's interim report said that affirmative approaches were not neutral, and that some professionals were scared to take an "an exploratory approach or challenging approach" due to perceived pressures from organisations taking an "ideological stance". It suggested there was "a fear of being labelled transphobic" if professionals tried to explore or investigate the causes of gender non-conformity in children. [61] [62] In 2024, Hilary Cass, who chaired the review, told Kemi Badenoch that the proposed conversion therapy ban was risky and told The Guardian that she'd been "really clear with the government that any legislation would have to take inordinate care to not make workforce problems worse than they are". [62]
In 2022, the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) and regional transgender health bodies released a statement in response to NHS England's interim service specifications, which followed the Cass Review's interim report. [63] [64] The statement said:
This document seems to view gender incongruence largely as a mental health disorder or a state of confusion and withholds gender-affirming treatments on this basis. WPATH, ASIAPATH, EPATH, PATHA, and USPATH call attention to the fact that this "psychotherapeutic" approach, which was used for decades before being superseded by evidence-based gender-affirming care, has not been shown to be effective (AUSPATH, 2021; Coleman et al., 2022). Indeed, the denial of gender-affirming treatment under the guise of "exploratory therapy" has caused enormous harm to the transgender and gender diverse community and is tantamount to "conversion" or "reparative" therapy under another name. [63]
The Professional Association for Transgender Health Aotearoa (PATHA), a New Zealand professional organisation, said the Cass Review made "harmful recommendations" and was not in line with international consensus. It said, "Restricting access to social transition is restricting gender expression, a natural part of human diversity." They further said that several people involved in the review "previously advocated for bans on gender-affirming care in the United States, and have promoted non-affirming 'gender exploratory therapy', which is considered a conversion practice." [65]
In November 2023, the UK Council for Psychotherapy (UKCP) issued a statement on gender-critical views, asserting that practitioners holding such views might favor conversion therapy over gender-affirming care, particularly for children and young adults with gender dysphoria. [66] [67] In April 2024, the UKCP withdrew from the MoU and the Coalition Against Conversion Therapy on the grounds of not wanting to oppose conversion therapy for young trans people. [66] [68] [69] This decision was criticized by other MoU signatories and over 1,500 UKCP members. [66] [69] [70]
In 2020, the High Court ruled that transgender patients under the age of 16 could not receive puberty blockers to prevent the development of unwanted secondary sex characteristics. This decision led to the withdrawal of care for many patients, resulting in some undergoing the puberty of their assigned gender at birth. [71] Additionally, many patients over the age of 16 had their gender-related healthcare withdrawn, even when it did not involve puberty blockers. [72]
In late 2021, the ruling was overturned on appeal, allowing puberty-suppressing treatment to resume by the courts. [73] Such treatments remained unavailable through the National Health Service, which coincided with a significant increase in deaths by suicide among young trans individuals on the waiting list for the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust's Gender Identity Development Service. [74]
In April 2024, the Cass Review into NHS England's youth gender services published its final report. [75] [76] The review's recommendations were largely welcomed by the British medical community. [77] [78] [79] [80] [81] However, numerous international academics and medical organizations criticized the review's methodology and findings. [82] [83] [84] [85] [86] [87] [88] [89] The World Professional Association for Transgender Health issued a statement criticizing the review's methodology and evidence base, stating that it "deprives young trans and gender diverse people of the high-quality care they deserve." [90]
The review received widespread support from UK politicians and political parties, [91] [92] [93] as well as gender-critical groups such as Sex Matters, [94] Transgender Trend, [95] and Woman's Place UK. [96] Julie Bindel claimed the review "vindicated" their views. [97] Transgender charities and advocacy groups, including GenderGP, [98] Mermaids, [99] and TransActual, [100] criticized the review and its conclusions.
The review's findings led to bans on the use of puberty blockers for transgender children, both within the NHS [101] [102] [103] and in private healthcare. [104] [105] [106] Wes Streeting, [107] Hilary Cass, [108] and the Commission on Human Medicines cited a lack of evidence supporting the intervention and concerns over its safety as reasons for the ban. [109] This position was disputed by several international medical organisations, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, the Canadian Paediatric Society, the Endocrine Society, and the Japanese Society of Psychiatry and Neurology. [110] [111] [112]
Gender-critical groups, such as Sex Matters, praised the ban, [104] while transgender activists and advocacy groups, including Iris Duane [113] and TransActual, [114] condemned it. [115] Keyne Walker of TransActual described the ban as "discrimination". [104]
In December 2021, the Girls' Day School Trust, the largest network of girls' private schools in the UK, issued a blanket ban on trans girls being admitted to any of its schools. [116]
In August 2022, Attorney-General Suella Braverman stated that it is lawful for schools to misgender, deadname, exclude transgender students from certain sports, deny enrollment based on their transgender status, and refuse any form of gender affirmation. She further suggested that recognizing transgender identities could be considered "indoctrinating children." [117]
Restrictions on sports participation have been a significant focus of the anti-trans movement in the UK. [118] [119] [120]
In September 2021, the UK Sports Council Equality Group issued guidance asserting that, in their view, transgender inclusion and "competitive fairness" cannot coexist in sports. The SCEG based its guidance on 300 interviews regarding personal opinions on the matter, conducted across 54 sports and 175 organisations. 20 of those interviewed were trans people. [121]
In June 2022, Nadine Dorries, the UK Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport at the time, met with the heads of UK sporting bodies and stated that "elite and competitive women's sport must be reserved for people born of the female sex." [122] [123] [124]
Since then, transgender women have been banned from competing in women's sports across various disciplines, including cycling and fishing. [125] [126]
Under 2024 guidance published by the Crown Prosecution Service, trans people who fail to disclose their birth sex to a sexual partner, whether deliberately or not, can be charged with rape. [127]
As of 2023, trans women imprisoned in England and Wales are to be housed in men's prisons if they have committed any violent or sexual crime, or if they have "male genitalia". In late 2023, it was announced that trans women in Scotland would be sent to a men's prison only if they were convicted of or awaiting trial for a crime against a woman, and were considered to be a risk to women and girls. [128] [129]
In 2021, the Council of Europe's Committee on Equality and Non-Discrimination issued a warning regarding the United Kingdom, stating that:
ongoing social, political and legal debate [in the United Kingdom (UK)] about what constitutes harmful discourse when it comes to trans people and their rights, and arguments defending freedom of expression have been – and are still being – used as a tool to justify transphobic rhetoric, further penalising and harming already marginalised trans people and communities
The committee concluded that the "'gender-critical' movement, which wrongly portrays trans rights as posing a particular threat to cisgender women and girls, has played a significant role in this process." [130] [131]
In May 2023, a United Nations investigation found that the British Equality and Human Rights Commission had intentionally acted to reduce human rights protections for transgender individuals with legal gender recognition. [132]
In 2021, sociologist Craig McLean of Northumbria University argued that the British anti-trans movement has been shaped by the influence of lobby groups, which "have used their influence in the media to push with impunity a narrative that transwomen are not safe and should not be allowed to use female facilities. They have pushed a narrative of 'raising reasonable concerns' and just 'asking questions', but the reality is that they have helped to demonize an already vulnerable minority." [5]
In 2022, sociologist Sone Erikainen of the University of Aberdeen expressed a similar perspective, stating that "though they are indeed a small minority, their views and arguments are being platformed by many outlets just as much and sometimes more than the views of trans-affirming feminists and trans activists, and their arguments have also carried a lot of impact on policy decisions". [133]
The rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) people in the United Kingdom have developed significantly over time. Today, lesbian, gay and bisexual rights are considered to be advanced by international standards, while transgender, gender-nonconforming and non-binary rights face some of the highest levels of discrimination of any modernised country.
Gender dysphoria in children (GD), also known as gender incongruence of childhood, is a formal diagnosis for distress caused by incongruence between assigned sex and gender identity in some pre-pubescent transgender and gender diverse children.
Transgender youth are children or adolescents who do not identify with the sex they were assigned at birth. Because transgender youth are usually dependent on their parents for care, shelter, financial support, and other needs, they face different challenges compared to adults. According to the World Professional Association for Transgender Health, the American Psychological Association, and the American Academy of Pediatrics, appropriate care for transgender youth may include supportive mental health care, social transition, and/or puberty blockers, which delay puberty and the development of secondary sex characteristics to allow children more time to explore their gender identity.
Puberty blockers are medicines used to postpone puberty in children. The most commonly used puberty blockers are gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH) agonists, which suppress the natural production of sex hormones, such as androgens and estrogens. Puberty blockers are used to delay puberty in children with precocious puberty. Since the 1990s, they are also used to delay the development of unwanted secondary sex characteristics in transgender children, so as to allow transgender youth more time to explore their gender identity under what became known as the "Dutch Protocol". They have been shown to reduce depression and suicidality in transgender and nonbinary youth. The same drugs are also used in fertility medicine and to treat some hormone-sensitive cancers in adults.
Feminist views on transgender topics vary widely.
TERF is an acronym for trans-exclusionary radical feminist. First recorded in 2008, the term TERF was originally used to distinguish transgender-inclusive feminists from a group of radical feminists who reject the position that trans women are women, reject the inclusion of trans women in women's spaces, and oppose transgender rights legislation. Trans-inclusive feminists assert that these ideas and positions are transphobic and discriminatory towards transgender people. The use of the term TERF has since broadened to include reference to people with trans-exclusionary views who are not necessarily involved with radical feminism. In the 2020s, the term "trans-exclusionary radical feminism" is used synonymously with or overlaps with "gender-critical feminism".
Transgender health care includes the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of physical and mental health conditions for transgender individuals. A major component of transgender health care is gender-affirming care, the medical aspect of gender transition. Questions implicated in transgender health care include gender variance, sex reassignment therapy, health risks, and access to healthcare for trans people in different countries around the world. Gender affirming health care can include psychological, medical, physical, and social behavioral care. The purpose of gender affirming care is to help a transgender individual conform to their desired gender identity.
Transgender rights in the United Kingdom have varied significantly over time.
Detransition is the cessation or reversal of a transgender identification or of gender transition, temporarily or permanently, through social, legal, and/or medical means. The term is distinct from the concept of 'regret', and the decision may be based on a number of reasons, including a shift in gender identity, health concerns, social or economic pressure, discrimination, stigma, political beliefs, or religious beliefs.
The Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS) was a nationally operated health clinic in the United Kingdom that specialised in working with transgender and gender diverse youth, including those with gender dysphoria. Launched in 1989, GIDS was commissioned by NHS England and took referrals from across the UK, although it was operated at a Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust site. GIDS was the only gender identity clinic for people under 18 in England and Wales and was the subject of much controversy.
The LGB Alliance is a British advocacy group and registered charity founded in 2019 in opposition to the policies of LGBT rights charity Stonewall on transgender issues. Its founders are Bev Jackson, Kate Harris, Allison Bailey, Malcolm Clark and Ann Sinnott. The LGB Alliance describes its objective as "asserting the right of lesbians, bisexuals and gay men to define themselves as same-sex attracted", and states that such a right is threatened by "attempts to introduce confusion between biological sex and the notion of gender". The group has opposed a ban on conversion therapy that includes trans people in the UK, opposed the use of puberty blockers for children, and opposed gender recognition reform.
Transgender Trend is an anti-trans British pressure group, which describes itself as a group of parents, professionals and academics who are concerned about the number of children diagnosed with gender dysphoria. It was founded in 2015 by Stephanie Davies-Arai.
Stella O'Malley is an Irish psychotherapist and author, with three books on parenting and mental health. She is a regular contributor to Irish national newspapers, podcasts, and TV. She made a documentary about gender dysphoria in children for Channel 4, and is the founder of Genspect, a self-described gender critical organisation opposed to gender affirming care.
The Women's Declaration International (WDI), formerly the Women's Human Rights Campaign (WHRC), is an international advocacy organisation founded in the United Kingdom. WDI has published a Declaration on Women's Sex-Based Rights, and has developed model legislation to restrict transgender rights that has been used in state legislatures in the United States.
Gender-critical feminism, also known as trans-exclusionary radical feminism or TERFism, is an ideology or movement that opposes what it refers to as "gender ideology". Gender-critical feminists reject transgender identities and consider the concepts of gender identity and gender self-identification to be inherently oppressive constructs tied to gender roles. They believe that sex is biological, immutable, and binary, and that people should only be identified based on their biological sex rather than their gender identity.
Genspect is an international group founded in June 2021 by psychotherapist Stella O'Malley that has been described as gender-critical. Genspect opposes gender-affirming care, as well as social and medical transition for transgender people. Genspect opposes allowing transgender people under 25 years old to transition, and opposes laws that would ban conversion therapy on the basis of gender identity. Genspect also endorses the unproven concept of rapid-onset gender dysphoria (ROGD), which proposes a subclass of gender dysphoria caused by peer influence and social contagion. ROGD has been rejected by major medical organisations due to its lack of evidence and likelihood to cause harm by stigmatizing gender-affirming care.
The Independent Review of Gender Identity Services for Children and Young People was commissioned in 2020 by NHS England and NHS Improvement and led by Hilary Cass, a retired consultant paediatrician and the former president of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health. It dealt with gender services for children and young people, including those with gender dysphoria and those identifying as transgender in England.
Therapy First, originally named the Gender Exploratory Therapy Association (GETA), is a group created in 2021 by members of the Society for Evidence-Based Gender Medicine (SEGM) and Genspect to advocate gender exploratory therapy, which experts consider to be a form of conversion therapy.
False and misleading claims about gender diversity, gender dysphoria, and gender-affirming healthcare have been used to legislatively restrict transgender people's healthcare. The claims have primarily relied on manufactured uncertainty generated by various conservative religious organizations, pseudoscientific or discredited researchers, and anti-trans activists.
The Bayswater Support Group (BSG) is a support group for parents skeptical of their children's transgender identity founded in 2019. It has supported proposed educational policies which would ban social transition for transgender children and require that schools out them to their parents. It additionally lobbied the Crown Prosecution Services to remove protections for transgender youth.
many lesbians despise TERF ideology
The Select Committee recommended that the Act should be updated in line with the principles of self-declaration, meaning that a Gender Recognition Certificate (GRC) could be achieved more simply and quickly.
Within the current Parliament, the Government must bring forward proposals to update the Gender Recognition Act, in line with the principles of gender self-declaration that have been developed in other jurisdictions. In place of the present medicalised, quasi-judicial application process, an administrative process must be developed, centred on the wishes of the individual applicant, rather than on intensive analysis by doctors and lawyers.