UK’s First Out Trans Judge Alleges Human Rights Violations
Victoria McCloud, the first openly transgender judge in the UK, has filed an official complaint with the European Court of Human Rights alleging that an April ruling by the UK’s Supreme Court was made in violation of her, and all trans Britons’, human rights.
by Aly Gibbs
Somebody’s fighting back against the United Kingdom’s Supreme Court after their abhorrent April ruling that declared transgender women in the UK do not deserve the same legal protections as cisgender women… and it is, in fact, the UK’s first out transgender judge!
Many aspects of the UK’s legal system confound the shit out of me, but according to this very official looking website, a Master of the High Court is “a judge who, at first instance in the High Court, deals with all aspects of a claim, from its issue until final determination, including listing and conducting trials,” and Victoria McCloud was the youngest person ever to be appointed to that position in 2004 as a deputy and 2010 as a full judge. She was also the second woman appointed Master, and the first transgender woman. Retiring from the position just last year, McCloud was respected by many of her peers, but felt that politicization of her role by anti-trans activists made it impossible for her to continue working as a Master.
The European Court of Human Rights, or the ECtHR (not to be confused with the UK’s useless Equality and Human Rights Commission, or EHRC, who have a history of failing transgender Britons), is an international court for the Council of Europe who hear complaints regarding violations of the European Convention on Human Rights. They provide rulings and advisory opinions to member nations like the United Kingdom. Just last month, the ECtHR sided with South African Olympic runner Caster Semenya against Switzerland’s Court of Arbitration for Sport regarding World Athletics’ restrictions against DSD athletes.
The UK Supreme Court’s ruling supported complainant anti-trans activist group For Women Scotland, who were directly funded to the tune of £70,000 by J.K. Rowling using a financial funding group the evil author established specifically to target transgender Britons for erasure from public life, and determined that sex-based protections should only apply to people that are “born female,” a meaningless concept meant to loosely express the idea of a cisgender woman.
Thanks to the UK Supreme Court, cisgender women are now protected from the invasion of “single-sex spaces” by malicious men merely pretending to be transgender, a thing that has never happened, not even once.
McCloud alleges that the ruling violates her right to live without discrimination, and that her explicit exclusion from providing testimony in the case as somebody who would be directly impacted by its outcome constitutes a violation of her right to a fair trial. Speaking to The Guardian, she said: “The court reversed my and 8,500 other people’s sex for the whole of equality law … We are now two sexes at once. 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.”
McCloud, and every other trans woman in the UK and around the world, has the right to live peaceably and without harassment from bigots. We should not be forced to use men’s spaces, where we will be targeted for sexual harassment and assault, to spare the delicate sensibilities of transphobes, who would gladly see us entirely expunged from daily life given the chance.
The ECtHR has not yet indicated whether they plan to hear McCloud’s complaint, but I can only hope they hear her out and issue fairer advisory to the UK’s staunchly transphobic government. Whether or not they would even adhere to any ruling to that effect is a much more troubling concern.
Aly Gibbs (She/They), formerly Alyssa Steinsiek, is a trans writer who reports on news important to the queer community.
