I’m very much writing this post as an individual (Peter Matthews) and can’t pretend to be commenting on the part of the research team involved with this project. It’s taken me over 24 hours to process the decision of the UK’s Supreme Court yesterday that trans women are not women in law, for certain matters in the Equality Act 2010. I am heeding the call from trans people for cis allies to speak-up; I am also noting that transphobes are already jumping on the court decision to remove very basic rights from trans people.

In our research project the daily discrimination and exclusion experienced by trans people was very clear. Basic experiences that cisgender people take for granted – like being afforded the most basic respect by a frontline workers in the DWP or other social security agency – were not experienced by trans people. This is the “trans issue”.

Further, our research showed clearly how attempts by the state to fit people into two binary genders are absurd and lead to contradictions in basic bureaucrat processes. As one of our participants evocatively said: “I didn’t realise being trans would come with so much fucking paperwork”. And this imposition of a “simple” “commonsense” gender binary negatively impacted on cisgender people. Our lesbian, gay and bisexual participants described how the assumption of the gender binary meant they were asked awkward questions about their relationship status. This is a setback for trans rights. It is also a worrying setback and precedence for the rollback of rights for all LGBTQ+ people.

This project will continue doing what we can do to progress trans rights. What reassures us is that across various organisations in the public and third sector, and within those organisations, people want to make the world inclusive of trans people; and deeply inclusive of them. We will continue to offer support to those organisations to train staff and change organisational cultures. There are more allies out there than there are transphobes.