divabot

Dear Pippa,

I'm writing to you as one of your constituents. I am a non-trans woman, who believes that trans women are also women. I'm sure you've had a lot of emails about this today. No doubt the LibDems are working on a reply which I would be happy to see, but I'd also appreciate your own thoughts.

Yesterday the government finally revealed the new updated EHRC Guidance to the Equality Act. There are updates to several areas, but the ones I want to talk about are those affecting trans people.

There is an attempt to say that gender reassignment is still a protected characteristic, but the vast majority of the changes are about how service providers and others are now not only able to, but *expected* to exclude trans people from the places which match their lived gender, or in some cases also from places which match their official sex at birth.

I know you have lovely trans colleagues who you were campaigning with in Cambridge recently. I know you don't think Yannifer should be expected to use the men's toilets. But according to this guidance we are all expected to treat her as a man from now on, and we are asked to believe that this has always been the legal reality of the Equality Act, and that previous guidance was merely mistaken in ever having said otherwise.

Trans people with GRCs have sworn an oath that they intend to live their lives going forward in their acquired gender, and if this guidance is accepted then they will no longer be able to do so.

The guidance itself even accepts that there is no way for any of us to adequately prove to someone who asks whether we are in fact trans or not. I could be refused service if someone *thinks* I am trans, and does not believe me when I say that I am not.

I am not surprised to see this guidance, because it has been clear for some time that this has been coming. I am still shocked and appalled that the government is just going ahead with it.

Please can I ask you to speak up. Speak up for trans people. Speak up for clubs and services which wish to remain trans inclusive. Speak up for other women, who will experience harassment because they are suspected of being trans, but even more so for trans people who will experience increased harassment and fear too. Speak up for those who are now excluded from taking part in sport, even if their clubs and leagues welcome them.

The government could legislate to change this, to change the Equality Act to mean when it had always been understood to mean. They choose not to. I hope you and the LibDems can choose better.

Yours sincerely,

Eleanor Blair
Great Shelford, Cambridge, CB22