non-binary

Politicians and journalists want to remove trans people from public life. Fuck that.
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Politicians and journalists want to remove trans people from public life. Fuck that.

On 4th April 2023 the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) provided advice to the UK Government on “clarifying” the definition of sex in law. Specifically, they recommended the protected characteristic of sex in the Equality Act 2010 be re-defined as “biological sex”. The proposals have been welcomed by the Labour party as well as the Conservatives.

If adopted, the EHRC’s proposals would strip trans people of numerous legal protections currently afforded by the Equality Act as well as the Gender Recognition Act.

This is made extremely clear by the EHRC. Their own examples include the argument that it is a problem that trans women may be protected from sexism under current law, and (as “legal lesbians”) from homophobia if we have female partners. Most worryingly of all, they have doubled down on previous attacks on our right to access gendered spaces. If implemented, the proposals may result in the trans women being barred by law from women’s toilets, changing rooms, hospital wards, domestic violence shelters, rape crisis centres, and book clubs (the latter is a genuine example provided by the EHRC).

I am not going to get into the weeds with these proposals. Others will no doubt provide deep legal analyses. I have already seen “gender critical” commentators claiming that this will have no real effect on our lives in practice. To which I say: fuck you.

I am done with being polite, and reasonable, and rational. These proposals represent a blatant attack not just on our civil rights but also on our rights to exist as human beings in public. In practice, banning trans women from women’s toilets means that many if not most of us simply cannot use public toilets.

Trans women use women’s facilities because we are women. And when I say “trans women are women” I am not merely making some kind of abstract metaphysical claim. I am saying that we are structurally disadvantaged under patriarchy, and experience sexist violence every day from men. That is the material reality. Insisting that trans men use women’s toilets is equally stupid, especially if your supposed aim as a “gender critical” campaigner is to produce a space free of beards and penises.

But here I am disappearing once again into details. None of this is about details. It’s about terrorising trans people, and we are terrified.

It’s about making our lives impossible. Ideally, we will disappear; our oppressors don’t really care if we suffer or we die. And we know, trans people know, that people around us are suffering and dying because we are actually a part of that community. I’ve spent the past 13 years producing research that formally documents the oppression we face, because when we simply say what we know is true because we are living that truth every day, nobody in power gives a shit.

In the meantime, people in suits believe there are votes and clicks and money to be won through fighting culture wars, through distracting people from rising poverty and slow-burning climate collapse.

If you are cis, it is up to you, the reader, to do something about this. Over the past five years trans people have been systematically harassed and silenced by a hostile media. We have been pushed out of political parties and campaign groups. Supposed human rights protectors such as the EHRC have been institutionally captured by the far right. Academics happily write abstract theory about what a terrible danger we pose. Fascist groups are rallying against us in the streets, trans healthcare is under attack, and trans children are being told they must be outed to their parents, all with the support of Labour and Tory politicians as well as popular children’s authors.

Obviously we will fight for our own liberation. We have always fought. We are so beautiful and so powerful, especially here and especially now.

But we need you to fight with us.

Here are some things you can do. Write to your MP, and then do it again. Make sure they are sick of hearing from you and then keep going. Go to a protest. Engage in direct action. Maybe sign a petition if you’re into that kind of thing. If you are in a political party, fight like hell to ensure that party is actually on our side. Join a union and fight for us there. Join a human rights group. Join a small trans organisation and offer whatever you can, whether that’s volunteer time, small donations, or signal-boosting.

Think about how you or your organisation might productively break the law to help people. If the EHRC’s proposals actually make it through Parliament, we must make them unworkable. Section 28 was only successful because teachers, administrators, and local authorities collaborated with an openly homophobic government. That doesn’t have to be the case again.

If you need evidence to back you up, it is all over this website. Don’t ask me for advice – I am tired and burned out and have already done the work. Read TERF Wars, read my evidence to Parliament, read the report I wrote with Katharine Jenkins with a feminist perspective on sex, gender, and the Gender Recognition Act.

Finally, it’s important to note this is just the tip of the iceberg. Attacking trans people and defining women by “biological sex” are a part of a wider attempt to remove women’s reproductive rights. Our government is shredding the refugee convention and putting asylum seekers in camps. Our legal rights to protest and strike have been massively curtailed.

If you’ve ever wondered “what would I have done in the face of rising fascism?” then wonder no longer.

Your moment is here. The question is how you act.

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edit 9/4/23 – read more here:

A pocket guide to escalation (Beth Gale)

Gender: the EHRC explain (jane fae)

The EHRC wants to redefine sex. Here’s what it means for trans people (Open Democracy)

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Video: Reproductive Justice for Trans People

Earlier this year I did a talk for the University of Cambridge Reproductive Justice Research Network alongside my excellent colleague Francis Ray White.

We talked about research findings from the Trans Pregnancy and Improving Trans Experiences of Maternity Services projects, plus reflected on the wider context of reproductive justice for trans people, including media coverage, medical racism, abortion rights, and attacks on young trans people’s bodily autonomy.

You can watch a video of the talk here:

(as a quick aside, I’d like to thank my good friend Harry Tunnicliffe for last use minute of his office so I could do this talk while away from home!)

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Cass Review GRA study an appalling breach of research ethics

Logo of the Cass Review

I was dismayed to read that the UK Government are amending the Gender Recognition Act. Specifically, they are removing the offence under section 22(1) of the Gender Recognition Act 2004 for the disclosure of protected information, to enable this disclosure where it is “necessary for the purposes of facilitating, assisting or undertaking relevant research”.

This amendment enables NHS England to obtain trans people’s confidential information about their medical treatment for the purpose of research into child and adolescent gender services by the Cass Review. Specifically, it enables the acquisition of information (a) that could contain personal identifying details, (b) without that person’s consent, and (c) for individuals who obtained specific legal protections with the reasonable belief that these would remain in place. There has been no community consultation ahead of this move.

As a social researcher and expert in ethical methodologies, I believe that any research undertaken under these circumstances would represent an enormous breach of the basic principles of research ethics. Moreover, it will could significantly undermine the already extremely low existing low level of trust between trans community members, researchers, and medical practitioners.

Finally, the amendment also represents a significant weakening of the Gender Recognition Act’s legal protections for trans people (although for a full and measured analysis, see this post by What The Trans).

I have therefore written to the NHS England’s Gender Identity Programme Board to express my concerns about this development. I also hope that any university or NHS ethical panel overseeing the approval of such research will prevent it from taking place.

You can read some of my published work on ethical research with trans populations here.

You can write to the Cass Review to express your concerns here.

Posted updated 2 July to include new details.

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Upcoming talks: April-May 2022

I am speaking at a series of exciting events over the next few weeks! All are free to attend, you will just need to register in advance if you’d like to come.

Tuesday 26th April – Manchester
Trans Healthcare: Past, Present and What Might Have Been

In-person roundtable discussion, with Ellis J Johnson, Stephen Whittle, Krishna Istha, and Laura Salisbury.

6pm-8pm BST, International Anthony Burgess Foundation
3 Cambridge Street, Manchester, M1 5BY

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Wednesday 27th April – Online
Queer and Trans Mobilisations – Possibilities and Challenges

I am incredibly honoured to be giving a keynote talk for this two-day event hosted by the Department of Sociology, University of Hyderabad, and the Centre for Writing and Pedagogy, Krea University. I will be speaking about “Building Queer and Trans Communities in the UK” towards the end of the first day, and am enormously excited to be learning from colleagues in India during the event.

10am-6pm IST, 27-28 April
Register online to attend

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Thursday 5 May – Online
UK Workshop in Trans Philosophy

I will be delivering a keynote on the first day of this groundbreaking event hosted by the University of Glasgow. My talk is provisionally titled “Let’s (not!) fight a TERF war: Trans feminism in a time of moral panic”.

9:30am-4:30pm BST, 5-6 May
Register online to attend

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Wednesday 11 May – Online
Reproductive Justice Research Network seminar (link to come)

I will be joining colleagues from the Trans Pregnancy project to discuss findings from our international study of trans and non-binary people’s experience of conception, pregnancy, and childbirth. Our talk is provisionally titled “Reproductive Justice for Trans People”.

Full details TBA – watch this space!

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A brief history of all-gender toilets in UK universities

To celebrate this year’s umpteenth hit-piece on trans equality, I thought I might tell a little story about toilets.

On Friday, The Times reported that the University of Warwick has been “criticised for its ‘capture’ by Stonewall”, as evidenced by guidance asking people to challenge their biases, plus a proliferation of gender-neutral pronouns and toilets.

This coverage struck me as both unsurprising and bizarre. Unsurprising, as Stonewall have recently been subject to a barrage of homophobic and transphobic coverage from the likes of The Times, the BBC, The Guardian, the Telegraph, the Daily Mail etc etc. But also bizarre, as this is simply not news – all of the initiatives described have been underway for many years now, and they were hardly introduced by Stonewall.

As such, this feels like a good opportunity to explore the forgotten history of one of these initiatives: the introduction of all-gender toilets at Warwick, and in UK universities more widely.

I first became involved in campaigning for all-gender toilets in 2007. Using public toilets was a huge fear for me when I first transitioned. Fortunately, it turned out I was able to use women’s toilets without any trouble, but many of my queer siblings were not so lucky. I met and read about many trans people and other gender-nonconforming individuals, especially butch lesbians, who faced abuse and harassment in toilets due to their appearance. All-gender toilets offer a level of safety and access for people who don’t necessarily tick binary gendered boxes.

I was inspired therefore to learn about campaigns for all-gender bathrooms in US universities, through blogs, forums, and the 2004-05 TV documentary TransGeneration. I teamed up with some friends to write a motion for the 2007 National Union of Students (NUS) LGBT conference, calling on the NUS LGBT to campaign for equal toilet access. The motion passed with a near-unanimous vote, and you can see the text of the resulting policy below:

Conference believed: 1. Gender is self-defined according to an individual's gender identity. 2. That a large number of people who may be identified as trans have a gender identity or gender presentation that is ambiguous or confusing to others. 3. That gender presentation and gender identity do not necessary fit within a simple male/female binary. 4. A lack of awareness regarding such issues means that trans people have difficulties in areas of life others would take for granted. 5. That trans people are often inappropriately forced to use disabled toilets or (more often) gender-specific facilities in which they may face serious discrimination. Conference further believed: 1. That trans people should have the right to use facilities that they feel most comfortable with, free of discrimination and harassment. 2. Many trans students would benefit from the availability of gender-neutral toilets, which may exist alongside the genderspecific amenities currently available. 3. That educational institutions are environments in which trans students should be able to feel as comfortable in themselves as anyone else. 4. That motions in favour of gender-neutral toilets in universities such as the University of Bradford provide a positive precedent. Conference resolved: 1. To mandate a national drive by the NUS LGBT liberation campaign for the establishment of gender-neutral toilet facilities 2. To encourage student LGBT groups and student unions to fight for gender-neutral toilet facilities in their educational establishments and student union buildings by producing a briefing pack offering support, advice, and educational literature to these organizations. 3. To mandate the LGBT Officers and committee to produce an online briefing for constituent members on the issue of gender neutral toilets, including best practice policy, examples of constituent members who have successfully passed policy in favour of gender neutral facilities and strategies for winning the arguments. 4. To encourage student LGBT groups and student unions to fight for gender-neutral toilet facilities in their educational establishments and student union buildings, and to offer support, advice, and educational literature to these organisations. 5. To offer support for trans students so that they can use the facilities that they feel most comfortable with - whether gender-neutral or gender specific -free of discrimination and harassment.

Of course, we were hardly the first people to undertake such campaigns in the UK. In 2002, Benjamin Cohen wrote an (unsuccessful) motion in favour of gender-neutral toilets for the King’s College London Student Representative Council. In 2005, an NUS LGBT briefing stated that ‘ideally a unisex toilet would […] be provided for those who feel uncomfortable defining into male or female’. Plus, throughout the 2000s “unisex” toilets were introduced in many UK nightclubs, although their owners were generally not so interested in the welfare of clubbers.

Buoyed by the success of our NUS LGBT motion, I took a similar proposal to the Students’ Union (SU) Council at the University of Warwick later in 2007. The motion was passed, albeit with an amendment to say that we would “investigate the possibility” of providing accessible toilet facilities for trans people, instead of committing to actually providing them. I invited Riley Coles, a student campaigner from the University of Bradford, down to Coventry to speak in support of the motion as they had recently introduced all-gender toilets at Bradford SU (you can hear Riley’s side of the story here). In turn, I was invited to speak in support of all-gender toilet policies at various Student Unions, including at Manchester and Sheffield as well as Bradford.

Trans Access Needs Proposer: Ruth Pearce Seconder: [name redacted] This Union Notes 1) Its own equal opportunities policy. 2) The Sex Discrimination Act 1976, that makes its unlawful to discriminate against gender, and the Sex Discrimination Regulations 1999, that make it unlawful to discriminate against people intending or undergoing gender reassignment. 3) Sex, biologically, is not a straightforward issue as many are born with an ambiguous sex and gender is not binary. 4) That gender is self-defined, as recognised by Union institutions. 5) That trans people are widely discriminated against, facing ignorance, harassment and sometimes violence. 6) Warwick has a hidden population of trans students, including those who are transsexed and those who identify as genderqueer, and there are no doubt also intersex students. 7) Trans students at Warwick are currently forced to use gender specific facilities when some have an ambiguous appearance that invites discrimination, whilst others do not identify within the gender binary. 8) That the NUS LGBT liberation campaign recently passed a motion to campaign for gender-neutral toilets in all educational institutions and student unions. This Union Believes 1) Trans people should have the right to use the facilities they are most comfortable with, free of discrimination and harassment. 2) Confining gender to a binary distinction discriminates against students unable to define as only either male or female. 3) The availability of gender-appropriate facilities is an access issue, as trans students may be reluctant to make use of the Student Union buildings due to a lack of facilities that they would feel safe and comfortable using. 4) Both those trans students who identify as neither male nor female and those transsexed students who are transitioning in their social role from one apparent gender to another would benefit greatly from the existence of gender-neutral toilets. 5) That gender-neutral toilets may also be made use of by cisgender (non-trans) students. 6) That moves towards making gender-neutral toilets available by student bodies in USA institutions and UK universities such as Bradford and Sussex provide a positive precedent that deserves following. 7) That the redevelopment of Union South provides an unapparelled opportunity for the provision of gender-neutral toilets in the Students’ Union, given the extortionate cost of creating them under normal circumstances. This Union Resolves 1) To provide accessible toilet facilities for trans people as well as exploring the possibility of gender-neutral toilet facilities. 2) To publicise the existence of these provisions, their locations, and the reasons for them at the beginning of every year. 3) To make feminine hygiene services available in these facilities in a similar manner to in the female toilets, for those trans students with particular needs associated with the female sex, and female students who choose to use them. 4) To mandate the Students’ Union to campaign for the provision of gender-neutral toilet facilities in the University. 5) To support all trans students who wish to use the facilities appropriate to their gender, whether these facilities are gender-neutral or gender-specific.

What we rapidly realised was that having a policy isn’t the same as achieving an outcome. NUS LGBT introduced numerous policies at its conference every year, and student officers simply didn’t have time to campaign on all of them. Moreover, at the time the campaign was dominated primarily by cis gay men and lesbians. Consequently, all-gender toilets were not to become an NUS LGBT campaign priority until the 2010s.

Similarly, having a policy at Warwick SU did not translate into the immediate introduction of all-gender toilets in the SU building, let alone across the university campus. It took a concerted campaign across many years to make that happen, involving innumerable staff and students. All-gender toilets were first introduced in odd corners of the SU building, then occasionally elsewhere on campus, and then gradually in new buildings before being more widely rolled out. This process took well over a decade.

In opening up new conversations about toilets, we rapidly realised that all-gender toilets were not just beneficial to trans and gender non-conforming people. For example, single parents benefited from being able to accompany young children of a different gender into facilities, and carers could do the same with people they cared for.

Equally, we knew that all-gender toilets were not appropriate for all people. Some women and men do not share gendered spaces for religious reasons. Women and girls who have experienced male harassment and violence may also not wish to share spaces with men. We therefore campaigned for an “additive” approach, with all-gender toilets available alongside women’s and men’s facilities: the approach eventually adopted by the University of Warwick.

Additionally, some service providers sought to introduce all-gender toilets at the expense of disabled people, much to our frustration. If single-cubicle “accessible” toilets are the only all-gender toilets available, it can increase the number of people using these facilities, to the detriment of disabled people who require them. We therefore urged university bodies that this was not an adequate solution.

These issues were explored in detail in a briefing published by West Midlands Area NUS (WMANUS) in 2007. This document also included a series of sample arguments in favour of all-gender toilets, case study examples of their implementation, and model motions for Students’ Unions. I also included a section on toilets in the Under Construction: Trans Students guide I wrote for the NUS in 2008.

By 2009 I started my postgraduate studies and took a step back from toilet campaigns. However, there was no shortage of new activists to step into the breach. There are too many to name them all, but one of the key figures has been Sam Parr, who continues to push for more accessible toilets for all on the University of Warwick campus through endless meetings and consultation exercises.

By the mid-2010s, all-gender toilets could be found on many university campuses and other public buildings, including at Warwick. In 2017, when I organised a conference about the gender equality scheme Athena SWAN, I was delighted hear a conversation among a group of cis equality and diversity workers about how best to make the case for all-gender toilet provision at their institution.

Meanwhile, when I spoke to a new generation of student activists, I began to hear complaints around how some campaigners focused too much on toilets as an “easy” campaign priority, rather than tackling issues such as trans healthcare, employment, and housing. Certainly, an all-gender toilet will not put food on your plate or a roof above your head. They must be part of a wider struggle for liberation.

Still, that struggle continues. So I was delighted to hear from colleagues this week that sanitary bins will soon be available in all toilets across campus at the University of Warwick, especially for the benefit of trans and/or disabled men who might require them in men’s facilities. You can see a reference to this idea in our original 2007 policy, albeit with some pretty awkward phrasing!

Trans histories tend to be forgotten. They are frequently not written down, and are often lost due to a lack of intergenerational contact. The only way we can change that is through sharing our stories and building back our history. I hope this post can help with that a little.

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I have not named numerous individuals involved in the campaigns I describe in this post as I am aware that doing so could result in harassment. However, if you see yourself in this story and would like to be named, please let me know and I will gladly edit this post to credit your work!

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Trans Pregnancy: new articles on conception and pregnancy loss

Cross-posted from the Trans Pregnancy project blog.

We are delighted to announce that the first two peer-reviewed articles on findings from our research interviews are now available. Both draw on an analysis of 51 interviews with people who had concieved. One looks at experiences of pregnancy loss among a subset of research participants, and the other explores routes to conception.

More information on each of these articles can be found below, along with links to open-access versions which are free to read.

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Men, trans/masculine, and non-binary people’s experiences of pregnancy loss: an international qualitative study

Abstract text for the article. Follow the link to read it.

Published in BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth (BioMed Central). The article is fully open-access and free to read.

This article examines male, trans/masculine and non-binary gestational parents’ experiences of pregnancy loss, an experience that more broadly affects millions of people every year. We found that, like cisgender parents, our research participants often faced grief following a pregnancy loss, and like heterosexual cisgender men in particular, they often faced barriers to support.

However, the research participants also reported experiences specific to pregnancy loss among male, trans/masculine and non-binary gestational parents, including difficulties in accessing inclusive healthcare, and resistance to “failed” or “wrong” body narratives. We therefore make recommendations for healthcare providers regarding the importance of appropriate language, and the need to sensitively attend to emotions attached both to the loss itself and to the possible desire to attempt another pregnancy.

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Men, trans/masculine, and non-binary people negotiating conception: Normative resistance and inventive pragmatism

Abstract text for the article. This can be read by following one of the links to the full article.

Published in the International Journal of Trangender Health (formerly the International Journal of Transgenderism). An open-access version of the article can be read for free here.

This article explores how men, trans/masculine and non-binary people navigated different social norms and/or practical obstacles to conception. It shows that individuals engage in diverse practices that normalise their experiences of conception, while also highlighting the unique needs and challenges they can face.

The article will also form part of a special issue of the International Journal of Transgender Health that we are editing which will be published in full in early 2021. This special issue will more broadly explore issues of fertility, reproduction, and sexual autonomy among trans and non-binary people. Two other great articles from the special issue have also already seen advance publication:

Administering gender: Trans men’s sexual and reproductive challenges in Argentina, by Andrés Mendieta & Salvador Vidal-Ortiz.

“Just because I don’t bleed, doesn’t mean I don’t go through it”: Expanding knowledge on trans and nonbinary menstruators, by A.J. Lowik.

There is of course a lot more to come – watch this space for more new research findings from both ourselves and our colleagues in the field.

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Free talk: Making Trans Pregnancy Possible

This Friday (25th September) I will be presenting findings from the Trans Pregnancy Project at the LGBT Foundation’s Future of Trans Healthcare conference. Topics under discussion will include men, transmasculine and non-binary peoples’ experiences of conception, the impact of testosterone, and the language of reproductive health services.

The conference runs for two days through Thursday and Friday, and is free of charge. It’s possible to drop in and out or attend the whole thing. My session is scheduled for 1pm on the second day.

Read more and register to attend here.

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Beyond the TERF Wars

For the past couple of years, I have been working quietly on a new edited collection with my colleagues Sonja Erikainen and Ben Vincent. It is titled TERF Wars: Feminism and the fight for transgender futures.

Cover of the Sociological Review Monograph: TERF Wars.

TERF Wars is being published as part of the Sociological Review monograph series. This means it is available digitally as a special issue of the century-old journal The Sociological Review, and will also be available to buy as a reasonably-priced paperback book.

Digital special issue
(available now with a subscription to The Sociological Review)

Paperback pre-order
(Europe only for now – more and better links coming soon!)

Read the Introduction for free

Our aim has been to provide a critical, scholarly response to the growing circulation of both “pro-trans” and “anti-trans” ideas within feminism, especially in the academic context in which we work. As the “trans debate” has grown ever more extensive and complex, newcomers often express confusion around why this has happened, what the fiercely contested language actually means, and how it has all become so polarising.

The collection therefore addresses a range of issues, including (but not limited to) definitions of sex and gender, trans/feminist histories, racism, autogynepilia, “rapid-onset” gender dysphoria, detransition, access to public toilets, and contestation over the “TERF” acronym (“Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminism”) itself. We have been privileged to work with a range of amazing authors, including Jay Bernard, Lua da Mota Stabile, Jen Slater, Charlotte Jones, B Camminga, Rowan Hildebrand-Chupp, Florence Ashley, Julia Serano, María Victoria Carrera-Fernández, Renée DePalma, Emi Koyama, Cristan Williams, and Sally Hines.

I am proud of what we have achieved, and hope the collection will serve to move some of these debates forward. However, I also believe it is important to emphasise that trans people face far more significant issues than debates within feminism.

I have long felt that the “TERF wars” are a distraction from the endemic discrimination and gross inequalities faced by trans people in all areas of public and private life. There is a reason that my own research and activism has focused primarily on healthcare, both before and during the editing of this collection (which I have very much treated as a side project). Arguing with strangers about sex and gender on Twitter won’t reduce waiting lists or stop doctors from sexually assaulting patients. Equally, it becomes harder to concentrate on the task in hand when vicious anti-trans columns are constantly published in the mainstream media, and when your research plans are derailed by a malicious Freedom of Information requests from anti-trans campaigners hope to access your work emails.

There is no easy solution to this conundrum. However, I urge readers to consider how they, personally, might aim to move beyond the TERF wars. My main hope for this edited collection is that will be helpful for people to better understand this particular realm of transphobic discourse, and to counter harmful and inaccurate arguments. Having done so, I urge you to turn to the real tasks of trans liberation: fighting sexism, racism, and ableism, protecting personal autonomy, building collective solidarity and mutual aid networks, providing services to our communities, and imagining new worlds.

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New job with the Trans Learning Partnership

I am very excited to announce that I will soon begin work on a new project. From the beginning of April I will be working full-time with Spectra as Research Coordinator for the Trans Learning Partnership.

The Trans Learning Partnership is a groundbreaking collaboration between trans and non-binary community representatives, academics, and four organisations who work to directly provide community services: Spectra, Gendered Intelligence, Mermaids, and the LGBT Foundation. The aim of the Partnership is to drive the development of a robust service and advocacy-oriented evidence base, enabling trans services and their service users to have needs-based, impactful services.

This also means that I will be leaving the Trans Pregnancy Project at the University of Leeds, but rest assured that I plan to continue supporting my colleagues from that project in writing up and publishing our findings. We have a number of academic articles currently in the pipeline, along with a themed special issue of the International Journal of Transgender Health.

I will of course continue to update this website periodically with information and reflections on all of my ongoing research.

The Trans Learning Partnership feels like such an important opportunity to design and undertake research intended to directly improve people’s lives. I can’t wait to get started!

 

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Of trans fathers and male mothers – the importance of centering experience

By Ruth Pearce, Sally Hines, Carla Pfeffer, Damien W Riggs, Elisabetta Ruspini and Francis Ray White. Cross-posted from the Trans Pregnancy blog. An article based on this piece has been published in The Conversation.

On Wednesday 25th September the UK’s High Court ruled that Freddy McConnell, a man who gave birth to his child, does not have the right to be registered as a “father” on his child’s birth certificate. The court also ruled out the possibility of registering him simply as the “parent”. McConnell, who is trans, has indicated his intention to appeal.

We feel that this is a disappointing outcome, with concerning consequences for the dignity of trans parents and the safety of their children. The law will continue to require that people who give birth to a child in the UK are always registered as the “mother” – even if they are legally men. For example, McConnell’s legal team noted that, “Freddy is legally a man and his legal papers display the same.”

Most importantly, the verdict wrongs the human rights of the complainant and his child, through failing to provide them with consistent legal documentation and intruding on their privacy. More widely it is wrong in terms of its failure to legally recognise diverse family forms and contemporary practices of intimacy, which question traditional gendered reproductive certainties.

Yet, paradoxically, the ruling brings into being a new legal category of “mother”, which is based on reproductive experience, rather than the traditionally sex/gendered body. From today, a ‘mother’ is not defined through binary sexed characteristics. And so, a man may be a a mother as much as a woman.

Judge Sir Andrew McFarlane is explicit on this point in his ruling. For example, in his concluding comments, he states that, “the term ‘mother’ is free-standing and separate from consideration of legal gender, thus in law there can be male mothers and female fathers” (noteably, there is no distinction between “sex” and “gender” in UK law).

This is why legal cases around gender recognition are so important. Even when they seem to fail the individuals who bring them to court, they very often also radically chip away at normative understandings of gender in unforeseen and unintended ways. Such paradoxes and contradictions are subsequently brought to light, unpacked and, very often, readdressed at appeal stages.

McFarlane’s ruling, then, may be seen as the first step in the legal undoing of binary understandings of reproduction and gender, sex and the body, wherein all families of all genders and all bodies will be recognised.

This is particularly important for the trans and non-binary birth parents we have spoken with for this research project, who seek forms of legal recognition that are consistent with how they experience gender in their everyday life.

Promotional image from the film Seahorse. Photo by Mark Bushnell.

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