Parliament

by

Supreme Court auto-reply: 2026 anti-segregation edition

What if every person who emailed you faced the reality of the UK’s segregation regime?

Last year I created an internal auto-reply for my work email, in the wake of the 2025 Supreme Court judgement which redefined sex for the purpose of the Equality Act and undermined the civil rights of trans people in Britain. I explained the logic for this in a blog post about it:

“It is impossible for me to forget what is happening to trans people and especially trans people in the UK, so I will ensure it is impossible for my colleagues to forget this also. Equally, my intention is to transform bad feelings into understanding, and practical action.”

One year on, and the auto-reply is still there. It’s come and gone a bit, been amended and updated, and now goes to every single person who emails me, internally and externally, be they a colleague, a student, a community collaborator, a journalist, or anyone else who might be in contact. It has been impossible for me to experience any kind of normality at work during this time, so I do not believe that anyone contacting me should expect me to act as if nothing significant is happening. Most recently, I updated the auto-reply to respond to the EHRC’s new Code of Practice for Services, Public Functions and Associations, which provides a formal framework for the segregation of trans people in most areas of public life.

I know the auto-reply has been actively useful. I have received messages from people thanking me for it, and from those who have adopted it for their own purposes. The most surprising response was a hand-written letter sent by air mail from a scholar based at George Washington University in Washington DC, who had originally been in contact about peer review for a journal I edit. She very kindly thanked me for “providing background, advice regarding how to respond proactively, information regarding further reading as well as resources for those who need support“.

I was deeply moved that she took the time and care to contact me in this way. This reminded me how when we share ideas and information, it can reach and help people in unexpected ways, often without us ever knowing about it.

With this in mind, I am sharing the full text of my current auto-reply. In addition to drawing on the resources I have shared, please do feel free to copy, use, and amend the material for your own purposes if relevant.

Thank you for your email. While I have your attention, I wish to highlight the UK government’s plan to introduce a new segregation regime by 30 June 2026. This will likely have severe implications for the wellbeing of women and trans people, and will impact my ability to work safely at the University of Glasgow. 

As an expert in trans studies, I outline further information and potential actions below, as well as spaces you might seek support.

–

Background

In June 2025, the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) consulted on proposed guidance for the mandatory segregration of trans people from single-sex spaces in all areas of public life. The EHRC recieved 50,000 responses to their consultation. These were not read by human beings, but instead analysed by AI, enabling them to ignore calls for a different approach.

The consultation took place against a wider background of rising hatred and intolerance towards all minoritised groups in the UK. Two of my friends died due to transphobia and transmisogyny in September 2025 alone.

In May 2026, a new draft Statutory Code of Practice Services, public functions and associations was put to Parliament, drafted by the EHRC. This provides explicit provisions for the exclusion of trans people from public life, through means that are also likely to disportionately impact women and disabled people. Simultaneously, the UK government has introduced new guidance insisting that institutions collect and report data on every person’s sex assigned at birth, which has significant privacy implications for intersex and trans people.

You can read more about these changes, including their causes and wider implications, here:

–

Act now

Any one of these actions could be helpful:

  • If you live in the UK, write to your MP, asking them to reject the EHRC code of practice and support Early Day Motion 240: https://equalrecognition.eaction.org.uk/rejectthecode.
  • Write to senior management in your workplace, asking what they will do to support women and trans staff and/or service users, including through actively lobbying the UK and/or national governments, and ensuring continued access to women’s and men’s facilities as relevant.
  • Write to your line manager and ask what action they will be taking to protect women and trans staff, and what pressure they will be putting on senior management to do the same.
  • Write to your political representatives (e.g. MPs, MSPs) more generally. Explain exactly why you are concerned, and demand action to protect trans people’s civil rights. For example, you could ask for new primary legislation to protect trans people, ask why the UK is no longer complying with the European Convention on Human Rights, or demand the dismissal of openly transphobic commissioners from the EHRC. You do not have to write a perfect letter and it is okay to be emotional and express sorrow or anger, so long as you are not aggressive or mean. If you live in the UK, you can find contact details for your representatives here: https://www.theyworkforyou.com/.
  • Support trans people materially, through providing time, resources, and/or money to community initiatives. Examples include: Glasgow Trans Collective (fundraising for emergency support to people facing an immediate danger of threat to life, https://www.gofundme.com/f/glasgow-trans-collective-emergency-fund); Trans Harm Reduction (supporting safer practices for people self-medicating in the absence of NHS treatment, https://transharmreduction.org); and Five for Five  (donating money every month to a range of trans women’s causes, https://www.fiveforfive.co.uk).
  • Check in on your trans friends and colleagues. Make sure they are okay, and do what you can to be there for them. But do your own research on what you can do to help: don’t put this burden on us. Some good places for information include the websites and social media channels for TransActual, What The Trans, QueerAF, Trans Safety Network, Scene Mag, and Trans Writes.

–

Further reading

You can read more about the EHRC proposals and recent Supreme Court judgement that inspired them here:

Women and trans people across the country, including my own friends, have reported increased abuse and street harassment, as the ruling is seen to position trans women as legitimate targets for misogyny and violence. Trans people of all genders are already even more likely to experience public harassment, sexual assault and rape than cis women (see e.g. https://bulletin.appliedtransstudies.org/article/3/1-2/3/). If the EHRC’s proposals are implemented, this will likely get worse.

Realistically, the EHRC segregation regime probably will be implemented in the immediate term. The UK government has demonstrated a clear commitment to hate and authoritarianism, and Labour MPs have little appetite for rebellion. It is important that we – you – do not lose hope as a consequence. I hope this moment helps you to focus on the struggles that lie ahead, and the collective strength we hold in the face of those struggles. With this in mind, I also recommend Josie Giles’ funeral prayer for EDI:

–

Mental health support

If you found the contents of this email distressing, I urge you to look after yourself first and foremost. Resources for this can be found below.

Additionally, I find hope and power in community organising. You can read about that in a 2025 blog post I wrote following the death of two of my friends, and a recent article by Juliet Jacques.

–

Education as the practice of freedom

This auto-response is inspired by bell hooks’ comments in her book Teaching to Transgress:

“When education is the practice of freedom, students are not the only ones who are asked to share, to confess […] empowerment cannot happen if we refuse to be vulnerable while encouraging students to take risks. [Lecturers] who expect students to share confessional narratives but are themselves unwilling to share are exercising power in a way that could be coercive. In my classrooms, I do not expect students to take any risks I would not take, to share in any way that I would not share. […] It is often productive if [lecturers] take the first risk, linking confessional narratives to academic discussions so as to show how experience can illuminate and enhance our understanding[.]”

I will not necessarily respond to any replies you send to this automated message, as I am trying to stay focused on teaching, admin, and research while the world burns down around me. But regardless, thank you. 

Photo of British landscape with rolling green hills and distant mountains, with sheep in the fields and clouds overhead. Faint reflections can be seen, indicating the photo was taken from inside a vehicle.

Did you appreciate this post? Want to read more?

Subscribe now to receive new posts for free whenever I write them.

by

“Living as a woman” – MPs take on the Real Life Test

I’m currently writing up a section of my thesis that describes trans people’s experiences of navigating the public health system in the UK. A large part of this is related to the “real life test”, a stage of treatment which patients are required to live for a period of time in their “acquired gender” in order to demonstrate that they are suitable candidates for hormone therapy and/or surgery.

This requirement (which, incidentally was absent from the latest version of the international World Professional Association for Transgender Health Standards of Care) has a lot of issues. These include the prioritisation of cisnormative standards, little-to-no recognition of non-binary identities, white-centric cultural insensitivity, and the frequent demand that patients hold down “an occupation” as part of the test (particularly pernicious in a time of high unemployment).

It was therefore very interesting to see MPs questioning the idea of the real life test during the fourth and final session of the UK Parliament Women & Equalities Committee’s inquiry into transgender equality earlier this week. The conversation, in which MPs quizzed Ministers and NHS England representative Will Huxter, went as follows:

Jess Phillips MP:
“I think I’d like to go back again to this idea of living in one gender identity: I wonder if you can tell me – clinically – what ‘living like a woman’ – or alternatively, man – actually means?”

Will Huxter:
“I’m not a clinician I can’t tell you what that’s – ”

Jess Phillips MP:
“Do you think that there is a clinical way to live as a woman? Or a man?”

Will Huxter:
“The point I am making is that we are guided by specialists who work in this area, the clinical consensus among gender identity specialists about how services should operate. We are absolutely open to looking at how that might change, but I’m not in a position to make a change to the way in which those services are commissioned without having gone through a clinical process”.

Maria Miller MP:
“Mr Huxter, sorry, I think we’re going to have to press you on that. Is – this is just factual, we have read that people have to ‘live like a woman’ or ‘live like a man’, we as a committee have struggled to know what that looks like in a day and age where men and women live in very similar ways. What do you – factually – what does that mean?”

Will Huxter:
“Well in terms of what is required by the clinic I’d be very happy to provide some details from clinical colleagues after this because it’s not – I don’t deliver the services nor am I a clinician. I feel I could give a better representation to the committee if I provided that outside.”

Maria Miller MP:
“Is the Minister comfortable with the fact that the government requires this information to be available, or that individuals have to live ‘like a man’ or ‘live like a woman’ in order to be able to change their identity?”

Jane Ellison MP:
“Well, I mean, put as you put it to us, I mean obviously you know it gives cause for concern in a sense that, you know, who wouldn’t have sympathy for someone put in that situation etc , clearly the committee has heard I know some really difficult evidence and I quite understand why you wish to reflect that. I mean I think that as Will has said you know there is actually currently a review going on anyway about this very issue, which is essentially about looking at the current guidelines, about understanding that represents current better practice, about giving some challenge to that. There are a number of – compared to even five years ago – there wasn’t a mechanism for the NHS to receive that sort of, you know, feedback from critical friends or otherwise. Those now exist, the transgender network has been set up, the various stakeholder groups that are, you know, really locked into the process. So I think what I’m saying is I don’t think there is ever, you know, clinical understanding of situations is rarely completely frozen in time, I mean this one particularly isn’t, because for a lot of people this is a very new speciality, and therefore I would imagine over the next ten years for example, the next few years, you will see an evolution. And that process is underway, which is exactly why the NHS is consulting and is looking at, particularly at its clinical, you know, specification. That process is actually going on at the moment and, as Will has said, very open to the committee’s recommendations being fed into that. But I know I’m not a clinician too, and I know from other areas of my portfolio perhaps better than this one because I’ve been doing it longer, I do know that you do need to test. Because once you commission to a standard, once you’ve got that, you know you do, you need to make sure you’ve tested your views, and that you actually capture a clinical consensus, because that’s the only way you can move forward. But that consensus will evolve.”

Jess Phillips MP:
“Okay, I just – from the Minister – just, I suppose, what I’m looking to hear, is that you recognise that there is not a single list of attributes that represents what it is to be a woman and/or a man; and therefore, there cannot be a clinical list of things that a person can be told to do by a doctor in order to tick those boxes. Do you recognise that fact?”

Jane Ellison MP:
“Well I understand what you’re saying and I think that it would be very helpful if we – subsequent to this hearing – write to the committee with some – with an example from a clinician operating in the field as to what they would mean by that, because obviously you know people are sitting down with individual people and saying, you know, requiring them to do that and they must have an idea of what that requirement is, what that looks like. So I think we should ask the question of clinicians and supply the committee with some, perhaps some examples, obviously anonymised, of where that’s already happening in clinical practice, and what that looks like.”

You can watch the footage here.

women and equalities

All of this is relevant to the law – in addition to clinical practice – because of the current functioning of the Gender Recognition Act. In order to gain “full” legal recognition as female or male (non-binary options aren’t available) people who have transitioned are required to apply for a Gender Recognition Certificate (GRC). In addition to £140, a whole load of paperwork and scrutiny from the national Gender Recognition Panel (no, really), individuals wishing to acquire a GRC need clinical approval. It’s no wonder that many trans people simply refuse to play along, leading to consequences such as the Tara Hudson case.

As it turns out, there is an answer to be found in the clinical literature. Charing Cross GIC clinical lead James Barrett has the following to say on the subject of the real life test in his book, Transsexual and Other Disorders of Gender Identity: A Practical Guide to Management:

“The question immediately arises of what constitutes ‘success’ in a chosen gender role. In essence, ‘success’ amounts to occupation, sexual, relationship and psychological stability. Of these, the first can be measured by whether or not the patient can manage to hold down a full-time (or equivalent part-time occupation in the chosen role for a year, in the course of the real life experience […] ‘Success’ in an occupation is achieved if the patient is treated by most others as if they are of the assumed sex. It is not necessarily that those around the patient believe that they are that sex […] Rather than being believed to be the assumed sex, the goal should be taken as an treated as that sex.”

[…]

“Some patients fiercely maintain that they do not care what others think of them, and that their own conviction of their gender is what matters. This position is at odds with the philosophy of a real life experience and if followed seems not to be predictive of a good longer-term outcome.”

Barrett further qualifies that “success cannot occur within a “purely transvestite or transsexual environment”, because “others may be supranormally accepting”.

So there you have it: “living as a woman” or “living as a man” means being taken as such within a cis environment. A very postmodern basis for clinical excellence!