James Murray became Secretary of State for Health and Social Care after Wes Streeting resigned on 14 May 2026. Murray once said clearly that trans women are women, but since the Supreme Court ruling he has avoided repeating that position and backed single-sex spaces on the basis of biological sex. His appointment brings cautious hope through his support for a trans-inclusive conversion practices ban, but trans people and their families have every right to want more than dignity and respect in the abstract.

What happened, and who is James Murray?

Wes Streeting's resignation on 14 May brought James Murray to one of the most consequential roles in government for trans people in the UK. Murray has been the MP for Ealing North since 2019, and came to the job directly from the Chief Secretary to the Treasury. He is gay, and he came into public life at a time when Labour's position on trans rights felt, briefly, like solid ground.

In 2022, he said it plainly on TalkRadioTV: "I believe trans women are women." For a lot of trans people and their families, that kind of statement matters. Not because a politician saying the words changes anyone's life directly, but because it signals how a person is likely to act when the harder decisions come.

What changed after the Supreme Court ruling?

The Supreme Court's ruling in April 2025, which interpreted the Equality Act 2010 as applying the terms "woman" and "sex" by reference to biological sex, seems to have changed what Murray is willing to say publicly. He was among 54 out LGBTQ+ Labour MPs who did not respond to PinkNews when asked, after the ruling, whether they believe trans women are women. The same question he had answered directly in 2022.

What he did say, in a letter after the ruling, was that trans people must be able to live their lives "with dignity and safety", that he shared the government's commitment to a trans-inclusive ban on conversion practices, and that all LGBT+ people must be treated "fairly, with dignity, and with respect". In May 2025, he said single-sex spaces should be provided "on the basis of biological sex", in line with the Supreme Court ruling, while adding that trans people should have access to services "in keeping with the ruling".

None of that is nothing. The commitment to a trans-inclusive conversion practices ban is genuinely important, and I am glad he has stated it clearly. But there is a measurable distance between the James Murray of 2022 and the James Murray of 2025, and trans people deserve to know what accounts for it.

The Streeting legacy he inherits

Wes Streeting's tenure is the backdrop to all of this. He left office having presided over a ban on puberty blockers for trans youth, having shifted his public language from "trans men are men, trans women are women" to telling The Sun in 2024 that "there are lots of complexities", and having lost the trust of a significant part of the LGBTQ+ community in the process. Whether that loss of trust was earned by his decisions or partly by the impossible political weather he was operating in is a conversation worth having, but either way the consequences for trans young people were real and are ongoing.

Murray inherits a department that has restricted access to gender-affirming care for young people, a trans community that is exhausted by watching its healthcare needs become a political football, and NHS waiting lists that were running into years even before the current restrictions. The words "dignity and respect" have been said many times by many ministers. What trans people and their families actually need is someone in that office who understands what it means to withhold care from a young person in distress, and who treats that as a medical question rather than a culture-war one.

What would a genuinely supportive Health Secretary look like?

I think about the young people I have heard from over the years, and the families who came to me having tried every route available to them on public waiting lists. What they needed was not a politician who was careful about language in interviews. They needed someone willing to say, as a Health Secretary, that delay is not a neutral act; that withholding puberty blockers from a young person who needs them is a clinical decision with clinical consequences, not a precautionary default; and that the evidence base for gender-affirming care is supported by the World Health Organisation, the Endocrine Society, WPATH, and every major medical body that has looked at it seriously.

Murray's support for a trans-inclusive conversion practices ban suggests he understands, at least in principle, that trans identity is not something to be corrected or treated out of someone. That is a meaningful position, and I do not want to dismiss it. But a ban on conversion practices while simultaneously restricting access to affirming healthcare is a contradiction, and someone in his position should be willing to name it as one.

What to watch for

Murray is new to this role. His record is short and his public statements on trans healthcare specifically are limited. That means there is room for him to become something different from his predecessor, and I genuinely hope he uses it. The test will not be in letters or interviews; it will be in what happens to the puberty blocker restrictions, in whether NHS gender services receive the investment and staffing they have needed for years, and in whether the conversion practices ban he has committed to actually includes trans people in its protections when it reaches legislation.

Trans people in the UK have been watching minister after minister say the right words and then act in ways that caused harm. Murray has the chance to break that pattern. I hope he takes it.

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Dr Helen Webberley is a Gender Specialist, Medical Educator, and advocate, and the founder of GenderGP. She writes about gender diversity, trans healthcare, and the lives at the centre of both.