Alexandra Parmar-Yee used the word segregation in The Guardian, and I want to stand alongside that word rather than soften it. Segregation is not hyperbole. It is what happens when a group of people is told, by law or policy or official guidance, that they may not use the same spaces, services, and public facilities as everyone else. That is exactly what is being rolled out for trans people in the United Kingdom right now, and we should say so plainly.

What segregation actually looks like

It does not always arrive with a sign on a door. Sometimes it arrives as a Supreme Court ruling whose practical effect is to tell trans women they are not women in law, regardless of what their Gender Recognition Certificate says, regardless of how they have lived, regardless of who they are. Sometimes it arrives as draft guidance from the Equality and Human Rights Commission that tells service providers they may exclude trans people from single-sex spaces as a matter of course. Sometimes it arrives as years on a waiting list so long that it functions as a denial of care rather than a queue for it.

The cumulative effect is the same: trans people are being pushed out of public life, step by step, ruling by ruling, consultation by consultation. Alexandra knows this from her own life, and every trans person reading this knows it too. You feel it in the calculation you make before you walk into a room, before you book an appointment, before you decide whether today is a day you can afford to be visibly yourself.

The rights that need restoring

The Gender Recognition Act 2004 and the Equality Act 2010 between them were supposed to protect trans people's dignity and access to public life. The GRA gave trans people a legal mechanism to have their gender recognised. The Equality Act protected them from discrimination on the basis of gender reassignment. Neither was ever perfect, and neither was ever fully enforced, but they represented a floor of protection that is now being actively undermined.

The Supreme Court ruling in April 2025 did not change the text of the Equality Act. It changed one interpretation of the word "woman" within it. Parliament wrote the statute; Parliament can clarify it. That is not a radical demand. It is how law is supposed to work. When a judicial interpretation produces outcomes that strip a group of people of dignity and safety, the legislature has both the power and the responsibility to respond.

The EHRC guidance must not be allowed to stand

The Equality and Human Rights Commission's guidance that followed the ruling is draft. It is not statute. It is not binding law. And it should not be treated as settled policy by anyone, whether that is a hospital, a leisure centre, a rape crisis service, or a government department. The EHRC's job is to protect everyone's rights, including trans people's rights, and guidance that functionally licenses trans exclusion across public life is a failure of that mandate. Parliament should say so.

This is a political choice, not an inevitability

What I want people to understand is that nothing happening right now is inevitable. It is a series of political choices, and political choices can be unmade. The treatment of trans people as a problem to be managed rather than citizens to be protected is a choice. The failure to update the Gender Recognition Act after years of promises is a choice. The decision to issue exclusionary guidance before any parliamentary debate is a choice.

Alexandra is asking Parliament to restore what has been taken. That is a reasonable, proportionate, and urgent demand. Trans people are not asking for special treatment. They are asking to exist in public life with the same dignity, safety, and legal protection as everyone else. That is not a complicated request. It is the baseline.

I am behind Alexandra's call, completely. And if you are reading this, I hope you will be too.

If this is useful to you, please share it. Every share helps more people find accurate information about gender diversity.