My letter to my MP
I am terrified by the implications of the recent Supreme Court Ruling. I kindly request that you meet with me to discuss this
Dear [MP],
I hope this email finds you well. The Supreme Court’s Ruling on 16/04/2024 on the meaning of the terms “sex”, “woman” and “man”, combined with this government’s recent guidance and the Equality and Human Rights Commission’s (EHRC) statements have caused me a great deal of fear, confusion and distress. I kindly and respectfully request a meeting so that I may be able to discuss and share my concerns, as your constituent.
In June of 2024, I came to within a few inches of being sexually assaulted. This was my first ever experience of this (sadly, I don’t expect it to be the last), although I have been harassed, followed, and groped sexually multiple times before and since. I bring this incident up because it made me reflect on what I’d have to do to ensure my own physical and emotional safety in the wake of such an event, and how the Court’s ruling affects that. I was fortunate enough to be able to push off the man who attempted this assault and find my friends quickly after. But I’ve been left with the question of “what if?”. What if I had been physically weaker, if there had been more than one assailant, or my friends had not been nearby? What if I was in a relationship and living with an abusive person and I had to escape my home to find safety, but had no relatives or safe people to go to?
What if I had had to access a safe shelter, and what would have happened if I had been denied said access?
For context: I am a trans woman. I began my transition from male to female in 2018 because pretending to be a man was a daily exercise in self-deception, one that I had been doing since I was a small child and that I could no longer bear. I acquired my Gender Recognition Certificate (GRC) in the summer of 2024. I had been using single-sex spaces (changing rooms and public bathrooms) without any incident for 3-4 years before that. For me, the decision to use a women’s bathroom is not taken lightly: it hinges on my confidence in the femininity of my appearance, how hoarse my voice is at that time, how physically safe the bathroom or changing room feels, and how easily I can escape in case the threat of physical violence or bigotry comes my way. In other words, it depends on my ability to “pass” as a cis woman. As my body and appearance have changed over time and my passing ability has improved, this decision has gotten somewhat easier. However, this does not remove the minority stress and strain I endure in these situations: as an illustrative example, I noted from my exercise tracker that, when I go to my local gym, my heart rate is actually higher in the changing rooms where I am feeling hyper-aware of myself and my delicate position, than it is when I am actually exercising on the gym floor. The peace of mind I appeared to have achieved by now was already a facade. The Supreme Court’s ruling has made it so that even that fragile peace is non-existent. I have not been to my local gym since the ruling was announced, since I fear what might happen to me. My workplace has very recently changed office locations (I work mostly remotely), but I have not visited the new office since I do not know if it offers gender-neutral toilets (our previous office did), and because I do not wish to be put in the unpleasant situation where I have to be turned away, or worse, compelled to use the men’s bathroom. I do not wish to inquire with my workplace about the bathrooms in case that outs me at work as a trans woman, since that opens me up to future potential discrimination, given the current direction of policy in the UK.
Given the context, I return to my concern about accessing rape shelters. According to this ruling, if I had had to access a rape shelter after said incident, I would have been expected to i. access (the extremely limited number of) spaces for men, in spite of being far more likely to be assaulted than a man is; ii. to put aside any feelings of discomfort or distress I may face from having to share that space with people of the gender that attacked me (whereas cis women are not expected to do that); and iii. that even if I did manage to pass and be welcomed into a women’s refuge, that a single complaint from any person that deems me “not woman enough” might be sufficient reason to eject me and put me in further danger. I kindly ask you to put yourself in my shoes, in that situation, and consider how being faced with these decisions would make you feel.
The Supreme Court’s ruling effectively means that gender policing will apply to all women (both cis and trans) when they attempt to gain access to these spaces. This has a multitude of concerning effects, and I’ll list three of the most salient ones (yet this is by no means an exhaustive list):
- There are plenty of cisgender women who do not fit the requirements of stereotypical womanhood: women who cut their hair short, who wear clothing deemed masculine, who do not wear make-up, who have coarse facial hair (be it due to congenital conditions or PCOS, for example), who have deeper than average voices, who are intersex, who are taller than average, more muscular (last year gave us plenty of examples of this on the world sport’s stage, with women like Imane Khelif and Ilona Maher being subjected to intense scrutiny over their gender, in spite of being demonstrably cisgender). What are all of these women supposed to do if they had to access single-sex spaces and be assessed for the authenticity of their womanhood? Will their genitalia be inspected? How will a cis woman’s vagina be distinguished from a post-op trans woman’s vagina? Will they have to carry a birth certificate around with them? What will likely happen to non-white women who are more likely to not fit into typical western aesthetic standards of femininity? And what will happen to many of the immigrant or asylum-seeking women who might not possess a birth certificate? The ruling has opened a can of worms when it comes to the policing of women’s bodies. I find it disheartening that a country that has historically been at the forefront of women’s rights is now on the verge of adopting policies that police women (all women) based on their appearance.
- Transgender women must “pass” in order to live publicly. Many of us who have already gone through the tortuously long process to achieve harmony between our gender and our bodies (to paint the picture, Tavistock and Portman adult clinic in London has an average wait time of 79 months / 6 and a half years for a first appointment), are now receiving the message that “passing” is no longer just a privilege that can enable you to avoid discrimination and hate crime - it is now a requirement for being able to participate in public life. How can I go to a sport’s facility, a theater, a cinema, or a restaurant, when I know that my right to comfortably and safely use the toilet facilities hinges on how well I present that day? Some might dismiss this point as irrelevant and that we should always use men’s single sex spaces, from bathrooms to prisons. This leaves trans women in the position where we have to subject ourselves to this indignity and to the possible threat of sexual violence and aggression from men in those spaces - as women, we are equally vulnerable to rape and assault, in fact, we are often more so: a US-based study of sexual assault in prisons from 2007 found that transgender prisoners were 13 times more likely to experience sexual assault than the prison population average. Other studies since have had similar findings. Some might turn to suggesting that trans activists should advocate for “third spaces” for trans people (as Baronness Falkner did recently on BBC Radio 4, Today, April 17th), but this glosses over multiple important injustices. First, these spaces do not and (realistically) will not exist for a long time, or they exist in such a form that is detrimental to the health and wellbeing of trans people. Only a minority of public spaces have gender neutral bathrooms and changing rooms. When prisons have to segregate trans female prisoners from the male population (for our own safety), often the only solution is isolation, which is extremely psychologically damaging. On that note, please see the recent case of Zoe Watts, a trans woman who was held in her cell for 23.5 hours a day in the men’s wing of HMP Peterborough. Second, what does it say about us as a nation that we would rather segregate a part of our population out of the public eye than work to dismantle the social evils of patriarchy and gender essentialism that have put us here in the first place? I see far more air time and energy being given to pushing trans women (less than 1% of the population) out of women’s spaces than I see to tackling the misogyny and gender based violence that is percolating amongst cis men (around 50% of the population). Third, will gender non-conforming cis women (who I’ve mentioned and described in the previous paragraph) also be required to use and live in these third spaces too? Will anyone who does not conform to outdated notions of gender and sex be pushed out and segregated at their own expense?
- The ruling has the potential to divide the fundamental rights of the trans community along starkly socio-economic and class lines: as I said before, due to this ruling, a trans woman must now pass in order to access certain spaces safely. In brief, the ability to pass depends on a variety of factors, including the genetics influencing your body type, hair and facial structure (i.e. luck), and access to hormone replacement therapy (HRT), hair removal and surgery. The latter three parts are almost entirely dependent on your financial situation: I was on the NHS wait list for years before I had the funds that permitted me to access private healthcare. I do not know a single trans woman who has actually been seen by the NHS’s gender identity clinics. Moreover, the recently leaked NHS guidance implies that it will be increasingly harder for us to access Shared Care plans or NHS-paid blood tests for our HRT - this is critical, since many of us cannot afford the private equivalents of those. Surgeries are also prohibitively expensive and have long waiting lists. In other words, only those trans people who can afford all of the above are able to live their lives in public as active, equal citizens (and even then, not quite equal). No other section of the population has to buy their way into equality in such a drastic way. Other trans people may also choose emigrating to more trans-friendly countries, which again, requires funds. I fear for the lives and wellbeing of the trans people I know who cannot afford all those steps required to pass, or, while accumulating the required funds, have to be “in the closet”, live outside the public eye, or risk frequent danger, indignity and hatred. Meanwhile, the trans people who are fortunate enough to pass have to treat their trans status as a shameful secret, and have their lives destroyed if it is ever revealed. It is a painful irony that the Supreme Court ruling that was allegedly so concerned over the possibility of creating a two-tier population of trans people (between those who have a GRC and those who do not) has effectively done exactly the same, but along class lines instead.
What I gained from the years-long transitioning process was happiness, and a relief from the constant pressure of gender dysphoria. Against my best efforts, I also lost the love of many family members who turned their back on me or simply chose to ignore my actual gender, some due to ignorance or social conservatism, others due to being radicalised by the virulent strain of anti-feminist, anti-scientific thinking perpetuated throughout TERF networks in the United Kingdom. I’ve had to spend years bearing the many indignities and financial challenges of transition in the UK whilst grieving the loss of those relationships. I had hoped that, at least, at the end of all that, with a GRC, and adequate healthcare, I could live life as an active, equal, if somewhat emotionally scarred, citizen of our United Kingdom. This ruling has put that goal further out of my reach and that of every other trans person. It potentially reduces us to second-class citizens. I have already chosen to decimate the savings I was accumulating for a house deposit to fund emergency elective gender surgeries because I live in constant fear of my healthcare being taken away or of being pushed to male spaces where I will be at risk of violence and rape. The fact that I can even do so makes me one of the luckiest trans people I know, a realisation that should haunt everyone who believes we live in a free, fair and just society.
I look forward to hearing back from you or your office. Again, I stress the urgency and importance of meeting to discuss this issue that is pushing my community to the outskirts of society. The Supreme Court failed to take into account the view of any single trans individual before devastating our community with its decision - I sincerely hope that you, as our elected representative, will listen to us.
Yours sincerely,
Ioana Preoteasa
[address, email, phone number]
This email was written a week after the Supreme Court Ruling of 16/04/2024, based on a post by the Trans Legal Project ( (n.d.)). I opted to use this guidance rather than a template email because personalised letters tend to be more effective. You can find who your MP is at this link.
Although many people are right to have lost their faith in representative democracy and believe that writing MPs letters is futile, if even 1/10 receives any reply or say 1/1000 actually meets up with their MP, then there is a chance to influence decision-making via this avenue.