when our enemies overstep

The interim guidance presented by the EHRC was not just overreaching in their interpretation of the judgment, setting off alarms and mobilising trans people to fight back, but they couldn’t even get it to be completely within the confines of the law, leading to Good Law Project successfully forcing some walkbacks already. While the anti-trans project will still probably largely succeed, it is one area in which they overplayed with some potentially risky (to them) consequences.

If I had to think of the most effective strategy for anti-trans to outwardly follow, it would be to apply “salami tactics”. Keep slowly tightening medical and legal gatekeeping. Draw a boundary between “true good trans” and “fake bad trans”, leading the former to believe they’re fine, and then keep shrinking the “true good trans” set. At no point cause an enemy mobilisation or significant questioning of the legitimacy of the institutions captured by you.

Instead EHRC has overstepped. Tangibly speaking 900 people showing up to the mass lobby in the Parliament, 50 thousand responses to the consultation, Good Law Project pressing successfully, MPs writing an open letter questioning EHRC’s legitimacy; less tangibly the mobilisation in trans circles seems high given the alarming developments. And they’re not discriminating between “true good trans” and “fake bad trans”; you can be impacted either way as long as people find out you’re transsexual.

When it comes to medical gatekeeping, that also until recently has been getting tightened rather gradually. But now that GPs refuse prescriptions seemingly randomly, the fact that the medical system serves none of us has been made clear to all of us.

Could it be that they will come back to the gradual tactics? Dr Mary-Ann Stephenson has been confirmed as the next EHRC chair, and she could be smarter about it. Or the direct eradicationist impulse could still remain stronger.

In the end they have made it clear for us that we’re in the same boat that they’d like to drown. And that we need to rebuild the self-reliance and shared structures, as none of us can truly assimilate and rely on the society and the state anymore, at least as far as the United Kingdom is concerned. Hopefully this realisation can plant the seed of our eventual return.