Are we sure?

Today EHRC released its consultation on the segregation of trans people.

There seems to be general trans community momentum behind an assumption that we want to get as many people as possible to respond to this consultation.

I just want to ask…. Are we sure?

1. Clarity of segregation

The consultation is not a consultation on whether trans people should be segregated. It is a consultation on whether the recommendations are clear enough.

Imagine the recommendation was “police should shoot trans people in the head”.

A consultation on ‘clarity’ would quibble with what do we mean by shoot, does a cross bow count. What do we mean by head – is a grazing wound sufficient or is a kill shot needed.

A consultation on clarity of discrimination gives no space to consider whether the recommendations are i) legal ii) fair and just and in keeping with equality and decency and what we expect from a modern society.

• 2. EHRC is in charge

The EHRC will write up the findings (or they will be written up by a consultant following the terms set by EHRC).

There is no way of winning this.

There is no way of submitting in a format that will lead to the EHRC saying that the consultation declared segregation a bad idea.

At best it will lead to tweaks in the wording to make it clearer how and when we are to be segregated.

We can add all the protests, all the pleas for human decency, all the testimony of real world harms we are already experiencing to the submissions. It will count for nothing.

The consultation results will be written up in the way that suits EHRC.

It will either say that the guidance is clear, or it will provide suggestions on how to clarify it further.

All other content that does not relate to clarity will simply be discarded.

It will never result in a report saying that the guidance is out of keeping with human rights and unpopular with public opinion

• 3. Popularity contests are a losing battle

Even if the EHRC were willing to capture the number of positive endorsements of their guidance versus the number of criticisms, it will never present this as public support for or against the guidance.

The EHRC are in charge of the process.

If there are a majority of positive endorsements of segregation, then this might make it into the EHRC summary.

If there are a majority of criticisms of segregation, this will never make it into the EHRC summary. They will focus purely on the questions asked, the percentage of respondents who felt the guidance was a) clear b) not clear.

We cannot win by playing this game

• 4. The stakes are high

Trans people (myself included) are bloody worn out. Panic attacks are common. People are afraid.

People want to do something, whilst working with very little spare energy

I looked at the consultation briefly today.

It felt like an actual kick in the stomach to read it.
It is very long and confusing – it would take me days to properly process it and formulate a response, and I’m an academic used to analysising such stuff

But more importantly – it felt like an actual kick in the gut to read it.

It has already caused me harm.

Do we really want to ask all of our trans friends to do this?

Knowing what it costs us? Even to read the detailed EHRC documents is a tick in the teeth – reading how the powerful plan to discriminate against us is not a neutral pastime.

I think very carefully before sharing anything written by hate groups – let alone asking people to read hate group material.

This material will traumatise some readers. It has left me in tears this afternoon.

I don’t know why we’d ask our community to go and read that – to feel compelled and threatened into going to read that to protect their safety – when the consultation is not going to be the thing that leads to a life of safety.

The potential benefits of community-wide filling in of this consultation are infinitesimally tiny.

Do we also really want to ask our allies to do this?   

Knowing that most allies will do very little, and if they do this then they will tick off their trans activism badge for the year – is this the single best use of ally time?

Of course we can stream line the process – providing simple guidance etc. But even engaging with the consultation questionnaire is overwhelming and stressful and made me feel afraid and disempowered.

Do we want everyone feeling further afraid and disempowered?

Can we guarentee that the costs are worth the benefits?

• 5. Charity momentum

In the UK the ‘trans community’ is very disjointed. There are not any clear mechanisms for actually inputting into decisions on how ‘we’ should proceed.

Instead we tend to have ‘leadership’ from trans charities.

If trans charities say we should participate in a consultation, folks tend to follow on,

If trans charities produce guidance, folks tend to think they should participate.

But

I’ve worked in a lot of charities.

I know how they function.

Responding to a government consultation is a very core part of being a charity

It feels like an achievement.

A box gets ticked. It goes on an annual report to supporters and trustees

Leadership may ask junior staff to do the consultation response, on an assumption that of course a major trans charity will respond to a government consultation with relevance for their members.

A charity might well get criticised if they do not respond.

And once a charity decides to respond, well, it’s only kind to provide clear guidance for other community members to be able to respond.

And thus charities push the trans community into participation in yet another consultation in which there is no trans power, no trans accountability.

They push us into a game we literally cannot win.

A lot of UK trans charities collaborated for many years with the Cass Review process.

They were used by Cass.

Their collaboration was used to justify the legitimacy of the process – a process that it was clear from the very start was illegitimate.

I have not seen one of them publicly reflect upon that collaboration, publicly learn lessons about how trans participation in government ‘consultation’, time after time, is used to legitimise things that should hold no legitimacy.

• 7. Boycott is an option

I never hear proper discussion of an organised boycott of such things.

Why not?

If we cannot win. If we are guaranteed to lose – why play their game at all?

Especially when playing is deeply harmful to our well-being.

Why not stand back and clearly say as a community:

Trans segregation is wrong.

We are not interested in unpicking the clarity of the terms under which we are segregated.

We refuse to be segregated.

We refuse to engage with processes led by those who hate us.

We refuse hate and fascism.

We refuse.

• 8. Better uses of our time

Amongst trans communities spirits are low and there are a lot of very significant challenges we face.

Why is this consultation a good use of any of our time?

I would love to say to the trans people in my life – do yourself a favour – skip this consultation.

I particularly don’t want the young trans people who I know to pour their heart out in submissions on the impact of this guidance on their life – in a consultation where that type of testimony will be ignored.

I would argue we are much better off focusing on legal challenges – arguments that the guidance and the Supreme Court is breaking international and national law.

I would argue we are much better off focusing on justice and equality and basic decency related arguments, writing public blogs and articles on how the guidance harms us, spending our limited time talking to our MPs, campaigning for actual justice, talking to our communities on the harms of segregation, supporting our trans children to get through the next months, finding the optimism that we and they need, advocating for their rights at school.

Keeping the focus of our efforts not on telling EHRC on the clarity through which we are segregated, but on maintaining our own wellbeing and self-esteem, refusing to play their game.

I also think refusal at this point, and refusal in solidarity would be a powerful message and example to underpin the wider refusals that need to continue.

Through refusal we underpin that we do not accept the terms by which they want to rule our world. We show and practice defiance that we are not going to disappear.

I’ve lost energy to finish this blog coherently.

Everything in life takes energy.

There is so much to be done.

Above all we need to look after ourselves and our community

Asking for the community to spend time on this consultation seems like voluntarily smashing ourselves in the face with a brick. It will harm us. It will not harm those who are trying to harm us.

I don’t know everything.

I only know I have now done 20 such consultations and every single one led to either no change or to a roll back in rights.

And this consultation seems more hopeless than every one of those.

I will go with the collective wisdom, including from those who are wiser than me. But before we all agree to collectively participate in – and to ask our friends and allies to at scale participate in – the consultation – can we at least ask:   

Are we sure?