Fight for a united working-class struggle against all oppressions and for socialism
Editorial of the Socialist issue 1318
The Supreme Court ruling on Wednesday 16 April 2025 proves yet again that minority rights are not secure in a society in which a capitalist elite relies on scapegoating to preserve their rule. This is especially the case now when that rule is engulfed by crisis and its defenders are unable to build and maintain support bases.
The undemocratic and unaccountable Supreme Court ruled on a question of “statutory interpretation” in a case brought by For Women Scotland (FWS). It found that “a person with a Gender Recognition Certificate in the female gender does not come within the definition of ‘woman’ for the purposes of sex discrimination” under the Equality Act. FWS says it aims to “protect and strengthen women and children’s rights”. But neither this ruling nor any future attack on trans rights will improve the situation facing women in austerity Britain.
This Labour government is not on the side of working-class women: the WASPI women fighting for their pensions were denied, the two-child benefit cap was maintained, and the latest Budget statement announced disability benefit cuts while increasing spending on warfare.
The solidarity protests of tens of thousands across the country days after the ruling show the potential for mass resistance against division. The task is to build a united movement that fights against Starmer’s war and austerity agenda, for women’s rights, trans rights, and for a socialist alternative to the misery on offer from the capitalist system he defends.
The context is years of attacks on trans people by Tories seeking to distract from their cost-of-living crisis. Today under Starmer, Labour’s ten-percentage-point decline in support is the largest slump of any governing party in its first months in office in 50 years.
What this ruling means in law is unclear. Kishwer Falkner, chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), said it meant access to single-sex facilities such as changing rooms “must be based on biological sex”. The Labour government echoes this but legal experts are divided over whether it means services and organisations are compelled to exclude trans women, or that they may. What this means for trans men or even some tall, short-haired women is also a concern. Who will police the bathrooms and changing rooms? Where will trans women go? All of this is not answered.
But the main impact of this ruling is clear. The tiny trans population will face more challenges in terms of access to public services and legal rights, and the dangers to trans rights and identities from an emboldening of those who oppose them. In the year ending March 2024, 4,780 hate crimes against transgender people were recorded. That’s an increase of about 60% on 2021 figures, the year the census found that there were around 262,000 people, 0.5% of the population, who identified as having a gender different from their sex assigned at birth.
Divide and rule
This is not the last attack on trans people – or other minorities – while this increasingly unpopular government remains in power. Starmer and Co are seeking to defend a capitalist system in which working-class living standards are falling and war and climate change wreck lives. This profit-first capitalist system is based on the exploitation of the majority by a tiny minority. In seeking to maintain that intolerable situation, Labour can reach into a well-developed playbook in which the capitalist class has honed how it seeks to undermine potential mass opposition. This includes using the many differences – skin colour, sexuality, disability, gender, age, working status, etc, etc – that exist among the working class in an attempt to weaken our collective potential ability to fight back and challenge their rule.
In 1988, Thatcher’s homophobic Section 28, for example, which banned schools from “promoting homosexuality”, coincided with the divisions in her Cabinet starting to emerge. Section 28 also lacked clarity but had the effect of forcing teachers and students into the closet and emboldening homophobic bullying, causing huge suffering. Three years later Thatcher was removed from office when another vicious anti-working-class law – the poll tax – was defeated by a united mass working-class movement.
That’s why the divisive approach of many of the campaigners who have welcomed this ruling is mistaken and must be opposed. They lean on fears over women’s rights, safety and services, to which our movement needs to offer political arguments and action to fight together for what we all need. This Supreme Court ruling will do nothing to improve women’s safety or access to services.
Capitalist anti-trans division is based on an appeal to the fear of male violence and of attacks on women’s rights, including women-only spaces. As with all culture-war appeals, the invitation to feel this fear can appeal to women’s experience of capitalist society where male violence against women remains deeply ingrained, notwithstanding legal improvements in recent decades. Because of pre-existing oppression, women are hit hardest by austerity. Capitalist politicians – and the institutions that serve the capitalist class’s interests – point to trans women as the main threat to safety within the very public services whose funding they cut and privatise. They barely mention trans men or non-binary people, even though that is how a majority of young trans people now identify.
Violence against women
Single-sex spaces are not safe in a society where violence against women is tolerated. In 2023, of the 548 police officers being investigated for sexual misconduct and domestic abuse claims, 347 were working as normal and 236 were placed on restricted duties.
A staggering 97% of young women in the UK have experienced sexual harassment. The view of women as objects and as second-class citizens that contributes to this is reinforced by the sexist objectification of women in advertising and other profit-seeking industries, and by women’s low pay at work.
As a result, for many women even their home is not a safe space. Two women a week are killed by violent partners or ex-partners. The biggest threat to domestic violence refuges is not trans women seeking support, but austerity, continued by Starmer, which has cut and closed refuges. The lack of council homes forces women to stay in violent situations.
Now the EHRC has been charged with working out what the new interpretation of the Equality Act means in practice. This body proved its credentials as a defender of the capitalist establishment in the role it played in the false accusations of antisemitism against Jeremy Corbyn.
Working-class struggle
Nor was the Equality Act ever a guarantee of equality of provision of services. That can only be achieved through struggle for funding the services we need and organising democratic workplace control – involving service users and the wider working class as well as the workers involved – as a step towards the socialist transformation of society needed to end the oppression and division of capitalism.
Ending discrimination in society will also not be done by a law or a court within a system that relies on division to maintain its exploitation. We can only win in the courts what we have won in the workplaces and on the streets through collective organising. The vagueness of this ruling will now move the struggle for access to services and against discrimination to the workplaces.
It is therefore welcome that a number of trade unions supported the protests. The role for the trade union movement is as the organised mass force fighting for what’s needed – defending jobs and pay, ending austerity, fighting for services, like those supporting victims of domestic violence, to be run safely, with adequate screening processes, sufficient trained staff and specialisation to meet different needs, and striving for the united programme we need to counter division in the workplace and in society.
Fighting for all our rights means fighting for the formation of an independent workers’ party, based on the trade unions. That could pull together the struggles in the workplaces and the movements for trans and non-binary rights, as well as for women’s rights, against racism, and environmental destruction etc, and offer a socialist alternative to the capitalist profit system.
Protesting against the Supreme Court ruling across the country
London
20,000 people gathered in Parliament Square on Saturday afternoon to express their outrage at the Supreme Court’s recent decision. The message from the wide spectrum of society at the protest was: this decision is an attack on everyone’s rights, including other women, and we will not stand by while the trans community continues to be scapegoated by the capitalist elite. “There is a real fear that the UK government is headed in the same direction as the United States in regard to rolling back the rights of all marginalised groups”, one attendee told Socialist Party members.
Socialist Students members discussed the outcome on campus where the majority of young people have offered their support and solidarity to the trans community. Queen Mary Socialist Students recently won their campaign for the university to provide gender-neutral changing facilities on campus.
At this demonstration it was clear to see the cross section of anger at the Labour government’s commitment to austerity, repeals of the rights of already oppressed groups and the continuation of funding to weapons, war and genocide. Many people bought copies of the Socialist and there was interest in upcoming Socialist Party meetings on trans rights.
The turnout and mood of participants showed the scale of opposition to the attacks on the trans community. If 20,000 people are able to mobilise on such short notice in London alone, imagine the impact of a trade-union backed movement to oppose all attacks under this government and defend trans rights – a movement spanning across the country to support workers of all identities ensuring that they are both represented and protected in workplaces and the wider community.
Emily Lyndon, Camden and Haringey Socialist Party
Leeds
Hundreds of people protested in Leeds expressing worry about the impact of this judgement including access to basic facilities like toilets. Within days of the ruling the British Transport Police announced that strip searches of trans women would now be done by male officers which also raised anger and concern.
The protest also expressed anger at Starmer’s Labour for its attacks on working people, including the U-turns on trans and LGBTQ+ rights and wider attacks on benefits. The protests show the need for an alternative to the mainstream parties and a desire to fight. These calls to fight were rightly linked to the importance of building a united struggle of the working class to challenge the social conditions that lay the ground for this judgement coming about after more a decade of austerity. The rights and services we have only exist because they were fought for in the first place.
Despite the media’s attempts to present these attacks as supported by most people, the protest drew considerable support from the general public with passers-by cheering and joining the protest themselves.
Michael Johnson, Leeds Socialist Party
Bristol
Over one thousand protesters turned out in Bristol. Many speakers went up and voiced their absolute disgust at the Labour government and the need to join the struggle for trans rights with the fight against cuts to disabled people’s benefits.
Sheila Caffrey, member of the Socialist Party and on the national executive of the National Education Union, spoke and laid out the hypocrisy of the recent ruling. If it was brought about to protect women, why do we see public services being gutted by the Labour government: public services such as women’s shelters, emergency housing and the slashing of legal aid?
Clint Hatcher, Bristol North Socialist Party
Swansea
At least 250 protesters rallied in Swansea to stand up for trans rights. The speakers put forward a call for unity against oppression, rejecting the false ‘divide and rule’ narrative that trans rights come at the expense of anybody else.
With all the attacks facing society, it is so positive to see that we have not been stunned into despair. This was not the first protest, called at very short notice, to have been well-attended in Swansea recently. This was reflected in the speakers’ contributions and the crowd’s reactions. We’ve had enough, we’re ready to battle, and we’re confident we are going to fight until we win.
Our leaflet, with a headline of “Fight for trans rights and socialist change”, argued a way forward for everyone – including women – as part of a united struggle that draws socialist conclusions. Leaflets, and copies of the Socialist, were snapped up – we could have done with more!
Ben Golightly, Swansea Socialist Party
Plymouth
In Plymouth, where I helped organise the demonstration alongside others, over 200 people gathered in the city centre. Armed with banners, flags, and defiant slogans, protesters made their voices heard loud and clear.
There was fear, yes – fear of what this ruling would mean for trans people and the erosion of their rights – but there was also immense solidarity.
People came together not only to oppose an unjust ruling but to celebrate trans lives. As the protests continue across the country, it’s clear that the fight for trans liberation is far from over. The ruling is a blow, but it has only strengthened the resolve of those fighting for a world where all people – regardless of gender identity – are treated with respect, dignity, and equality.
Giu Alexandria, Plymouth Socialist Party
