London Trans Pride takes place on 25 July 2026. In recent years its numbers have swelled to the tens and hundreds of thousands. We spoke to Socialist Party LGBTQ+ group organiser Michael Johnson about fighting for trans rights in 2026.
Can you explain briefly the court rulings and government advice that have been made in relation to trans rights?
The biggest thing to tackle here is the Supreme Court ruling last year, which ruled that, within the Equality Act, ‘sex’ refers only to biological sex (in principle, sex recorded on a person’s birth certificate). This ruling specifically came about in relation to gender ratios on public bodies and whether trans women in particular counted towards women for this purpose. The ruling, however, has much further reaching impact.
As a consequence of the Supreme Court judgement, the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) has produced its second draft guidance for services, public functions and associations on the Equality Act. Establishment politicians have praised the guidance for bringing ‘clarity’. In reality, it brings very little.
On access to things like toilets, the guidance raised these should be single sex. It acknowledges that it is not proportionate to check or monitor this, but that services might need to if there are complaints. Another example, trans people should use the facilities matching their sex recorded at birth but can be stopped from using these if it causes offense or upset to others. It also says trans people shouldn’t be left without facilities – as to do so would also be discrimination under the Equality Act. Anyone who has actually had to use public facilities might question how achievable some of these single-sex spaces are; the beds crisis in the NHS for example: do corridors count as single sex?
There has also been the Keeping Children Safe in Education 2026 updated draft guidance for schools. This replicates the EHRC guidance on access to single-sex spaces for children and young people who are transitioning, alongside other guidance around supporting transition. It says education settings should take a “strong stand against bullying” and should “be conscious of the rights of pupils and staff”, in respect of using the child or young person’s desired name and pronouns. The previous draft, produced under the Tories, never saw the light of day in the face of opposition from some teaching unions.
Lastly, after around a decade of prevarication by both Tory and now Labour governments, a conversion therapy ban has been put forward. This includes significant caveats allowing a questioning approach to a person’s gender identity. But it shows there is pressure coming from all sides on an unpopular government which lacks mass support.
How could the court rulings and government advice affect trans people’s rights?
Trans people are already being affected daily by the impact of the Supreme Court judgement, and EHRC guidance, even before it is fully in force.
During debates in Parliament on the guidance, MPs shared stories from constituents, including from one person facing anxieties about being able to access a toilet without issue, who ended up wetting themselves in public. Indeed, we’ve heard reports of trans people avoiding leaving home to avoid needing to access toilets while out, or even not seeking medical treatment due to worries about what ward they will end up on.
The guidance makes suggestions towards things like single occupancy toilets and rooms on wards. But, to return to the experience of anyone who has used public toilets or been in hospital recently, this suggestion is almost utopian without a massive programme of public service investment and works to meet the needs of all! Fighting for the rights and services trans people need is part and parcel of the struggle of building a working class campaign for the public services we all need.
There have been similar reactions to the education guidance. Some have likened it to a new Section 28 – the hated Thatcher law banning the ‘promotion’ of homosexuality in schools, which led to years of teachers worrying if, in challenging homophobic bullying, they would risk running foul of the law. Teachers and staff fear similar issues with this, teachers needing to decide “Is this bullying or someone expressing a belief that I can’t interfere with?”
Ultimately, while the Labour government tries to position itself as “the most LGBTQ-friendly government in history”, for most working trans people in particular, but also the wider LGBTQ+ community, things are getting harder.
Why are the government and the courts making rulings on trans rights now?
Before answering more concretely about the government and really ‘why now?’ I do just want to emphasise that, despite what the courts may want to argue, they are not a neutral force. In fact, they serve the capitalist bosses. Just look at the make up of the Supreme Court judges – dominated by Oxbridge graduates (unlikely to ever share a ward with anyone!).
And part of the reason things are getting harder for the LGBTQ+ community, and the whole working class, is for the same reason as the government and courts are making these rulings. It comes down to the economic crisis that Britain is facing, and has been facing for closing in on two decades, and the wider crisis of the capitalist system.
It wasn’t too long ago that Tory prime minister David Cameron was accepting Gay Ally awards and Theresa May was hosting garden parties celebrating the Stonewall riots, announcing an LGBT action plan. Due to the struggles fought by the LGBTQ+ community, massive gains have been made to our rights and with movements of the working class have come big shifts in social attitudes. For a whole period, governments and corporations were forced to present themselves as ‘allies’ (being as loose as possible with that term) and would avoid being seen to outwardly attack LGBTQ+ rights while, of course, carrying on with exploitation, cuts and privatisation, as part of the general assault on the working class, including LGBTQ+ workers and young people.
As the economic crisis has deepened we’ve seen the growing crisis for Britain’s capitalist class (exemplified by the speed we run through prime ministers). As we’ve just seen with Keir Starmer, the establishment parties have no solution for this crisis other than to make workers pay.
Public services have been eroded by austerity alongside attacks on pay, conditions and living standards. We’ve seen in the strike waves and fantastic struggles of the working class, refusing to accept attacks on our living standards. In response, we’ve seen the return of divide-and-rule tactics from the bosses to try to weaken mass struggles.
This has unfortunately meant that trans people, alongside migrants and others, have faced attempts to scapegoat them by a capitalist elite seeking to maintain its increasingly unpopular rule.
How can we stop the issue of trans rights being used in a divisive way by the capitalist bosses, politicians and right-wing media?
This is a really important question. Polling, like the British Social Attitudes survey, has found that views on trans people have worsened, driven by the divide-and-rule rhetoric. But this isn’t irreversible. We should remember, at the end of the 1980s, at the height of the AIDS crisis and the Thatcher-led Tory government’s attacks on LGBTQ+ people, questioning the “inalienable right to be gay”, more than 80% of people felt homosexuality was wrong.
But struggle cut across this. A notable example being the solidarity the LBGTQ+ community showed with striking miners through organisations like Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners (LGSM). This led to the National Union of Mineworkers returning that solidarity, helping to enshrine LGBT rights in the Labour Party constitution and also joining in the struggle against Section 28.
The trade unions can, and do, play the same role today. When conferences of trade unionists discuss trans issues, they consistently vote to support campaigns and demands, sometimes in opposition to those union leaderships who do not recognise the need to campaign to unite workers as widely as possible around a programme to meet all our needs. Socialist Party members have played an important role in supporting these discussions but also putting forward the need for them to go beyond the union conferences into our communities and into action.
I do also want to address attempts to portray trans people as the main threat to women, something that has been a feature of some of the politics of divide and rule.
Much has been made in the right-wing press of things like the threat to women from trans women using refuges. And this can gain an echo as services like women’s refuges have faced years of attacks on funding. A Women’s Aid 2026 report records that even with capacity increases, around 65% of referrals to refuges are rejected primarily due to lack of space.
This isn’t because of trans people, it’s the result of the austerity politics and policies of governments and local councils. Pitting trans people and other women against each other is only in the interests of those people actually making the attacks. Campaigns for services like refuges and campaigns for accessible services for the trans community to be safe, well-staffed and resourced are, at the heart of it, the same campaigns. And we will be stronger if we fight together.
Scandalously, those trying to whip up anti-trans hate to distract from their own failure to solve our problems, make an appeal to a fear of male violence. What makes this possible is women’s experience of living in a capitalist society where male violence against women remains deeply ingrained, notwithstanding legal improvements in recent decades. The Metropolitan Police have been found to be institutionally misogynistic; women’s medical symptoms consistently get dismissed and experiences of pain become normalised; internationally, profits of the billionaires, estimated at $18.3 trillion, are prioritised over women’s safety, health, and lives. Fighting trans hate means fighting for an end to all gender oppression.
What can be done to take the fight for trans rights and against all oppression forward?
Firstly, I think it is important to say that, despite the attacks and pressures, it’s not all doom and gloom. The current situation isn’t just being passively accepted. Where there have been snap protests called against the EHRC guidance, hundreds have turned out. And those numbers aren’t just from the trans community. Events like Trans Pride in London have swelled to 100,000 in 2025, and those numbers include people looking to fight politically.
I’ve mentioned community campaigns and workers’ action. The struggles of other oppressed people under attack are erupting too. There is huge potential for struggle, linking these causes, and real potential for solidarity and the bringing together of these struggles into mass campaigns. The context of the original Stonewall uprising was mass movements against oppression across the world.
Socialist Party members in the trade unions are fighting for the unions to take a lead. That means providing support, training, resources, and guidance for organisers, negotiators and lay reps on how to defend trans+ members’ rights of access to workplace facilities; protect trans+ members from discrimination and harassment; challenge transphobic and homophobic behaviour; and increase awareness on trans+ issues in the workplace and wider society, as part of a campaign to unite workers against all the attacks from the capitalist class.
We also demand the trade unions discuss and take steps towards the formation of an independent, workers’ party, based on the workers’ movement. That could pull together the struggles in the workplaces and the social movements for women’s rights, LGBTQ+ rights, against racism, and environmental destruction etc, and put forward a socialist programme.
Such a struggle also needs to go beyond stopping closures and attacks, but to also fight for what we need. This will need communities to come together, to discuss and debate, and decide a course of action.
I do want to end with that – pointing out that a big message to take from the Supreme Court judgement is that even when we win, under capitalism wracked with crises, those things can be taken away when the next crisis rolls along. So I think any campaign, yes needs to fight for services, rights, legal reforms; but also needs to be clear-eyed that if we truly want to take the struggle against all oppression forward that means fighting for a break from the brutal capitalist system and the socialist transformation of society.
