I’m trans and used to vote Tory – not anymore, Rishi Sunak

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak says that 100 per cent of women don’t have penises.

Sir Keir Starmer says that the figure is 99.9 per cent, recognising that some transgender women will not have had – or completed – gender confirmation surgery.

With the economy failing, inflation high, families struggling to heat their houses and put food on the table, the PM seemingly wants to pick on a vulnerable and disadvantaged minority. But why?

I used to be an old-fashioned liberal Conservative: free enterprise but with compassionate safety nets for those less able to fend for themselves in society. But now, with its swing to the right since Brexit, there is no place for me in the current Conservative Party and no way for me to vote for them.

Human existence is complex and there are those, including trans and non-binary people, who do not easily fit into a simple analysis of the world.

Sunak also said that trans people should be respected for who they are and allowed to live in society. But that cannot happen if trans people are excluded from normal activities in society based on the prejudices of a few.

We’ve seen proud British institutions like the Equality and Human Rights Commission, now suffering an exodus of key staff. The ECHR has become an instrument of the culture war. Is it really any surprise we’ve also seen a rise in recorded transphobic incidents and crimes?

Be in no doubt: if the freedoms of trans people are rolled back, other minority groups will be next. Gay rights and abortion rights are the obvious next targets for those who promote hatred of trans people. Just look at America.

The electoral advantage of running a culture war seems completely uncertain. Results from the US and from Australia show that the population: good, right-thinking citizens as they are, firstly put culture wars very low down on their lists of priority, and secondly, when they do consider it, are in the vast majority supportive of the freedoms and protection of minorities, including trans people.

Current laws allow for exclusion of trans people from some aspects of life: sports, single-sex services and the like, but only when there is good reason for it. As the Equality Act says, when it is “a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim”.

This has been the law for almost a quarter of a century, and it works well, allowing, for example, the science to lead on sports and exclusion only where there is a real reason in workplaces and services.

Stepping back to “biological” sex as the way we define the legitimate bounds of exclusion is only shorthand for excluding trans people who have struggled to assert their identity. It is also a logical nonsense. How will forcing trans men to use female facilities make women any safer? How is any of that to be policed? Many questions remain unanswered.

And we need leaders who lead for the whole of the UK, including all the minorities that make up the rich tapestry of life in a liberal western democracy which once led the world in equality, diversity and inclusion.

That includes trans people, Sunak. Now, please concentrate on the economy.

Robin Moira White is the first barrister to transition in practice at the discrimination bar and is the joint author of the leading text on transgender law