The Scottish Government’s planned reforms to the Gender Recognition Act of 2004, which will make the process of updating a birth certificate less humiliating and invasive for trans people, has major support from diversity and women’s groups following large scale consultations.
However, one of Scotland’s most famous residents, Edinburgh-based Harry Potter author JK Rowling, remains steadfast in her opposition.
She has cited what she perceives as a negative impact on single-sex spaces, and by mentioning her fears for the most vulnerable – alluding to survivors of abuse – she is suggesting that places like refuges could be under threat.
With the UK survivor sector being drained of resources by over a decade of austerity measures, I want to air my real fears around disinformation that can further spur on the culture war gripping the UK, and worsen the hostile environment it enforces on trans people.
Firstly, I need to state some facts. Having a birth certificate has no impact on access to gendered spaces.
In fact, these the vast majority of these services have functioned through self-identification of the user for over a decade.
There are already many different forms of state paperwork that are far easier to change gender markers on, such as passports, yet birth certificates are usually the last remaining documents to be changed, and the benefits for trans people can be massive – including avoiding being ‘outed’ without consent.
I am a non-binary trans person, and a survivor of life long domestic abuse – in childhood at the hands of a family member, and in adult life by former male partners.
I grew up a quiet child spending days in the library and fostering a love of literature.
By my late teens I was reading second wave feminist writers like bell hooks, Andrea Dworkin and Marilyn Faye; and as fiction goes, ironically, I grew up an avid fan of Harry Potter.
My Potterhead leanings were shaken in 2020 when Rowling first came out with her infamous essay on the so-called ‘trans debate’.
In the piece, Rowling uncritically quoted an interview with the scholar Dr Lisa Littman, where she raised the potential of ‘social contagion’ causing children to become trans.
To understand the sharp hurt I felt hearing my very sense of who I am being called as a ‘social contagion’, I need to look further back.
I was 13 years old when I was first called a ‘t****y’.
It was a few days after Christmas when the family came to visit. After dinner, my cousin and I snuck away from the dinner table to play Mario Kart in the living room.
Several races later, I hovered the cursor over a female character in a cool blue racing suit, and said casually in the presence of my cousin, without fear of repercussion, ‘I would like to be a girl just like her.’
Years later, after quizzing my mother on the disappearance of my uncle and cousin from our Christmas dinners, I heard the full story.
That evening, my cousin had gone to my uncle, recounted the words I said, and called me a ‘creepo’ and a ‘t****y’.
My uncle told my mother he never wished to have such a ‘mentally ill parasite’ near his child again.
To be called a ‘social contagion’ just for being who you are is something I never want another child to experience.
Growing up with this and my abuser’s behaviour, I empathise with women like Rowling, who say they have legitimate concerns around the potential presence of men in spaces for women.
But we are talking about trans people here, and we know how easily ‘legitimate concerns’, especially when based on clear misinformation, are used as a cover for transphobia.
One way I’ve been affected by the culture war around trans people has been as a domestic abuse survivor seeking support.
It’s something that many trans people can relate to: A 2015 US survey, one of the largest of its kind, found that 54% trans people had experienced intimate partner violence in their lives.
As an adult, I went through a series of toxic relationships with cisgender men that ended in emotional, and at times sexual and physical abuse.
After I heard an ex had assaulted another trans partner in a manner strikingly similar to how he had abused me years ago, I broke down.
At my most vulnerable, I summed up the courage to call a rape crisis phoneline.
Despite some of the pressure from gender critical activists, all major survivor organisations have served trans and non-binary people for over a decade.
But the culture wars do impact trans survivors. We can never be certain of the extent to which misinformation has taken hold of the people we are talking to and so trans people often self-police.
I was a crying, traumatised wreck – but I was also dealing with the added fear of the person on the other end perceiving me as a predator for my voice while talking about being assaulted.
It was far more than I or anyone else should have to handle – despite it just being a phone call, I hung up before I reached anyone.
Contrary to JK Rowling’s fear of GRA reform impacting women’s spaces, whether someone has an up-to-date birth certificate or not will have no effect on how these services are run.
On the other hand, there are exemptions under the Equality Act for excluding trans people if it is done with the goal of achieving a legitimate aim and on a case-by case basis.
For example, a group counselling session provided for female victims of sexual assault can lawfully exclude trans people.
From speaking to crisis centre workers, the most common method they used when someone in the space is triggered by another survivor – be it their height, the sound of their voice, or even the cut of their hair – the service is staggered to one-on-one counselling.
However, exclusion is not the same as outright denial of service.
Fanning the flames of this culture war will continue to distract from the Conservative Government’s austerity politics, which not only disproportionately impact women financially, but risk destroying whatever remains of survivor services we have left.
JK Rowling said that the elements of the trans rights movement are ‘offering cover to predators’, but this misses the point about not only the reform, but how we back the rights of trans and cisgender women amid another looming crisis.
Do you have a story you’d like to share? Get in touch by emailing jess.austin@metro.co.uk.
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