Trans: When Ideology Meets Reality

by Helen Joyce

As for the Equality Act, the argument that ‘male’ and ‘female’ refer to gender identities not only seems weak, given common usage, but contradicts the most relevant precedent-setting court case since the law passed. That concerned Craig Hudson, who was sentenced in 2004 for murder. Over the two years of his marriage, he and several relatives tortured his wife, Rachel, to death. The autopsy found eleven fractured ribs, a detached lower lip and dozens of bruises, burns and scalds. She died of a blood clot on her brain. ‘I see a lot of people who have been beaten,’ the Home Office pathologist said. ‘I have to say, I have never seen anything like this before.’ By 2013 Hudson was identifying as Kimberley Green, and demanded outsize women’s clothes, a wig, tights, prosthetic breasts and a prosthetic vulva. They were refused on security grounds – the clothes were available only from specialist websites, and prisoners were banned from going online; make-up and a wig could aid in disguise and escape; tights could be used as a ligature, and the prosthetics, to conceal drugs. Green claimed discrimination on the basis of gender reassignment. In such cases, British anti-discrimination law mandates a kind of thought experiment, considering whether the treatment would have been different if everything apart from the protected characteristic had been the same. Green argued that the comparison should be with a (non-trans) woman; the prison governor, that it should be with a (non-trans) man...