July 1:

Update from the Good Law Project:

We now have directions from the High Court for our judicial review challenge to the EHRC’s interim guidance.
Our challenge raises two main points. First, that the EHRC was wrong to say employers need to provide gendered toilets. When we issued the claim the EHRC caved on this point and changed its guidance. And, second, that it is permissible to provide trans inclusive men’s and women’s toilets (and indeed other facilities).
If we are wrong then, we say, the UK is no longer complying with its European Convention obligations and the High Court should say so.
We are bringing the challenge with a woman and a man who are trans and someone who is intersex. The High Court has granted them anonymity. My witness statement explains why anonymity is so important for trans people who want to access the law.
The High Court has said there will need to be a ‘permission’ hearing this month. And the EHRC must serve the summary grounds of its defence by 11 July 2025. We will publish in the next couple of days our statement of grounds - with information about those three individuals blanked out.

July 1: Good and bad news from the other side of the pond. The GOP have dropped a part of the Big Beautiful Bill which would have stripped medicaid from trans health care but the other Supreme Court have upheld parental rights to restrict LGBT books on religious grounds and denied parental rights to demand trans healthcare for their kids

July 3: Had an interview with That's TV (Thames Valley) tonight. I have taken this rather shaky video of it with my phone from the TV tonight. The segment aired was only about Reading University's transphobic policy on toilets rather than the protest but I do love the way that I am now officially a trans rights activist and that I have organised a sustained series of protests. Wow!
It is the first video on my website: https://ptbtiwb.co.uk/video

July 4: I agree with the concept that all authentic gender expressions are valid and should be supported, yet we live (exist perhaps as per Scotia) in a society that still largely views gender as binary, reinforced by media representation and by some politicians and by some very rich individuals who really should know better, but they derive more wealth from the controversy that they create. For whatever reason I believe that we had become too complacent, that the world had moved on to a better place, yet those with our best intentions far from their heart were moving against us and we let our eye slip from the ball. We now need to regain the ground we have lost before it becomes entrenched and that means that we need to keep pressurizing the powers that be until we become too much of an irritant to be ignored. For that to succeed we need to present a united front and leave the discussions about whether certain gender expressions or identities are more valid than others, as internal. When we wrote the Beaumont Society Guidebook we deliberately ensured that the term to be used was transgender or preferably trans for this very reason. Otherwise we are at risk of doing to ourselves what the GCs are attempting to do by separating the T from LGBT which, thankfully, the Pride movement as a whole is strongly resisting. Remember that it was Marsha P Johnson and Sylvia Riviera that threw the first bricks at Stonewall - two trans women of colour to which the entire Pride movement owes gratitude.
And another "old story" of when my wife collapsed in the bank she was manager of many years ago. Later she was diagnosed with MS and the bank's decision was also to let her go "not the image the bank wanted to portray". We have come a long way since then and I am hopeful that we will be able to reverse this most recent setback. Then we can work on getting the non-binary identities recognised and support for intersex people too.

July 17: in response to this from Karen B:

O.K. I've managed to calm myself down from the "pat on the head" response I got from my M.P. Whilst looking at Facebook, I picked up on a post with many very accurate observations and thought, you know what? I'm going to use them in my reply as well as communicating my own personal feelings and my thoughts about the ability or desire, of this current crop of Labour M.P.s to think for themselves.
What they fail to understand whilst their snouts are submerged in the Party trough, is that their primary responsibility is to their constituents, not Starmer. Starmer wont protect them when this malfunctioning government is swept from power, but being a good, hard working representative of constituents will, even if expelled from the Party and forced to stand Independent. Anyway, my response.

Feel free to use it by changing stuff arounf as I undersatand you are not all Scots. Or else, think for yourself, whichever you feel comfortable with but, please, keep the pressure up!!

Dear Chris,
thank you for finding the time to send what has proven to be a standard party line response.
Friends in other constituencies received an identical response also so, clearly, most Labour M.P.s don't think for themselves anymore.
You say you are sympathetic to Trans people and, although Briget Phillipson and the government clearly think we should be marginalised, humiliated, stripped of all dignity and by consequence of all of the above, erased, you continue to trot out worn out slogans like "your rights continue to be protected by the Equalities Act when, in fact, your government is working hard to trash those very rights. Consider the realities please.

I’ve lost all the privilege of cis normality, the ability to live safe in the knowledge I am not marginalised.
Imagine waking up tomorrow and all Scots were to be banned from public toilets, from competing in sports and even spelling tests, that no part of society was safe for you any longer. Imagine knowing any establishment could refuse you entry simply because you sound Scots, or have a Scottish look about you? Even worse, imagine your employer could exploit you, pay you less because you are from a Scottish town assuming you can still get work!!!
Well, that’s life for me and every trans person at this time and I suppose some others are thinking ‘just assimilate’ hide your transness, well, that’s what I was doing my whole life and that didn’t work. I don’t get a day off, I don’t get to wake at 6am and not be laid in a cold sweat worrying what fresh horror this government will impose on me and all trans people next. What tweet will JK Rowling put out from her Luxury Yacht demeaning my existence, inferring I am guilty of the most abhorrent human behaviours and you all go, maybe she has a point!!!
Imagine waking up at 6am not knowing who is your ally and who is your enemy, knowing people will be nice to you and then buy something from the Harry Potter franchise, or, think I should be grateful, there are people worse off in other countries(The UK has slipped from 2nd to 22nd safest country in Europe in 2 years, we are on a par with Hungary when it comes to LGBTQ+ Rights). While other countries are progressing trans rights, which by the way affect everyone positively we, in Great Britain are regressing trans rights which serves no one.
You will know your government are pushing to change the equality act to exclude trans people (by definition it will cease to be an equality act)? Why should you cis people all worry, I’ll tell you, because if I have to prove my gender identity, we all will, because, despite your privileges and belief ‘we can always tell’ attitude to trans people, everyone will be seen as guilty because you can’t always tell, you can only tell people who don’t meet your expectation of womanhood.
If that isn’t enough, section 36, you probably are involved this piece of legislation? It’s the same as Section 28, the law that Maggie Thatcher’s government passed banning the promotion of Gay people in the 1980s. Well Labour have decided it’s time we stopped the promotion of gender identity in schools……..goodness me, talk about oppressive governments, we are not in the 1980s, shaming people for being different belongs in the past, but the idea telling kids about gender diversity will stop them questioning their gender is pathetic. My generation of trans people lived through the worst of it and still questioned our gender identity despite government efforts to marginalise and eradicate diversity.
I’ll stop now, this is a thinly veiled attack on an extemely small and vulnerable community and it has to stop. Me ranting here on my own won’t do anything if those who care about me don’t speak up, if allies stay quiet no one will care about my sleep pattern.
If you truly believe the platitudes that you try to comfort me Chris, then. please understand, they are being undermined day by day. Think for yourself, understand that what you have been directed by Party H.Q. is no more than a bag of lies.
Our rights are not being protected, they are being eroded daily by the party I was a member of and worked tirelessly for until Blair moved it to the right wing.
However, I voted for you during the last election because I felt there was a chance that Labour would once again become The People's Party.
To me, under Starmer, it has become more of a We Are The People Party and, being Scottish, you will clearly know the extreme differences in the meaning of those two descriptions.
Act today before all our rights are eradicated!!

Best Regards,
Karen Barrie.

I posted: I have just saved your letter in my folder of campaigns and by accident my mouse hovered over a letter I had written to Liz Truss when she was minister for Women & Equalities. It struck me of how very similar the content was to the content of yours, yet this was written in June 2020! We have a different party in charge yet exactly the same concerns - my 2020 letter could with just a few tweaks be sent today

In response to this from Deeanna: Most women aren't bothered about trans women using women's spaces. They just see them as other women. They don't perceive any threat or danger or any privacy issues. And the majority of women don't have any problems with trans women being a part of society. However there are a number of bigoted transphobic women, most of whom are radical feminists, who would try to portray trans women and transgender people in general as being biological men who are intent on harming women. Most cisgender women are appalled by their stance and behaviour. However there are a number of cisgender women who don't have strong feelings either way. And a lot of them are moving more towards the anti trans side, because of the actions of some trans activists who can be very aggressive in defending trans rights to the point of breaking the law and threatening violence.
I feel it's important as trans people to keep all of our interactions with society as friendly and positive as we can be. To present ourselves as nice friendly and decent people.
Whenever I have an interaction with somebody, I hope they come away from it thinking "Well they were nice." And if they find that is borne out in most of their encounters with trans people, then they are more likely to view the bigoted views of transphobic activists as an unjustified attack on a nice group of people who don't deserve such awful treatment.

I posted: I agree wholeheartedly with your comments Deeanna which certainly accord with my experiences and the way I like to present to the public. We, as reasonable trans women or trans femme and, for now, the majority of the membership are so must take steps to present this side of us to the public. That does not mean backing down in the face of prejudice and bigotry if it is safe to stand up to it but by doing little things. Not sitting in a chair in a pub or restaurant for example "manspreading" is one little thing we can all do, but something that happens too often at my own meals and that has been reported to me on more than one occasion is leaving the toilet seat up. I don't care how you have a wee, but please leave the seat down - nothing says more than a man has been in here than that. The restaurant I hold my meals in is very supportive but this has been an issue that they have mentioned. Little things like this are important and do far more to keep other people's opinions of us positive than almost anything

July 18: I've just published an article on Medium prompted by one of the vile and uninformed comments from the Newbury Council post about the theft of the museum's flags. Hope you find the article interesting and thanks particular to Anja for her help.
https://medium.com/@andrea_17069/a-naked-man-in-the-bathroom-c139ce99b657

July 20: I have made a statement from the society concerning the chilling return to the days of Section 28 that the new Section 36 is. Jenny has kindly posted this on the News pages. A couple days ago we re-published Sparkle's statement on the same topic which can also be found there

July 21: The University of Reading recently introduced a trans exclusionary toilet policy for staff, students and visitors. I have written directly to the Chancellor, who, as expected to be honest, has ignored my letter and has not so far responded. The Reading University Trans Movement is not sitting still and waiting and have organised several protests on the campus as well as supporting the ones that I have organised in central Reading. They are also asking anyone that supports them to sign the open letter through this petition: https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/stop-the-uor-trans-toilet-ban?source=direct_link&

July 22:

Two stories, one good, one bad.

A Spanish trans senator has defied the EHRC's guidelines by using the toilet at Gatwick airport saying "F*** Rowling" as she did so.

https://www.thepinknews.com/2025/07/22/carla-antonelli-defies-proposed-uk-bathroom-ban/

Unfortunately, Allison Bailey won her case for discrimination against a vets practice based on her GC views.

<a href="Gender-critical barrister wins groundbreaking claim against her vets" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-mce-href="Gender-critical barrister wins groundbreaking claim against her vets">Gender-critical barrister wins groundbreaking claim against her vets

July 28: 100,000 people at the London Trans+ Pride event on Saturday and where is the news coverage? The Guardian has an article about it and ITV-X did but that seems to have disappeared. But where was the BBC, even Sky, let alone the rest of the rags that pass as newspapers in this country?
When we know how we are being misrepresented by our media how can we honestly trust anything we see printed in the papers any more or on the mainstream news broadcasts. In some ways it is better in the USA because they are so blatant about it, here we have the misfortune that they are more subtle, not much, but a little bit more plausible deniability.

July 29:

And since 2019 the amount pumped into these groups has increased TEN times. And where is the ban this government promised in its manifesto?

July 29: Well done to the organisers of the darts tournament https://www.facebook.com/reel/1453191045998646