'We are disappearing'

Britain’s first trans judge explains why she is challenging the Supreme Court ruling on the biological definition of women

- EMMA HENDERSON

"I don't think any lawyer would have expected that outcome," says Britain's first trans judge about the Supreme Court ruling that a woman is defined by biological sex, rather than gender.

It means trans women - including those with a gender recognition certificate (GCR) - can be excluded from single-sex spaces for women, such as changing rooms and medical services.

“I wasn’t expecting the trans community to lose,” admits Dr Victoria McCloud, who was publicly promoted as a symbol of the modern judiciary’s diversity.

April’s bombshell ruling leaves Britain “not much better than countries that criminalise trans people”, she says.

Dr McCloud believes her rights as one of the 8,000 people to have legally changed the sex on their birth certificate have been violated under Article Six of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. “It literally changed my legal sex for discrimination purposes, overnight,” she says.

The ruling states sex is binary “but it has actually created a situation where I am two sexes at once, which is a bit peculiar … for the purposes of the Equality Act, I am male, but for the purposes of everything else I’m female, so if I have to tick a box on a form, I don’t know what box to tick.”