The EHRC is no longer an institution of protection. It is a tool of orchestrated erasure, and Labour is choosing to keep it that way.
The Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention, Human Rights Watch, and eighteen United Nations experts have all explicitly named the Equality and Human Rights Commission in their condemnation of institutional harm being caused to the transgender and intersex people of the United Kingdom. Kishwer Falkner, as the current Chair of the EHRC, has led what she proclaims to be a “course correction” – an orchestrated campaign of systematic erasure.
A campaign soon to receive a change in leadership, one that risks further enshrining the commission’s oppressive malpractice, when it is of paramount importance, and statutory duty, to enshrine equality for all protected characteristics
Bridget Phillipson’s preferred chair for the EHRC has been rejected by both the Women and Equalities Committee and the Joint Committee on Human Rights. At her pre-appointment hearing, Dr. Mary-Ann Stephenson effortlessly revealed a pattern of attitudes consistently used as a means to ‘justify’ the oppression of and opposition to a minorities human rights, attitudes untenable with the position, so this outcome is by no means a surprise.
The ball is in Phillipson’s court. As the Minister for Women and Equalities, she has the capacity to overrule two parliamentary committees and appoint Stephenson regardless of their well-informed opposition. This, however, comes with a glaring declaration of intent and moral standing. Should Stephenson be appointed chair, we will know precisely what purpose the EHRC serves for Labour, who can no longer cower behind the actions of others; it is an invaluable institution of plausible deniability to hide behind whilst enacting autocratic atrocities, but this is their choice, their control, their anti-rights movement.
“We were just following orders” swiftly becomes “you will follow ours.”
Responsibility for bureaucratic segregation lies in the hands of a party run by a human rights lawyer whose leadership reflects disturbing complacency despite international condemnations of genocidal harm. Call it intuition if you will, but I’m not too sure empathy in Labour’s frontbench will suddenly switch on to avoid another.
It needs to be avoided, it can be avoided, but will it be?
The “Course Corrections” Final Destination
The Trans Advocacy and Complaints Collective revealed years of a glorified partnership between the EHRC and the anti-rights group SexMatters, who have been engaged in a relentless campaign of regulatory corruption with the eliminationist intent of destroying trans rights, recognition, and bodily autonomy. No longer is this a case of ‘outside influence’, SexMatters have been personally granted inside access, directly shaping the EHRC’s legal position and working alongside the commission to facilitate the “statutory recognition of biological sex.” The decaying fruit of their labour can be found in the fateful ruling of April 16th, giving the EHRC exactly what they needed to push trans people out of public life, precisely what SexMatters demanded for years.
In their issuing of a red flag alert on the United Kingdom, The Lemkin Institute said the EHRC “In the past few years seemed to become a lobby group for erasing the rights of transgender and intersex people on the basis of gender critical views.”
The EHRC’s current leadership are unapologetically transparent about this self-proclaimed “course correction”. Both Kishwer Falkner and Akua Reindorf have explicitly stated that their appointments as Chair and Commissioner marked a significant shift in the reduction of trans rights, in place of protections for those who wish them gone.
The Code of Practice is an ideological formation of a hate-groups desires, it will induce an environment of widespread human rights violations under the legally inept wishful thinking that segregation through forced outing adheres to the exemptions in multiple domestic acts and ECHR articles, disregarding decades of case law affirming how the protected characteristic of gender reassignment relates to our fundamental human rights.
This is not an ill-informed interpretation to be ignorantly dismissed; it is an internationally recognised injustice fueled by the erasure of trans existence from public life.
Should Bridget Phillipson approve the Code of Practice:
“It would make transition impossible in the UK, life as a transitioned person would be unbearable. Those who have transitioned will be forced to choose between being someone who is either excluded from society or who lives a criminalised life shrouded in secrecy”
-The Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention-
We are in dire need of a fundamental change to the Equality and Human Rights Commission, someone willing to unravel this humanitarian crisis and progress equality for all protected characteristics, rather than cowering behind the status quo of the “course correction.” And cower is all Stephenson did.
We need to talk about Mary
When questioned on Lord Sumption’s comment that the EHRC had gone beyond the Supreme Court ruling, Stephenson astoundingly said she was entirely unaware. The Equality and Human Rights Commission is currently in the midst of intense scrutiny for its systematic malpractice, the preferred chair having such a substantially inadequate understanding of the situation is nothing short of appalling. How can we be assured that trans people will ever receive, at the barest of minimums, genuine “dignity and respect” if Labour’s golden choice doesn’t care enough to remain at the very least informed, or otherwise and more likely, desperate to avoid saying something incriminating of, or upsetting to, those motivated by trans erasure?
Throughout the hearing, one answer after another, Dr. Mary-Ann Stephenson exposed behaviours and attitudes that will further cement this climate of oppression and institutional rejection of trans existence. Consistently framing trans rights as opposing women’s rights and at no point differentiated between transgender and cisgender individuals, consistently reinforcing an overwhelmingly harmful and oppressive rejection of intersectionality, fueled by the denial of trans existence.
It is nothing short of astounding how naturally Stephenson revealed her motivations, which can be summarised by one of, or a selection of, three reasons.
- Supports the “course correction” of malicious legal and moral ineptitude, which facilitated the destruction of trans rights and recognition.
- Dangerously disconnected from a monumental humanitarian crisis that, should she be appointed chair of the EHRC, she will be responsible for shaping.
- Did not want to upset the status quo or its foot soldiers, and as such, avoided addressing any of the significant issues appropriately.
Perceived ignorance or genuine incompetence will be equally harmful in such an intrinsically impactful position. We cannot afford to see the consequences of either.
And we don’t have to.
Domestic equality and human rights enactments, at a (very) foundational level, exist to prevent the UK from having to deal with European Court rulings. Under Section 11 of the Equality Act 2006, the EHRC are then entrusted with the crucial responsibility of holding domestic law under scrutiny to ensure adherence to international binding standards. Importantly and willfully ignored, should there be any legal inconsistencies, the Commission may;
11. 2(b) Recommend to central government the amendment, repeal, consolidation (with or without amendments) or replication (with or without amendments) of any of the equality and human rights enactments.
During the hearing, Dr Mary-Ann Stephenson was pressed on the possibility of “taking a second look” at the Code of Practice to alleviate concerns that people’s needs aren’t being met. Stephenson’s answer was arguably the most telling of her grotesquely biased position:
“Clearly, the previous code caused problems for women accessing single sex services.”
The previous Code always reflected the Equality Act 2010 provisions permitting trans exclusion under a test of proportionality, a well-established threshold that has been stretched to a dangerously undefined degree, emboldening the EHRC to systematically push trans people out of public life through blanket exclusion. Portraying the previous code as problematic for women is announcing trans inclusion as the cause, reframing deep-rooted hostility felt towards a minority under the guise of widespread “reasonable concern”.
Entirely dismissing the essential statutory duty of addressing ‘potential’ contradictions with the ECHR is lazy complacency in an internationally recognised injustice, granting Stephenson influential power in the application of our human rights will expose the extent of Labour’s backchannel dismantling of legal and moral integrity.
Any statutory guidance reflecting the EHRC’s interpretation of the Supreme Court ruling, no matter how ‘clear’ it may be, will see the statutory embedding of a legal position which directly and objectively violates the European Convention on Human Rights, anything other than a declaration of the Codes’ incompatibility with international law is a declaration of oppressive intent through regulatory abuse.
Cruel Intentions
The bottom line is that Bridget Phillipson simply is not adhering to her ministerial responsibilities, which require her to evaluate the compatibility of domestic equality and human rights law with international binding standards. Much like the EHRC’s current and impending leadership, Phillipson disregards the fundamentals of her role with tactical malice.
As the statements of explicit warning from international human rights bodies pile up, Phillipson remains silent with purpose, for the system is working as intended.
Soon, the exclusionary Code of Second Class Citizenship will reach parliament, at which point the Minister for Women and Equalities will be called upon to approve it. Will Phillipson finally speak up and acknowledge its solely oppressive function of international condemnation?
Or will she wave it through, providing her preferred chair the political weapon she needs to facilitate the “course corrections” final destination.
Through guiding the course, be it the appointment of Stephenson and/or the Codes approval, Phillipson will reveal a deliberate and orchestrated campaign in which Labour are actively involved; they will lose the veil of ignorant defence, and what follows can not be dismissed as the failures of our previous government and a misguided institution. Human rights violations can be avoided with simple amendments to domestic acts and the gutting of anti-rights beliefs from our leading National Human Rights Institution.
Unless, of course, the violations are by design, and the beliefs are planted by choice.
Media discourse influencing opposition to the ECHR is ever-increasing, as is the political campaign for the legally and morally indefensible withdrawal from such a vital convention, purposefully creating an environment in which ‘interference’ from a European higher court could give our leading parties the coal they need to fuel the consent manufacturing machine in its ‘justification’ of ‘protecting British democracy from those pesky woke foreign courts’.
Phillipson is not merely holding the future of a public body in the palm of her hand; she is risking this country’s relationship with the ECHR to enact the genocidal desires of anti-rights groups with evangelical influence. This will harm us all. We all have human rights afforded to us whenever they are needed. We all rely on international trade agreements.
If they can do it to us, they can do it to you; it is just a matter of time.
Bridget Phillipson has been presented with a choice. Unlike Sophie’s, however, it is not one forced by desperation, nor is it to save a life.
It is a calculated decision to sacrifice a community for the illusion of political gain.