We speak every day. She’ll record me a video message, telling me what she’s been up to, how she’s feeling. Normally, she’s laughing. Or showing me the colour of Edinburgh’s sky, the birds that flock around her window.
Yesterday, was different. She messaged: “I am just so tired of having to prove that I exist.”
She exists. She, like all trans people, has always existed. She is my dad. And she’s the strongest, most wonderful woman that I know.
Yet, the Supreme Court in the UK, that says the legal definition of a woman is rooted in biological sex, would disagree. “As far as the UK’s Equality Act is concerned,” dad said this morning. “I am a man.”
People find it odd that I call my dad, ‘dad’ but also use the female pronouns. I don’t. It makes sense to us, to our family, to our lives.
She transitioned when I was 19-years-old, in 2005, when, as per the Gender Recognition Act, it was made possible for transgender people to change their legal gender in the UK. She had been wearing women’s clothing long before then, I’d come home to find her in velvet skirts, jade earrings hanging from her lobes.
Everyone's clicking on...
I’d been calling her ‘dad’ all my life, it’s her relation to me. But it doesn’t make her any the less of a woman. And, neither does this ruling. Judges, who refused to hear from trans people themselves, do not know an individual's identity, who they are, better than trans people themselves, than their loved ones who spend time with them each day.
I look at my dad and I see her for who she is: a vibrant, beautiful, wise woman. The first person I turn to for guidance, someone who I laugh with every single day. If you met her, you’d agree just how lucky I am to have her in my life – she is so full of joy. She’s so alive.
Yet, if she were forced to live as a man, I don’t think she would be here today.
Looking back on my childhood, I can recognise the conflict that my dad was in. We were so happy, she hid her inner turmoil well. But, make no mistake, it was turmoil. Could she keep living this way? In a body that did not fit? Could she survive?
I have memories of friends of hers, coming to our house, or names that floated in the air. People that did not survive. People who wanted to live, who were loved, but who could not keep breathing, in the body they were forced to exist in. A survey, carried out by Pace, a mental health charity for LGBTQ+ youth found that 48% of trans people under 26 said they had attempted suicide. Another study, carried out for Just Like Us, the LGBTQ+ young people’s charity found that 88% of trans people had experienced suicidal thoughts.
One of dad’s friends once said to her: “eventually you have to choose, between living as a woman. Or dying as a man.” This friend, this wonderful woman, drank herself to death.
It can be incredibly hard to exist when, at every turn, you’re being told you’re not who you feel on the inside. That no, you don’t belong in the women’s toilets, you have to go and pee with men, align yourself with the gender that absolutely does not fit who you are, or how you feel. This disjointed dysphoria that clouds how you see, and feel about yourself.
This is why yesterday’s ruling has left me very, very afraid. This decision is going to legitimise hatred. Hatred that trans people may already feel for themselves, pushing them further into shame and into the closet. It will also give power to transphobic bigots. Hate crimes against the transgender community are already at an all-time high.
I know this community is strong, that they, along with their allies, have each other’s backs. That together we will find a way through. We will protect each other. But still, this decision is going to cause so much damage. It will kill people. And yet, I’m looking at pictures of women, outside the court rooms, celebrating. They think this is a victory for (cis) women. But it’s absolutely not. This decision is going to have a huge impact on everyone’s lives, not just those within the trans community.
By saying that a woman is defined by her biological sex, we are reducing what makes a woman down to our chromosomes. Something that, day-to-day, we cannot prove. We also know that what you see on the outside doesn’t always marry up with what you see on the inside, as we see with intersex people (amongst others). Therefore, what this all boils down to is whether or not you “look” like a woman, and that will mean, ultimately, how ‘feminine’ you look and how much you fit in with heteronormative beauty standards. I’ve heard, so many times, of not just trans women but cis women being challenged in bathrooms about their gender, simply because they do not conform with the false ideal of how a woman ‘should’ look.
I understand why some women view this as a victory for our rights. It’s because they’re afraid. Violence Against Women and Girls is a national emergency; two million women are estimated to be victims of violence each year. But this is violence perpetrated by men, most often partners or former partner of these women. Men they once loved, men they once trusted.
Trans people (who it’s estimated make up somewhere between 0.2 and 0.7% of the population) dominate press headlines and governmental debates. They’re being used as pawns in a power ploy to distract from the ongoing failings to address this epidemic… after all, it’s ‘easier’ to blame an already marginalised group on this deeply-entrenched violence than it is to put the much-needed funding back into domestic abuse services or address the radicalisation of young men online.
Yesterday, when I read the news, I flung my phone across the room. I decided that I wasn’t going to engage, or read anything. It made me too sad, too angry, too afraid. Today I don’t feel this way.
Yes, this decision is going to amplify the voices of bigots, but that just means we have to be louder and bolder with our voice, our love. As this ruling, and the people celebrating, does not represent the majority of the country. A YouGov poll saw trans people finishing rock bottom of a closed list of 16 issues that the public felt most strongly about, with just 2% of the general public identifying trans people as their top concern. What the majority of us want to see action on is what we’ve always wanted to see action on: health, education, security and housing. We can’t let the government successfully use trans people as a smokescreen for this.
There’s been an outpouring of solidarity on social media, for the trans community and we need to keep that going. Not just online, but off. I’ve include a list of resources and places that need your support below. Those of us who aren't in the community can keep showing up, and shouting that trans women are women, and they always have been. This ruling does not change that.
I'll also be holding, close, the other words my dad said to me this morning: “it’s important to remember that love is stronger than hatred, and kindness is stronger than fear.”
It's scary... but together, we stand strong.
Catriona Innes is Commissioning Director at Cosmopolitan, you can follow her on Instagram. You can find more content from Cosmopolitan on Trans Rights, here.
She writes about grief on her Substack Crocuses In The Snow. Her dad, Jo Clifford, writes on her Substack, The Light Inside.
For anyone feeling overwhelmed or affected by the decision, Switchboard, the LGBTQIA+ Support Line are there, every day, from 10am to 10pm – and can be reached on 0800 0119 100, switchboard.lgbt
If you’d like to support the work Switchboard does, it costs £16 for full wrap-around coverage of each conversation they have and they have around 15,000 each year, so donating would really help.
They also recruit volunteers for their switchboard, so if you can lend your time, consider volunteering and being part of their valuable community.
The Outside Project is London’s LGBTIQ+ community shelter, centre and domestic abuse refuge and they used donations this year to set up the Trans + Winter Night Shelter, which provided a dignified, safe and supportive refuse for the trans community who are homeless, escaping domestic abuse, seeking asylum and at the risk of sleeping rough. The shelter provided over 900 nights off the street throughout winter 24/25 and they plan to do the same over winter 25/26. You can donate here, or browse and purchase the items that their community directly need this month.
Not A Phase is a trans-led, nationwide charity committed to uplifting and improving the lives of trans+ adults through awareness campaigning, social projects and funding trans+ lead initiatives. They recently launched Misfits, a fitness, wellbeing and self defence programme with free fitness and self-defence classes in eight UK cities.
Mermaids have been supporting trans, non-binary and gender-diverse children, young people and their families since 1995. They’re currently encouraging everyone to write to their MP to stand up for trans health, as every single child and young person should be able to get the care that they need to grow up happy and healthy. They have a template on their website, and you can also donate to them here.
Galop have been supporting LGBTQ+ victims and survivors of abuse and violence for nearly 40 years, and there’s lots of ways to help, through donations or fundraising for them.
Catriona Innes is Cosmopolitan UK’s multiple award-winning Commissioning Editor, who has won BSME awards both for her longform investigative journalism as well as for leading the Cosmopolitan features department. Alongside commissioning and editing the features section, both online and in print, Catriona regularly writes her own hard-hitting investigations spending months researching some of the most pressing issues affecting young women today.
She has spent time undercover with specialist police forces, domestic abuse social workers and even Playboy Bunnies to create articles that take readers to the heart of the story. Catriona is also a published author, poet and volunteers with a number of organisations that directly help the homeless community of London. She’s often found challenging her weak ankles in towering heels through the streets of Soho. Follow her on Instagram and Twitter.
