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Prof. Stephen Whittle OBE, PhD, DLaws, FAcSS, Profile picture
Prof. Stephen Whittle OBE, PhD, DLaws, FAcSS,
@stephenwhittle
🏳️‍⚧️💪🏼🏳️‍🌈 Professor, Woke, anti-growth, lefty lawyer, Proud out trans guy, transitioned 1975, he/him. Only responds to anonymous accts to show them up
4 subscribers
Jun 26 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
1. Thank you for this great thread.

As a trans man who transitioned 50 yrs ago, I remember my feelings of trepidation & fear, then the pure joy of ‘coming home’ when in late 1973 I plucked up the courage to walk into the Union Pub in Manchester

It was packed with ‘queers’… 2. … men in chiffon scarves, women in bus driver uniforms, & an ancient drag queen ‘mother’ lip synching to Diana Ross on a small stage.

Shortly after I joined GLF who met at the Turks Head on Shude Hill & the CHE Lesbian group who met in the Quaker Meeting house.
Jun 20 • 17 tweets • 3 min read
@_lliesl_ @sharrond62 @cajardineMP
1. The clinical treatment of children & adolescents is not relevant to the need to reduce the growing harassment, discrimination & hate crime targeted at individuals trans people.

A key tenet of GC theory & ideology is… 2. … that Trans people should not face discrimination

@Docstockk & @MForstater of @SexMattersOrg have both reiterated that point

A call by @cajardineMP for action on growing anti-trans hate crime should therefore be welcomed by GC activists as well as by Trans people. …
Jun 17 • 9 tweets • 2 min read
1. Let me be clear -

I abhor all predatory sexual behaviours, & violence, whoever it victimises.

The grooming gangs saga & the failure of the state to recognise girls as victims has become a deep stain on our criminal justice system

But despite her real work experience … 2. … of pimped girls in care, @suzanne_moore can’t resist the temptation to imply certain groups are more predatory

As the week heats up it’s
as if she has set out to provoke the right wing led riots & assaults, we saw this summer in Ballymena & numerous cities last summer…
Jun 11 • 20 tweets • 4 min read
1. I don’t think the T community should be blaming self-ID (or perhaps better put as self -declaration) for its current woes

It is worth once again looking at the actual events that took place in 2016-2024 to understand today’s anger, from pro & anti self-dec, in context … 2. a. 2015 HofCommons Women’s & Equality Cttee investigated Trans Equalities, making 30 recommendations incl. calling for reform of the GRA & better NHS access to gender affirming services. L
Read their report conclusions again publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201516/cm…
May 31 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
1. This is what the Supreme Court did not decide & it is still the law:

Service providers (& not the @EHRC / @SexMattersOrg ) decide for themselves what services to provide, how they are provided
incl. whether single or separate sex services , and to who they provide them... 2. … Service Providers decide whether it is legitimate AND proportionate to exclude anyone from their services.

Employers must provide single sex bathrooms - at least 1 each for males & females unless seperate rooms (which can all be unisex).

Handwashing can be shared

BUT …
May 27 • 12 tweets • 3 min read
1. Trans broken arm syndrome is when any & every health issue is seen & overshadowed by a person being trans

I lived & worked with a broken shoulder from 1976 - 2016.

40 yrs in pain despite repeatedly stating I had fallen from a 1st floor window ledge (whilst painting windows) 2. I was ignored, referred to a psychologist (I didn’t go), told it was migraine related pain, offered anti-anxiety medicines

Then in 2016 a physiotherapist said “Do you know your shoulder is broken?”

Yes, Yes,YES

She got a surgeon to see me who operated. He said …
May 22 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
1. Ok - Stephen for 50yrs
Prior to 1996
- I lost many jobs. The advice was that if an employer would also sack a trans women that was being treated equally.
So TP who have the human right not to experience discrimination (art 13 ECHR) had less rights than none TP
.,, 2. Prior the the GRAct:
- my wife & I couldn’t foster, or adopt, & was refused fertility treatment because I am trans (art 12 ECHR)
- if my wife had died, Soc services told us they would put the kids in foster care whilst deciding if I could look after them (Art 12 & 13 ECHR)
…
May 17 • 15 tweets • 3 min read
1. Can using pronouns to misgender a person, including a Trans person, constitute unlawful harassment?

The law does not as a rule regulate pronoun use. There are a few: e.g. Lord , Lady, Sit which carry legal constrsints in very limited settings…. 1/13 2. … But he/him, she/her, they/their are just matters of social convention, used by people to categorise individuals & to be polite.

There are 2 types of unlawful harassment:
- Criminal (The Protection from Harassment Act 1997)
- Civil (The Equslity Act 2010 s. 26)…
May 11 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
1. A fundamental problem with the decision of the SCt in FWS:

The Court said it was a matter of statutory interpretation but they don’t appear to properly assess the entirety of the statute, the EqAct.

EqAct s11 says man/male, woman/female. … 2. But If s11 was to be taken to only mean sex as gonads, genitals & chromosomes, the Ct ignored entirely the decision of the ECtHr in Goodwin v UK, by failing to address the Human Rights of TP with a gender recognition certificate …
May 10 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
1. Ok - an answer to question 1

There is no moral imperative on anyone to do anything - that would require belief in an overarching set of moral & ethical principles guiding the world we live in.

But we are just a jumble of evolutionary chances, there is no omniscient mind. 1/5 2. In my world, we exist communally in society.

In order for society to be community, I hope we do what we can to afford each person the opportunities to live their best life during such limited time as they/we have.

I believe we choose - to beat our own path
OR
…
May 8 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
@MForstater SM team could give the world proof of their sex (however they define it - but not just the easily lied about ‘I gave birth’ statements.)

Then we can see whether the rest of us needed to know that proof

Govt has many systems that records self reported ‘sex’… 2. Those records are cross correlated with already known data held by govt agrnces

HMRC, DSS, DVLA, school, clinical, & Passport records all keep a record of any ‘change of sex/gender’. Those are accessible to relevant parties e.g. for paying pensions, immigration etc
May 4 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
1. But that still doesn't permit the EHRC to go beyond its remit and instruct service providers to discriminate

The EHRC's remit is to prevent arbitrary and unfounded discrimination
Discrimination is often acceptable, we don't let 5yr olds/Blind people obtain driving licences... 2. But when a SP chooses to provide a service, it is up to them to decide what, how and to who that service will be provided.
SP's have an absolute right to exclude anyone so long as they do not exclude anyone because of their protected characteristic, unless there is an...
May 4 • 13 tweets • 3 min read
1. I think I am correct & know that
Service providers (SPs) get to decide what services they provide, how & to whom
SPs have an absolute right to exclude any person provided it is not because of a protected characteristic
SPs who provide a single or Seperate sex service … 2. … may exclude a TP if it us both legitimate or proportionate to do do

Note the MAY

SPs of S/SS services may choosr to continue providing them to anyone who needs them including TP. They may choose to rename or reorganise a service so as not to exclude TP

The role of …
Apr 28 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
1. Motion passed b the British Medical Association (BMA) at the weekend:

“This meeting condemns the Supreme Court ruling defining the term 'woman' with respect to the Equality Act as being based on 'biological sex', which they refer to as a person … Image 2. … who 'was at birth of the female sex', as reductive, trans and intersex-exclusionary and biologically nonsensical.

We recognize as doctors that sex and gender are complex and multifaceted aspects of the human condition and attempting to impose a rigid binary has no basis…
Apr 17 • 14 tweets • 3 min read
What astonishes me is how little, GC/‘Sex realist’ activists actually had/have understood the law

The SCt Judges confirmed that ‘sex’ discrimination is based on
- the biological differences
OR
- the perceived biological differences
between people 2. Since inception, the EqAct has had an exemption for Single & Seperate Sex Service Providers, which allows/allowed Service providers to exclude TP from A service, provided:

a. It is a genuinely Single or Seperate Sex Service (S/SSS)

b. there is a legitimate reason …
Apr 16 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
1. Whilst the GC activists are busy shouting about their big victory in the Supreme Ct. in FWS -

In fact, there is no change & our lives must carry on as normal

The POTENTIAL exemption in the Equality Act for Single & Seperate Sex Services has always existed … 2. The fact is that 99% of service providers will never use that exemption.

The ones who say they want to, tbf no out trans person will be seen dead use those services

What is the biggest danger to our community?

That some Service Providers will think they have to use it….
Apr 11 • 12 tweets • 3 min read
Sorry Jeff - indeed s9 of the GRA does facilitate a legal change of sex for all purposes (provided individuals meet the various legal requirements)

You then go on to say Quote “All fine. Until around ten years later, TRA used that legislation to… Send a wrecking ball through legal protections around sex, seeking to erode them entirely - to organise based on sex, facilities, sports, you name it. “ 2. I struggle to see what TP did 10yrs later

However, 2015 the House of Commons Women’s & Equalities Cttee investigated the problems still facing the trans community
They concluded that there:

a. Had to be improved access to gender reassignment healthcare (hasn’t happened) …
Apr 11 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
1. Jeff
it was 1984 following Rees v UK [1984] ECtHR, when the UK Govt agreed to alter the sex designator & code on passports & driving licences.

To have this done, a TP had to show a statutory declaration of name change, & have their GP confirm in writing that they were … 2. … undergoing a process of gender reassignment, & this change was intended to be permanent.

However other rights took longer

The right
- not to experience arbitrary & unfounded discrimination in the workplace arrived with the decision in P v S & CCC [1997] ECJ. …
Apr 1 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
1. Most of the trans women I know, now in their late 40s - 80s, you could not discern from other women

Online, in the press etc you see the images of people in their early years of transition

When 19-23, once in my bike gear, I’d often be taken as female until I …/2 2. … removed my full face helmet

Do you remember Nadia Almada who won Big Brother in 2004? Her housemates had no idea of her medical history.

I am often amazed at how many young TW pass amongst their girl friends. I certainly cannot distinguish them.

Some TW do find…
Mar 31 • 20 tweets • 4 min read
1. It beggars belief that we believe anything in the Torygraph.

a. The story refers to an incident 3 to 4 yrs ago

b. We don’t receive info about the length of suspension, or

c. Details of what happened

I find it problematic that a child is suspended from school but accept … 2. … teachers are increasingly under pressure to ensure behavioural standards in an increasingly polarised society.

Many adults increasingly think prejudice, discrimination & violence are acceptable eg. last summer’s riots.

Parents have the most influence on the ..,
Mar 30 • 8 tweets • 3 min read
1. July 2024: @bphillipsonMP says the Higher Ed (Freedom of Speech) Act was not fit for purpose and risked imposing heavy burdens on institutions.
“For too long, universities have been a political battlefield and treated with contempt, rather than as a public good” .../2 Image 2. Jan 2025: @LauraTrottMP shadow ed sec. says academics were compelled to tell @bphillipsonMP she was wrong, & "she’s finally changed ....I pay tribute to the academics who have led that fight back outside of parliament.”
Which academics? What public consultation took place? Image