“President/Vice-Chancellor Ivison,

Your message sent on 25 April Our resolute commitment to equality and inclusion – A message following the Supreme Court ruling last week (16 April) is fundamentally inadequate, as it entirely fails to address the very immediate practical concerns of trans staff and students on campus.  The ruling has legal implications for sex-segregated toilet facilities, with guidance circulating that would prohibit trans people from using either men’s or women’s facilities.  I understand that there is a great deal of uncertainty surrounding the implementation of policy following the ruling, and that sorting through the guidance and determining the University’s response takes time.  However, as a trans member of staff, I cannot wait for “the coming weeks” — I will need to use the toilet whilst at work much sooner than that.

If I use a sex-segregated toilet on campus tomorrow, what actions (if any) could or would be taken against me by the University?  What enforcement mechanisms are currently in place?  Again, I understand the current state of uncertainty around the legal issues here, but in the interim I do need to know what precisely I am risking in popping to the nearest loo between meetings, so that I can weigh that risk accordingly.  This isn’t a question of “feeling anxious or concerned”, it’s information that I need to make decisions about my schedule and time mangement in fulfilling my contractual obligations at work.  I am aware that there are some toilet facilities on campus that are not sex-segregated, and therefore unambiguous in legal status — where can I find a list of the locations of these facilities?  (As these are facilities that already exist, requiring no change in policy, the message sent should have included this information among the resources listed.  The fact that the only guidance offered to trans colleagues was surrounding emotional/mental health shows a clear disregard for the actual, practical realities of inclusion, beyond vague commitment to an abstract ideal.)”

UCU statement following Supreme Court ruling on the legal definition of a woman