A genocide prevention group called the Lemkin Institute has issued a “red flag” alert in the UK over the government’s treatment of trans people.
The Lemkin Institute, a multinational non-governmental genocide prevention organisation, condemned “judicial and governmental” moves by various public bodies, which it says attempt to “harm transgender and intersex people in the UK by stripping them of privacy and segregating them as ‘others’.”
It comes after the Supreme Court issued a ruling in April which deemed the 2010 Equality Act’s definition of sex to mean “biological sex” and woman to refer to a “biological woman.” It was welcomed by prime minister Keir Starmer, who also said he no longer believes trans women are women or that trans men are men.
The ruling has since spawned a variety of anti-trans measures, including interim guidance from the UK-based Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), which argued that trans people should be banned from facilities corresponding to their gender identity and, in some cases, their birth sex.
In a Monday (30 June) statement, a spokesperson for the Lemkin Institute argued the continued attacks against the community speak to a “broader process of erasure” bolstered by a “media narrative that has fuelled hostility to and debate about the humanity of trans and intersex people.”
“We see evidence of genocidal intent and actions targeting these communities,” the statement continues.
The Lemkin Institute blames UK’s ‘hostile environment’ for trans rights erosion
Its warning over the UK’s rhetoric comes after retired high court judge, Dr Victoria McCloud – the UK’s only out trans High Court judge – urged the international organisation to review governmental decisions in the wake of the Supreme Court ruling.
“We in the UK face bathroom bans, violence, abuse, deliberate social exclusion, strip searches of trans women by male police, and calls to photograph us in toilets and other spaces,” she said in a Bluesky post.
The Lemkin Institute argued that, in the two months following the Supreme Court decision, the situation had “only worsened,” pointing to EHRC chair Baroness Kishwer Falkner’s comments that neither she, nor the Supreme Court, believe trans people have a “right to privacy.”
It argued that Baroness Falkner’s comments go against the “established norm” put forth by the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), which the UK is obliged to follow.
“This is just one example of the EHRC’s attempts to roll back intersex and transgender rights,” the statement goes on. “The EHRC has, in the past few years, seemed to become a lobby group for erasing the rights of intersex and trans people on the basis of gender-critical views.”
It also pointed to a recent UK Data Bill amendment, proposed in May, which would have forced public authorities to collect data on the basis of sex at birth rather than through up-to-date documentation.
While the amendment was rejected, The Lemkin Institute noted the government’s commitment to following the Sullivan Review – an review into data collection on sex which served as the basis of the amendment, which has been criticised as “biased” due to the fact the academic behind the review is a member of a gender-critical group’s advisory board.
“All of the actions described above fit neatly into the [ninth] Pattern of Genocide: ‘Denial and/or Prevention of Identity’,” the organisation argued.
“Genocide does not only manifest in the killing of an entire group. In the case of trans and intersex people, genocide is often perpetrated by making it impossible for individuals to exist as their true selves.”
Issuing a “red flag” for the UK’s continued treatment of trans people, the Lemkin Institute urged UK bodies to reverse the “climate of rising hate against this vulnerable portion of the global population.”
“This hostile environment is a subtle, pernicious and clear attempt to eradicate transgender and intersex people from British life because their existence causes ideological discomfort to some.
“The anti-trans movement is a movement based solely on ignorance and bigotry, whether it is cloaked in religion or ‘feminist’ or any other doctrinal or ideological belief system.”
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