Over 60,000 women have already signed on to an open letter in support of trans people in the United Kingdom. The letter is targeted to media groups and politicians at a time when anti-trans rhetoric in the country often suggests that trans women take away the rights of cis women.

“We reject – completely and categorically – the active discrimination and exclusion of trans, non-binary and gender-diverse people,” the letter reads. “Those who continue to target this minority group do not speak for us or represent our interests. They never have. They never will.”

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The open letter is a collaboration between Not In Our Name (NION) and the Good Law Project. NION is a collective of cis women against the twisting of feminism for anti-trans purposes who primarily authored the letter. The Good Law Project is a non-profit that challenges the U.K. government and large institutions in court to fight against hate and push “for a better world.”

The U.K. has seen a huge increase in anti-trans rhetoric in recent years and played a key part in the spread of that message. The Cass Review came from the U.K. and has been used to justify gender-affirming care bans for minors in the United States.

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In particular, the U.K. has championed anti-trans language that twists feminism into hatred, targeted predominantly at trans women. British author J.K. Rowling has become a figurehead for transphobic speech, claiming, without foundation, that her crusade is based on concerns about women’s rights, protecting women from violence, and keeping “men” out of women-only spaces. Similarly, ex-TV writer Graham Linehan claims to be protecting women from trans people while calling for violence against them.

The letter from NION and the Good Law Project is a powerful rebuke of the foundations for those claims. An anonymous member of NION told Pink News that the decision to have the letter come from women stemmed from the feeling that “it is a voice that is missing from the conversation.” The letter makes it clear that these women do not feel that they need to be protected from trans people.

“The real threat to women has never been trans women seeking to live their lives with dignity. The real threat remains what it has always been: a culture that enables male violence and then blames everyone except the men who perpetrate it.”

The letter includes statistics for the number of women killed by men and impacted by domestic violence every year, as well as noting that 98% of sexual offences are perpetrated by men.

The authors and those who have signed on to the letter are signaling that they are done with trans people being scapegoated for problems in society that either don’t exist or have other causes.

“We refuse to be complicit in this misdirection. We refuse to allow our experiences to be weaponized against other women. We refuse to stay silent while our trans sisters are demonized in our name.”

It also highlights the danger and discrimination that trans, non-binary, and gender-non-conforming people face every day, including being disproportionately the victims of murder, suffering from higher rates of self-harm and suicidal attempts, and being denied healthcare, housing, and employment.

The letter widely called out “false feminism that abandons the most vulnerable women, leaving all women at greater risk.”

The Good Law Project has just finished a hearing in its challenge to the Equality and Human Rights Commission’s (EHRC) interim guidance in the U.K.’s High Court. After a Supreme Court decision in April, the EHRC issued updated guidance that recommended against allowing trans people to use areas consistent with their gender identity. The Good Law Project is representing claimants who were impacted by that guidance before it was removed from the EHRC’s website.

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