Over 350 academic historians have signed an open letter condemning “attacks on the LGBTQIA+ community” from the Labour government.

Published on Friday (2 May), the open letter expresses significant concerns over the government’s treatment of trans issues following a UK Supreme Court ruling which excludes trans people from the legal definitions of women and sex in the 2010 Equality Act.

Following the ruling in April, which deemed the Equality Act’s definitions of women and sex to relate to “biological women” and “biological sex,” prime minister Keir Starmer expressed his support for the “clarity” he believed the judgement to have provided, later saying he no longer believed trans women are women or trans men are men.

Signed by over 366 academics and PhD students at the time of reporting, the letter says that Starmer’s position on trans rights in the UK echoes the years of escalating hostility during “the darkest moments of queer and trans people in the UK.”

Headed by King’s College London senior lecturer in History Education, Christyn Parkes, the letter says that progress made by legal institutions and public organisations was being steadily “rolled back” by an “unsupported and factituous” legal decision.

“Historians seldom speak in absolutes. This government’s disregard for trans people’s safety, dignity, and civil rights tempts us to make an exception,” the letter continues. “No government that orchestrates persecution against a minority group, as this government aims to, will be looked on kindly by history.”

The letter cites several significant historical moments, both good and bad, for LGBTQ+ people in UK history, including the infamous Corbett v Corbett decision of the 1970s, which equated “biological constitution at birth” with so-called “true sex,” essentially stripping civil liberties from trans and non-binary people.

The ruling, it goes on to say, was exposed in 2001 as “a circular argument” and repealed by the Blair government in 2002, which reclassified being trans so it was not deemed a “mental illness.”

“The history of state oppression of queer people in the UK is, unfortunately, a long one,” it goes on. “From centuries of criminalisation of sex between men, through NHS-sanctioned conversion therapy practised against queer, trans, and gender-nonconforming people, and the continued practises of medically unnecessary interventions on infants born with variations of sex characteristics.”

Historians criticise EHRC’s ‘unprecedented attack’ on trans people

The open letter also heavily criticised guidance published by the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) on the uses of single-sex spaces.

The non-statutory guidance, which could be used for policies and legislation on the matter, called for trans people to be banned from all gendered facilities, male or female.

The guidance was branded an “unprecedented attack” on the “freedom and safety” of LGBTQ+ people in the UK by the co-signees, who said the UK government’s support of the guidance represents the “worst excesses of state discrimination against gender and sexual minorities.”

“Never has a UK government agency sought to effectively ban an entire class of people from using public toilets and changing rooms. Never has a UK government agency arrogated the power to define who can and cannot be members of gay and lesbian groups and sought to require those organisations to exclude a specific class of people as a matter of course.

“That all this has transpired under the auspices of a Labour government, one that apparently prides itself on its commitment to human rights and equality, is outrageous.”

The open letter finished by calling on Labour figures to intervene on the growing attacks on trans people, saying it’s “not too late” to turn back the tide.

“We implore you to intervene now – to speak out in public in support of trans rights, to ask questions in Parliament interrogating the EHRC and refuse to ratify their dubious proposals, and meet with trans community organisations that have so often been ignored by those with power in recent years.

“The mistakes of the past need not be repeated,” the letter closes by saying.

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