Contributions – open-weather

2025-04-20 11:00:23

Sasha Engelmann

Hackney Downs, London , United Kingdom

United Kingdom

NOAA-18

London has exploded in green during the week T and I were on holiday in Cornwall. The chestnut trees in Hackney Downs are in full foliage and already budding flowers, while the plane trees are a cheerful yellow green. While in Cornwall we spent much of our time visiting several obscure stone circles and ‘quoits’ in the treeless moors, though we did visit one very prominent stone monument that happened to be on our way back to London (Stonehenge!). In contrast to the exposed rocks and windswept hills of western Cornwall, the green of London’s treetop overstory is almost overwhelming… In a unanimous decision a few days ago, the UK Supreme Court ruled that, under the Equality Act of 2010, “sex is binary” and it is based on biology. A trans woman therefore does not come within the definition of a ‘woman’ under the Act, and therefore loses protections made for the benefit of women. The court insists that trans rights are still protected under the ruling but it is very unclear how denying someone’s womanhood can be called protection. Shon Faye writes that the relative support (though ‘support’ is a strong word here) afforded trans people over the last two decades in the U.K. is coming to an end. Judith Butler points out, in an interview with Owen Jones, that anti-trans feminism is more virulent in the U.K. than in the US. T and I mull over the decision and its daily analysis, a decision that has wide ranging implications for many people in our immediate community, not to mention the health and wellbeing of queer and nonbinary folks more broadly. How are the rights of non-binary people to be seen under this ruling? Or any other place on the spectrum of transness? The U.K. remains by far the safest place to be out of our own two home countries (Italy and the US) but such laws - invisible anti-trans weather of the state - force us to consider both how to keep fighting and how to escape.

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