Trans woman faces TUC ban for claiming she is still a man
A TRANSGENDER woman facing union disciplinary action over a T-shirt stating that she is still biologically a man has been accused of “hate speech”.
Debbie Hayton, a physics teacher in the Midlands, lives as a transgender women after changing her gender from male to female in 2012. But unlike many people in the trans community, she does not believe her sex can be changed, and is vocal about always remaining biologically a man.
She is now facing expulsion from the LGBT committee of the Trades Union Congress (TUC) for wearing a top adorned with the slogan “Trans women are men. Get over it!”
Ms Hayton, 51, wore the T-shirt at an event organised by campaign group Fair Play for Women in July. According to The Sunday Times, 12 members of the committee wrote to Frances O’grady, general secretary of the TUC, saying that, by wearing the T-shirt, Ms Hayton had “gone beyond discourse … and is now propagating hate speech against the trans community”.
A TUC spokesman said: “The TUC is
‘The word has lost all meaning. The trans movement has been hijacked by gender extremists’
working with union representatives from our LGBT committee to hear everyone’s perspectives and find a way forward.” But Nicola Williams, founder of Fair Play for Women, said: “Accusations of transphobia are thrown at women so often for so little that the word has lost all meaning. When even trans people can get called transphobes I hope people understand how ludicrous these attacks have always been. The trans movement has been hijacked by gender extremists.”
The row comes after a transgender woman, Kristina Jayne Harrison, told a tribunal in November that attempts to “legally coerce society” into treating males as females in all circumstances was “inevitably doomed to fail”. Ms Harrison, 54, gave evidence in support of Maya Forstater, a tax researcher who was dismissed from her job at a US think tank for tweeting that “trans men cannot be women”. But the judge ruled that Ms Forstater’s views “are not worthy of respect in a democratic society”.
Ms Hayton was unavailable for comment last night.