Transgender woman Debbie Hayton has been accused of transphobia for wearing a T-shirt saying she’s still ultimately a man at an event organised by campaign group Fair Play for Women in July.
Hayton, a physics teacher in the Midlands who transitioned from male to female in 2012, could be booted from the UK Trades Union Congress (TUC) LGBT committee for donning the shirt which stated “trans women are men, get over it!”
Hayton being forced out would set a bizarre precedent, under which even transgender individuals who’ve had reassignment surgery can be accused of transphobia for declaring an individual cannot ultimately change their birth sex.
In all, 12 members of the LGBT committee submitted a complaint about Hayton in August to Frances O’Grady, TUC general secretary - nine said by wearing the shirt Hayton had “gone beyond discourse, and the expression of alternative viewpoints”, and was “propagating hate speech against the trans community” by “[denying] non-binary identities” and asserting “the binary view of the world where male is synonymous with man and female is inextricably linked to womanhood”.
They also criticised an article for the Morning Star in which Hayton wrote trans women were biologically male, and “fact being male is the sole qualifying criterion to be a trans woman”.
The case is just the latest controversy in trans politics in the UK. On 18 December, Maya Forstater, who lost her job at the Centre for Global Development think tank after tweeting that transgender women cannot change their biological sex lost a case for unfair dismissal at an employment tribunal ruling, after a judge ruled she was “absolutist in her view of sex”.
Harry Potter author JK Rowling defended Forstater vociferously on Twitter following the ruling.