Women, Classics and Oxford: aRound-Table

Posted on Mon 21 April 2025 in Trans

I am just getting ready for tomorrow's round-table event at Oxford, discussing women's experience of Classics and of Oxford specifically, as part of their Athena/Swan process. Thanks to the organiser, Emma Greensmith, for inviting me, especially in this atmosphere of whipped-up hostility to trans women, now of course further enriched by the shenanigans at the Supreme Court.

This page contains some links for my brief introduction of myself and my personal history. I've blogged previously about my experiences of transitioning at Oxford in 1999 and about my wider personal journey up to 2019 on this site, with more recent updates as I navigate the current hellscape. I was still rather defensive at that time, but the broad outlines are still true. Six years on, I am not apologetic at all; I am raging about a lot of things right now, but I am not defensive.

The Legal Context

  • The twisted logic of the Supreme Court decision in FWS vs Scottish Ministers; NB the disingenuous and misleadingmstatement of the restricted scope of question §2

  • Equality Act 2010; note that gender reassignment is defined in terms of sex (§7), the gender pay gap information in relation to male and female (os70), sport exemptions in terms of ‘gender-affected activity’ (§195) and sex discrimination (78)

  • Gender Recognition Act 2004; NB §9.1 for categorical statement that sex=gendero‘for all purposes’ and 9.3 on potential future emendation

  • European Court of Human Rights (decision in Goodwin vs. United Kingdom

  • Sex Discrimination Regulations (Gender Reassignment) 1999; NB explicit inclusion of gender reassignment within the scope of sex discriminationintroduction, with the possibility of exclusion for specific jobs if proportionate

  • Human Rights Act 1998; NB right to privacy (from ECHR)

Note also:

  • non-binary and gender fluid identities covered by protected characteristic of gender reassignment in Taylor vs. Jaguar Land Rover Ltd

  • EU case law, in a judgment on P v Országos Idegenrendészeti Főigazgatóság, (2025) now explicitly mandates citizens' ability to rectify data in public registers about their gender based on lived experience and not on either original birth certificate or evidence of surgery; this is based on GDPR and ‘settled case-law of the European Court of Human Rights’ (§47), notably Goodwin

Transphobia in the Workplace

women gender Oxford Classics