By Angelina Ross
Emergency demonstrations for trans rights were held on April 18th and 19th in Leeds, following the Supreme Court’s April 16th ruling, which redefined the legal terms “man,” “woman,” and “sex” under the Equality Act 2010 to mean only biological sex assigned at birth. The ruling has been widely condemned by activists and advocacy groups as a dangerous step backward for trans rights in the UK.
The demonstrations were grassroots-led, organised by local activist collectives including Leeds Queers Against Fascism and Sisterhood beyond Species.
Despite being hastily arranged, both protests drew between 100 and 200 people—trans people, allies, union representatives and other left wing organisations —who gathered in solidarity and defiance.
The mood across both days was charged with urgency, anger, and collective resolve. Speakers voiced not only outrage at the ruling itself, but also deep frustration with the Labour leadership’s silence or complicity. Many called for a move beyond institutional reform, urging instead revolutionary, community-rooted strategies for achieving trans liberation.
One speaker captured the intersection of class, gender, and political betrayal, saying:
“These wealthy ideologues tweet from their Scottish castles or tropical islands, lying to working-class women, to feminist women, to socialist women, that their biggest enemy is not the capitalist, the misogynist, or the fundamentalist—but transgender women.”
This was echoed by another speaker who stressed the fragility of rights won within systems not built to protect marginalised people:
“For decades we have fought for rights in their system, only to find that they will take those rights away the second it’s politically convenient.”
Several speeches drew clear connections between trans oppression and the broader machinery of patriarchal capitalism. Far from viewing the ruling as an isolated act of bigotry, protesters framed it as part of a deliberate strategy to fracture solidarities and repress identities that challenge the status quo.
As one speaker put it:
“This ruling, as well as the scapegoating of trans people, is one of many tactics to weaken the resistance of those sexualities and genders that undermine the patriarchal capitalist order. This world order has inflicted violence on women. This world order has inflicted violence on women long before transsexuality became a cog in the cultural war.”
Speakers made it clear: trans liberation won’t come from courts or rotten establishment political parties, but from collective action. The fight isn’t just for inclusion in a broken system, but for a world where that system no longer exists.
