In light of the UK Supreme Court ruling in April and subsequent guidance from the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), Strath Union would like to take the opportunity to reaffirm our support of our trans student community.  In line with our core values including ‘Speak up’ and ‘Back each other’, we stand by our trans community and remind all members of our Equal Opportunities policy and Code of Conduct.

Over the last two months, we have been working closely with our LGBT+ Rep and others to ensure their voices are heard at the highest levels of the University.  We have supported student representatives to attend the NUS’s Trans Rights Action Day in Manchester, hosted an information sharing event at the Celtic Connections conference and established a solidarity network across Scottish Unions. 

We will continue to engage with key stakeholders, including student representatives, as we finalise our organisational response to the EHRC’s consultation, ensuring that the voices of our trans students are at the forefront of any action taken. We commit to strongly opposing any detrimental impact on our trans students and staff.

Earlier this week, we hosted a session to allow students to feed into our response. If you were unable to attend and would like to feed any points or examples to add to our response, please email us at strathunion.dem@strath.ac.uk. 

We are proud of our student campaigners and the longstanding history of activism, including establishing our award-winning weekly Trans and Non-binary swim session. Thanks to the dedication of our LGBT+ Rep and others, we successfully lobbied the University to ensure these vital sessions continue. Over recent years, we have led the way with our Gender Affirmation Fund and have recently supported students in securing funding to expand this into a Trans+ Health and Wellbeing Fund. 

As always, support is available via our Advice Hub, and we’ve provided a list of resources for trans students here. We understand that this is a very challenging and uncertain time and want to reassure our members that we will continue to stand by our trans community. Trans rights are human rights.