13 November 2025, 12:00-13:00 (GMT)
Online – sign up for the Zoom link here
In April 2025, the UK Supreme Court released its judgement in the case For Women Scotland v The Scottish Ministers, stating that ‘sex’ for the purposes of the Equality Act 2010 refers to ‘biological sex’. In the following months, this judgement has been capitalised on by those hostile to trans and gender diverse people. Interpretations of the judgment, including via the Equality and Human Rights Commission’s ‘interim update’ and drafted Code of Practice for services, public functions and public functions have vastly exceeded the scope and intent of the judgement, and are already producing devastating consequences for trans, non-binary and gender non-conforming people, and their safety and dignity in UK public life and public space. As several geographers and social scientists have articulated (see suggested readings below), the judgment did not emerge from a vacuum but marks one point in an environment of growing hostility against trans people in many contexts globally, and the growth of reactionary politics that emboldens fascism and tightens the grip of authoritarianism. The judgement, and its interpretation by bodies including government and the EHRC, can be understood as one apparatus that encourages the surveilling, control, and even segregation of trans and gender diverse people. Such developments have led the Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention to issue a red flag alert on anti-trans and intersex rights in the UK. This webinar therefore offers a space for geographers to grapple with the role of geography, geographers, and critical geographical scholarship at a time of anti-trans reactionary politics in the UK but also in locations globally.
If geography as a discipline fails to stand up against rising anti-trans hostility, and if trans geographers and those producing ‘trans geographies’ are left to respond to the current authoritarian moment alone, Geography thereby not only betrays its own critical commitments, but cedes the front line of resistance against the current widespread assault on intellectual and academic life. We, the organisers, therefore call on geographers to reject transphobic ideologies and discourses that attempt to regress trans people’s rights and freedoms, and pit the rights of groups including cisgender women against trans rights. We warmly welcome geographers at all career stages to attend this 1 ½ hour webinar to learn more about the challenges facing trans, non-binary and gender non-conforming people in the UK, to understand why this is an important issue for geographers, to express our solidarity against anti-trans hostility as a community, and to discuss next steps in terms of how geographers can respond.The webinar will provide an opportunity to hear from four geographers, Sage Brice (Durham University), Ed Kiely (Queen Mary University of London), Jay Todd (University of Glasgow) and AM Kanngieser (Royal Holloway, University of London), with time for discussion afterwards.
The event has been generously supported by the Royal Geographical Society’s Responsive Interventions Fund and organised by the Gender & Feminist Geographies Research Group (GFGRG) and the Space, Sexualities and Queer Research Groups (SSQRG) of the RGS-IBG, with full support of other research groups including GCYFRG, DGRG, PGRG and SCGRG.
Recommended reading
Amery, F. (2025). ‘Gender critical’ feminism as biopolitical project. Sexualities, 28(3), 1239–1253.
Brice, S. (2023). Making space for a radical trans imagination: Towards a kinder, more vulnerable, geography. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 41(4), 592-599.
Gieseking, J. J. (2023). Reflections on a cis discipline. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 41(4), 571-591.
Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention. (2025). Red Flag Alert on Anti-trans and intersex Rights in the UK. Available: https://www.lemkininstitute.com/_files/ugd/bb6a09_549b26db7fe641d082d917ab083af871.pdf [lemkininstitute.com]
Kinkaid, E. (2024). ‘Will we avert geography’s ‘trans failure’?’. American Association of Geographers Available: https://www.aag.org/will-we-avert-geographys-trans-failure/ [aag.org]
Kinkaid, E. (2024). Making space for queer and trans people in geography. In How To Foster Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, And Justice In Geography (pp. 133-145). Edward Elgar Publishing.
Phipps, A., & Alsop, R. (2025). Transgender equality and the UK Supreme Court: a UK Gender Studies community roundtable. Journal of Gender Studies, 1-12.
Renz, F. ‘Law’s searching for biological truth: For Women Scotland and the UK Supreme Court’, Radical Philosophy 219, Summer 2025, 3–8.
Rosenberg, R. (2023). On surviving a cis discipline. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 41(4), 600–5.
Sharp, W., Fogel, S., Kinkaid, E., & Koenig, N. (2025). Resisting gender fascism. The Geographical Journal, e70011.
Thurlow, C. (2025). The UK Supreme Court ruling on sex: explainer and implications. European Journal of Politics and Gender, 1-6.
Todd, J. (2025). Intervention—“533 Geographers Call for Action on Transphobic Developments in the UK, its Supreme Court, and the EHRC”. Antipode Online: https://antipodeonline.org/2025/05/06/533-geographers-call-for-action/ [antipodeonline.org]
