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<\/p>\nLawyers, academics and activists have turned on the Good Law Project, accusing it of \u201cselling hope\u201d through fundraising to fight for transgender rights, despite being repeatedly defeated in court.<\/p>\n
In a letter to Bridget Phillipson, the equalities minister, more than 30 barristers and legal academics accused the project, a non-profit campaign organisation, of publishing \u201cegregiously false\u201d claims about a High Court ruling on single-sex spaces last week.<\/p>\n
Mr Justice Swift on Friday dismissed a legal challenge brought by the project against Britain\u2019s rights watchdog over a now-removed update on its website, which said that trans women \u201cshould not be permitted to use the women\u2019s facilities\u201d in workplaces or public-facing services such as shops and hospitals. The same applied for trans men using men\u2019s lavatories.<\/p>\n
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PETER DAZELEY\/GETTY IMAGES<\/p>\n
The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) published the update in April last year, just over a week after the UK\u2019s highest court ruled in April<\/a> that the words \u201cwoman\u201d and \u201csex\u201d in the Equality Act 2010 referred to a biological woman and biological sex<\/a>.<\/p>\n The judge said the decision to publish the update \u201cpromptly\u201d contained \u201cno error of law\u201d.<\/p>\n Jolyon Maugham, the founder and executive director of the Good Law Project, said after the judgment that \u201cthe judiciary can\u2019t be trusted always\u201d in a reaction that critics have dubbed \u201cTrumpian\u201d.<\/p>\n The project claimed the ruling meant that Phillipson must reject guidance submitted by the EHRC on single-sex spaces, and started a fundraiser that has brought in tens of thousands of pounds to appeal.<\/p>\n Separately, it has crowdfunded more than \u00a3150,000 for its \u201cfighting fund for trans rights\u201d.<\/p>\n In their letter to Phillipson, the lawyers and academics said GLP had made inaccurate conclusions about the ruling, specifically in claiming \u201cthe High Court makes clear that service providers are not obliged to exclude trans people from gendered spaces and services\u201d. <\/p>\n Bridget Phillipson, the equalities minister<\/p>\n LUCY NORTH\/PA<\/p>\n The lawyers said: \u201cNowhere in his judgment did Swift J conclude that \u2018service providers are not obliged to exclude trans people from gendered spaces and services\u2019. The phrase \u2018gendered spaces\u2019 is absent from the judgment and has no legal meaning.\u201d<\/p>\n The project also claimed the court had said it was \u201cnot true\u201d that allowing a woman-only space to be accessed by biological women and transgender women was \u201cvery likely to amount to unlawful sex discrimination\u201d. The lawyers\u2019 letter said: \u201cThe Good Law Project\u2019s assertion to the contrary is straightforwardly false.\u201d<\/p>\n The letter said any \u201cuncertainty or complexity\u201d around the Supreme Court judgment last year was \u201ccompounded (if not directly caused) by the dissemination of false information, such as that now promulgated by the Good Law Project\u201d. <\/p>\n It added: \u201cWe are aware of no other organisation that has ever published such egregiously false material about the judgment in a case that it has lost.\u201d<\/p>\n Some of those supportive of the project\u2019s aims have also started to question it. <\/p>\n Posting on a popular pro-transgender forum, one user said: \u201cMaugham always pretends he\u2019s had some sort of win even when he has unambiguously and comprehensively lost. He did the same with his Brexit cases. I\u2019m fed up of this turd polisher claiming he does so much for us.\u201d<\/p>\n In response to a comment saying \u201cGLP seem to be lording this as a win\u201d, another poster said: \u201cThey do that a lot, normally for incredibly minor things that don\u2019t actually affect much.\u201d Other comments included accusing the organisation of being \u201cmanipulative\u201d. Another said: \u201cTheir fundraising makes me really uneasy.\u201d<\/p>\n Another added: \u201cThey take an awful lot of money from our community and allies by selling hope, and then make things worse by poking in the wrong places with weak legal arguments.\u201d<\/p>\n A protester waves a transgender pride flag during a march in London in May last year<\/p>\n HENRY NICHOLLS\/AFP\/GETTY IMAGES<\/p>\n However, others defended the organisation and said: \u201cI do not see a single other organisation actually challenging any of this at court. They\u2019re taking on the claims, and they\u2019re staking their reputation on it.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"Education](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/\/2f27aa76-178e-48be-803a-9be2ad8bb715.jpg\")
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