A transgender judge has resigned, apparently because of the risk of politicising the judiciary. But this was no ordinary judge. Victoria McCloud is a King’s Bench Master of the High Court, a senior job. In 2010, McCloud – then aged 40 – was the youngest person to have been appointed to the role. The news was not trumpeted at the time as a ‘first’ for transgender people. Few people knew about McCloud’s unusual history and, it seemed, fewer cared.

McCloud transitioned in the 1990s. It was a very different world for transsexuals, back then. The goal was to reassimilate unnoticed in the workplace, and society at large – hiding in plain sight as it were. It made sense. If nobody realised that you were trans, then they could hardly discriminate against you on the grounds of gender reassignment. Before the 2010 Equality Act, that was crucial. McCloud was not unusual in keeping a trans identity out of the public eye.

Whatever the reason for McCloud’s departure, it feels like open season for transsexuals on social media

So, what happened? Why did trans identities become so political, and why is McCloud now complaining that ‘I am now political every time I choose where to pee’? In another extract of a letter – parts of which it has been claimed were leaked to The Times – McCloud added:

I have reached the conclusion that in 2024 the national situation and present judicial framework is no longer such that it is possible in a dignified way to be both ‘trans’ and a salaried, fairly prominent judge in the UK.

That’s a big statement for a senior judge to make, and a sad indictment of modern Britain. Is this country really no longer a place where trans people can contribute their skills, knowledge and expertise? It’s certainly very different to 2012, when I transitioned. That was almost two decades after McCloud but even then, my aims were to go through gender reassignment, keep my job and stay out of the press. Two out of three ain’t bad, I guess.

I only began to speak out when I saw the politicisation of trans rights – my rights, indeed – by an out-of-control activist lobby who were demanded that anyone should be able to self-identify their gender, and hence their legal sex. The likely impact on the rights of women and the development of children seemed to be beyond the wit of naïve politicians – on both sides of the House of Commons – simply acquiesced.

Maria Miller – as chair of the Women and Equalities Committee – called on the government to update the law ‘in line with the principles of gender self-declaration’. That was 2016. The next year, prime minister Theresa May told a Pink News awards dinner that her government would do just that. In 2018, it was Jeremy Corbyn’s turn to pay homage to the same gathering with the same message. Finally, in 2022, Nicola Sturgeon’s Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill hit the buffers when a male rapist was remanded to Corton Cale women’s prison in Stirling.

But the damage had been done. The acceptance of transsexuals depends far less on pieces of government paperwork and far more on trust and confidence. After rather too many spectacles of men abusing the system, more and more women have decided that they have had enough, and I can’t say I blame them. The previous welcome that was – certainly in my experience – almost always extended to male transsexuals is now more guarded. In social media environments, it has sometimes been withdrawn and replaced by hostility.

Is that what McCloud was getting at when pointing out that the judiciary ‘has used me in social media’, which ‘has been rewarding and I will cherish the memories’, but ‘came at a cost because I became a public figure and a target’? The result – according to McCloud – is that, ‘it has been open season on me and others’.

Or is this resignation more personal, and a consequence of McCloud’s own social media output? One barrister has suggested that McCloud engaged in posting content that ‘clearly breaches two parts of the [social media guidance issued to judges] (1) not to identify your judicial post on any social media account to which the general public has access, and (2) not to use such an account to engage in debate on matters of political controversy’. In this case, it wasn’t any old controversy but the transgender debate itself.

Whatever the reason for McCloud’s departure, it still feels like open season for transsexuals on social media. The online antipathy can be brutal and personal. The old unconditional welcome has maybe gone for good. Perhaps that was inevitable, but there is work to be done to build something better, where transsexuals can live our best lives without impinging on the rights of other people.