Jolyon Maugham declares victory after yet another humiliating defeat

When is a defeat not a defeat? When it’s suffered by the Good Law Project, of course. 

Yesterday, the nation’s favourite comedy lawfare outfit claimed victory after the withdrawal of a safeguarding challenge against a Sussex secondary school over its “trans-inclusive” toilets and changing room policy. 

Dorothy Stringer School in Brighton had faced a legal claim by a female pupil over its policy of considering requests by students to use opposite-sex facilities on a “case-by-case basis”. 

The girl had complained of sharing the girls’ changing room with a boy for several years. “I was conscious that he was there, and that affected how I changed,” she says. According to The Times, some 40 of the school’s pupils “do not identify as [the] gender presented at birth”. 

Yesterday, the girl’s solicitors Conrathe Gardner announced that the claim had been withdrawn after the school abandoned its attempts to allow boys to use girls’ spaces. 

The change in policy came just days before a hearing was due to take place, and brings Dorothy Stringer in line with the Keeping children safe in education (KCSIE) guidelines which prevent schools from allowing children over the age of 11 to access opposite-sex facilities.

As is traditional when GLP suffers a total defeat, a press release plopped like an over-ripe apricot into supporters’ inboxes yesterday. Headlined with the word “Win”, the announcement contained a quote from Zoe Johannes, Senior Associate at Good Law Project, who claimed the decision was “an important moment in the wider fight to protect the rights of trans children”. 

The justification for this reality-defying spin was that the school continues to provide gender-neutral spaces. 

Presumably only lack of space precluded Jolyon Maugham’s vanity project from mentioning that the legal challenge was withdrawn after the claimant had secured the full outcome for which she was fighting.  

As TERF Times readers will know, this is only the latest example of GLP attempting to spin an ignominious defeat as a win. It may not quite rival its disastrous challenge to Dido Harding’s appointment as Head of the National Institute for Health Protection, which crowdfunded almost £400,000 only to have the High Court rule that its case “failed in its entirety”. Maugham famously claimed GLP only lost the case “at a deeply technical level”, unintentionally inventing a new legal euphemism for an abject courtroom humiliation.

Yet its latest failure may be of much greater significance in the long run. For years, the Good Law Project has staked its reputation – and its supporters’ money – on overturning the Equality Act’s provisions for single-sex spaces. This includes its challenge to the EHRC interim guidance and its opposition to the KCSIE guidance. The latter, it argued, failed “to properly explain how schools should accommodate the needs of trans pupils in accessing various aspects of school life, such as toilets, changing facilities, and sports.”

Now even its most ardent supporters are growing weary of Jolyon’s serial defeats. This frustration is evident on r/TransgenderUK, the country’s main forum for trans activists, where the top post today rails against GLP’s “misinformation”.

“I find it hard to see the implementation of trans segregation policies as a victory for trans people, even if it’s technically a win for the Good Law Project’s record books,” wrote the poster, before continuing:

“This isn’t a one-off, unfortunately. They were very loud about their High Court challenge of the EHRC interim guidance being successful - even though they were ruled against completely, no real changes were found in the final guidance, and the case actually put us in a worse place, workplace-wise…I respect the Good Law Project and I understand that they need to appear that they’re winning to get donations [our italics]. They’re one of our best vectors for change right now. But this misinformation frustrates me, especially when I see people gaining false hope from it.”

As readers will know, trans activists are quick to turn on celebrities who row back an inch from their formerly unconditional support for ‘trans rights’. The question hanging over GLP HQ today is this: if Dorothy Stringer now follows guidance that GLP itself opposed, why isn’t Jolyon’s crew castigating the school as “transphobic”?

At the GLP, it seems defeats must be affirmed as victories.