Teachers vote to defy the law over trans toilets

BRITAIN’S largest teaching union has voted to defy the Supreme Court, insisting trans women in schools must be allowed to use ladies’ toilets.

The Left-wing National Education Union (NEU) resolved on Saturday to campaign for trans teachers to choose toilets according to ‘gender identity’.

The Supreme Court judgment, which defined a woman by biological sex, means a male-born trans person can be excluded from female-only spaces.

But the NEU’s resolution means it may now intervene to provide legal assistance for trans teachers if they are banned from female toilets or girls’ changing rooms.

Daniel Kebede, General Secretary, said: ‘A toxic climate has been created in recent years in which trans people, a small community, are treated as if they are a risk or threat to others.’

At the weekend 52 executive members, mostly regional reps, voted in favour of a motion called ‘trans rights are human rights’.

The union will ‘call on employers to develop and implement trans-inclusive policies’ and will ‘support caseworkers and legal advisors to challenge attempts to introduce discriminatory policies’.

It comes after the Equality and Human Rights Commission released interim guidance on how organisations should interpret the ruling.

It says that ‘trans women (biological men) should not be permitted to use the women’s facilities’, but also that trans people should not be left without any facilities to use.

FOOD stores are used to being targeted by organised crime gangs, but security bosses say they are now seeing a huge rise in pensioner shoplifters.

They claim the cost of living is ‘pushing people to something they’ve never done before’.

Kingdom Security, which provides staff for hundreds of stores, said it was receiving 20 to 30 reports of shoplifting a week involving ‘people who just can’t afford to buy food’. ‘We’ve seen a massive increase in pensioners shoplifting, putting a jar of coffee in their bag and one in the trolley, that sort of thing,’ said a spokesman.

It comes as shoplifting offences have been running at record levels for the past two years and have seen a ‘sharp rise’ since the Covid-19 pandemic, the ONS said.