Britain's first transgender judge has hit out at conspiracy theories held by "trans-hostile" LGBT community members after deciding to quit her role at the High Court.
Victoria McCloud claimed the "UK is far less accepting" of trans people and the workplace was becoming more hostile.
McCloud chose to step down from her job in April over fears she risked politicising the courts.
The lawyer added that professionals were once more "tolerant and kind" towards trans people.
McCloud later voiced her concern “about the difficult position which has developed recently for a trans person, such as me, in public life, but especially as the only such judge”UK JUDICIARY"Even some apparently sensible people in the LGBTQIA+ community hold to the conspiracy theory that trans people secretly want to convert gay and lesbian people to straight or to mutilate children, with no basis," McCloud - who transitioned in the 1990s told Financial News.
"Sadly, today the UK is far less accepting and there are even qualified lawyers who are unaccepting of trans people and deliberately insulting, so I doubt I would have coped as well if I came out now."
She added: "It’s a minefield in 2024 in a way it was not, even just five years ago."
The senior civil judge explained that she could no longer be a transgender judge in Britain in a "dignified way".
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She also believes that employers should do more to protect trans employees from discrimination.
"The main thing all firms can do is to prevent the rudeness and intimidation that some people – pretending that it is a necessary part of some belief system or other – dish out in the workplace," she said.
"Employers are perfectly entitled to expect employees to respect social norms such as politeness, which includes the social convention we apply generally to respect how people wish to be addressed.
"Allowing an employee to deliberately offend trans employees by choosing to ‘mis-sex them is likely to lead to discrimination and reputational damage."
Pomeroy's Statue of Justice on top of the Central Criminal Court building, Old Bailey, LondonPAHer resignation letter stated that that it had become "open season" on her and others after a rise of gender-critical campaigners who argue that biological sex cannot be changed.
Speaking to The Telegraph, she added: "As an anatomical, endocrinological and legal woman whose birth registration is female, I am as at risk of rape and assault as any woman and efforts to place me in isolation in hospital or force me to use male spaces are no more than blind prejudice."
McCloud had already been living as a woman outside of work before deciding to come out to her colleagues.
