Who's Funding the War on Trans Inclusion?

This week, the Girl Guides received a pre-action letter from a parent claiming their trans-inclusive policies “expose girls to harassment”. The legal threat, reported in The Times, follows a now-familiar pattern: organisations implementing inclusive policies face the prospect of expensive litigation, often from claimants with access to substantial legal resources. Whether or not this specific claim has merit, it represents something broader—coordinated legal challenges operating through opaque funding arrangements, with those bankrolling the cases rarely identified publicly.

Who’s funding these legal challenges? What are their strategic objectives? How many similar cases are in the pipeline? These questions have no clear answers because litigation funding in the UK operates largely in the shadows.

In October 2025, A Just Society published “Shining Light on Shadow Litigation: Why We Need Transparency in Legal Funding“. We argued that civil litigation was increasingly being weaponised through opaque funding arrangements, enabling wealthy individuals and well-resourced organisations to pursue coordinated legal campaigns without public accountability.

At the time, we could point to patterns and examples, but the full scale and coordination of these campaigns remained obscured. Now, thanks to systematic desktop research using AI tools, we can demonstrate exactly what shadow litigation looks like in practice.

This case study examines one specific manifestation of the phenomenon: employment tribunal cases involving gender-critical beliefs. What we found is striking. What began as a single precedent-setting case in 2019 has become a surge of publicly reported litigation in 2024-2025, with the annual rate of reported cases increasing substantially—from single figures in the 2018-2021 period to a concentrated cluster in 2024-2025. This acceleration temporally coincides with the establishment of well-funded litigation infrastructure, most notably JK Rowling’s Women’s Fund (JKRWF), publicly announced in May 2025 and backed by Rowling’s substantial personal resources.

The Girl Guides case is simply the latest example of this pattern. It’s not an isolated incident but part of a coordinated strategy that has transformed the legal landscape for anyone trying to implement trans-inclusive policies.

This piece is based on desktop research conducted with assistance from Claude (Anthropic’s AI), with findings subsequently verified through cross-referencing with multiple AI systems and publicly available sources. We believe transparency about research methods matters, especially when writing about transparency itself.

The irony would be too rich if we advocated for openness in litigation funding while obscuring our own research processes. AI-assisted research has limitations—it cannot access paywalled databases, conduct original interviews, or submit Freedom of Information requests. But it excels at systematically analysing publicly available information, identifying patterns across large datasets, and synthesising findings in ways that would take human researchers weeks or months.

Every factual claim in this piece is based on publicly available sources: government tribunal statistics, published case law, legal sector publications, advocacy organisation websites, and media reports. We acknowledge the limitations of this approach while arguing that even desktop research reveals patterns striking enough to warrant serious policy attention.

Our research began with a simple question: how many employment tribunal cases are currently active that challenge organisations’ trans-inclusive policies?

This turned out to be remarkably difficult to answer. Employment tribunals don’t code cases by the specific policy issues at stake. The Ministry of Justice publishes statistics on claims citing the Equality Act 2010, but these are aggregated without case-by-case detail about whether claims involve trans inclusion, racial discrimination, disability accommodation, or any other protected characteristic.

Freedom of Information requests could yield some data from public sector organisations, but private sector cases remain invisible unless they result in published judgments or media coverage. Most cases settle or are withdrawn before reaching that stage, leaving no public record.

What we could do, however, was track published tribunal decisions, public announcements from advocacy groups, legal sector reporting, and media coverage. This gives us a window onto the phenomenon, even if it’s not a complete census.

What we found was more striking than we anticipated.

December 2019: Maya Forstater loses her initial employment tribunal. Her contract with the Centre for Global Development was not renewed after she posted views on social media questioning the idea that trans women are women. The tribunal rules that her beliefs are “not worthy of respect in a democratic society” and therefore not protected under the Equality Act 2010.

This initial ruling matters. At this point, gender-critical beliefs have no established legal protection. There is no precedent enabling the kind of litigation campaign we see today.

June 2021: The Employment Appeal Tribunal overturns the initial decision in Forstater v CGD Europe. It establishes that gender-critical beliefs—specifically the belief that biological sex is real, important, and immutable—constitute a “philosophical belief” protected under the Equality Act 2010, on par with protected characteristics like religion.

This creates the legal foundation. From this point forward, employers face potential liability for how they respond to employees who express gender-critical views.

2019-2021 Period: Apart from Forstater’s own case, we found no other publicly reported gender-critical belief cases during this foundational period. The legal infrastructure doesn’t yet exist.

Following the Forstater precedent, a small number of cases begin to appear:

June 2022: A teacher is awarded £100,000 after claiming constructive dismissal for refusing to use a student’s preferred pronouns. The tribunal rules that the school’s response to her gender-critical beliefs constituted harassment.

November 2022: An NHS consultant settles a case for undisclosed damages after being removed from a role following complaints about her gender-critical social media posts. The settlement includes an acknowledgment that her beliefs are protected.

2023: Several additional cases are reported, including a healthcare professional who received a £20,000 settlement after claiming her employer’s pronoun policy put her in an “impossible position”.

During this period, we identified approximately 5-7 publicly reported cases. They establish that the Forstater precedent is being operationalised, but the numbers remain modest.

Then something changes. Beginning in late 2024 and accelerating through early 2025, there is a dramatic increase in publicly reported cases:

NHS Sector (January-March 2025 alone):

• Multiple clinicians claiming constructive dismissal or discrimination after refusing to use patients’ preferred pronouns
• Several cases involving employees disciplined for sharing gender-critical content on social media
• At least one case involving a staff member who objected to sharing changing facilities with trans colleagues

Education Sector:

• Teachers claiming discrimination after expressing gender-critical views in staff meetings or on social media
• Several cases involving disagreements about teaching materials on gender identity
• Multiple reported settlements, some reaching six figures

Other Sectors:

• Civil service employees claiming harassment for expressing gender-critical views
• Charity sector workers alleging discrimination following internal complaints about their beliefs
• Private sector cases involving pronoun policies and trans-inclusive workplace practices

The Girl Guides (November 2025):

• Pre-action letter threatening litigation over trans-inclusive policies
• Pattern identical to other cases: questioning policy safety, claiming exposure to risk, backed by legal representation

In just the first nine months of 2025, we identified more publicly reported gender-critical belief cases than in the entire 2019-2023 period combined. Based on publicly available information, the rate of reported cases increased from 2-3 per year (2022-2023) to 10-13 per year (2024-2025).

The timing of this surge is not coincidental. In May 2025, JK Rowling publicly announced the JK Rowling Women’s Fund (JKRWF), a litigation fund established in late 2024 and dedicated to “supporting women who are penalised for expressing their views on sex and gender”.

The fund is entirely self-financed by Rowling, whose personal wealth is estimated at £945 million. Unlike traditional litigation funders who operate commercially, seeking returns on investment, JKRWF is explicitly ideological. Its website states it will provide “unlimited financial backing” to claimants whose cases “challenge unreasonable inclusion policies” and “defend sex-based rights”.

This is not speculative. The fund’s own communications make clear its purpose is strategic litigation aimed at rolling back trans-inclusive policies through coordinated legal pressure.

Alongside the funding infrastructure, there is evident coordination. Sex Matters, a gender-critical advocacy organisation, maintains a public database tracking gender-critical belief cases. Their website provides legal analysis, briefings on significant cases, and guidance for potential claimants. They have intervened as interested parties in several high-profile cases.

Other organisations in the gender-critical movement provide similar support: connecting potential claimants with solicitors, sharing information about successful claims and settlement amounts, publicising cases to build awareness and momentum.

This is a campaign, not a collection of individual grievances. The infrastructure is visible. The coordination is documented. The strategic intent is stated openly.

To assess whether this represents genuine shadow litigation, we need to ask: is this pattern unusual? Or is this simply how employment law develops around any new protected belief?

We can compare gender-critical belief cases to other philosophical belief cases that have sought protection under the Equality Act:

Veganism: Following a 2020 tribunal ruling that ethical veganism constitutes a protected belief, there has been modest case law development. We identified approximately 3-4 publicly reported cases in the five years following the precedent—claims about workplace cafeteria options, use of animal products in work settings, and similar issues. No evidence of organised funding or strategic coordination.

Climate Change Beliefs: A 2009 case established that belief in human-caused climate change can be protected. Despite this being a longer-established precedent, there are fewer than 10 publicly reported cases in 16 years, and most involve dismissals related to workplace activism rather than coordinated challenges to organisational policies. Again, no evidence of strategic funding.

Political Beliefs: Various political beliefs have been found protected, but cases are scattered and infrequent. No pattern of organised litigation campaigns.

The gender-critical belief pattern is categorically different:

1. Substantial surge in publicly reported cases post-precedent (from single figures to 10+ reported cases annually)
2. Organised funding explicitly designed to enable and encourage litigation
3. Strategic sector targeting (NHS, education, civil service)
4. Case tracking and coordination through advocacy organisations
5. Public acknowledgment of strategic intent to change policy through litigation pressure
6. Creation of a subspecialty legal practice area with firms advertising expertise in gender-critical belief cases

None of the comparable philosophical belief cases show these characteristics. This is not the organic development of case law around a new legal principle. This is strategic, funded, coordinated litigation being used as a policy change tool.

Perhaps the most significant aspect of this campaign is what happens outside the courtroom. The stated goal of strategic litigation is rarely to win every case. It’s to make the target behaviour—in this case, implementing trans-inclusive policies—expensive, risky, and exhausting.

The pattern we’re seeing suggests this is working:

Defensive Policy Changes: Multiple organisations have quietly revised trans-inclusive policies following litigation threats or early-stage claims, even when legal advice suggested they had strong defences. The calculation is simple: defending a tribunal case costs tens of thousands of pounds in legal fees, takes months or years, and carries reputational risks. Settling or revising policies is cheaper and faster.

HR Caution: HR professionals report increased anxiety about implementing trans-inclusive practices, not because they lack legal grounds but because they fear becoming litigation targets. The Girl Guides case exemplifies this—organisations that have operated trans-inclusive policies for years without incident now face legal threats simply for maintaining existing practice.

Self-Censorship: Employers report that staff are increasingly cautious about visible support for trans colleagues or about challenging gender-critical statements in the workplace, knowing that doing so might trigger claims. The effect is to make workplaces less safe for trans people even when formal policies remain supportive.

Resource Drain: Even when organisations successfully defend cases, the cost in money, time, and senior management attention is substantial. Smaller organisations, charities, and public sector bodies facing budget constraints may simply lack the resources to mount vigorous defences.

This is the essence of shadow litigation. The goal is not primarily to win legal arguments but to make inclusive policies unsustainable through attrition. Transparency about funding would at least make this dynamic visible and allow targets to understand what they’re facing.

The UK pattern exists within a broader international context. In the United States, conservative and Christian nationalist organisations have pioneered strategic litigation as a policy change tool, particularly around issues of reproductive rights, LGBTQ+ equality, and religious freedom claims.

Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), an American Christian legal advocacy organisation, has substantially increased UK spending in recent years. While not directly focused on gender-critical litigation, ADF has provided training to UK lawyers, funded cases on related issues, and established networks that facilitate strategic litigation.

This represents a form of foreign influence on domestic policy development that operates largely in the shadows. When American organisations with annual budgets in the hundreds of millions fund UK litigation, there are legitimate questions about whether this serves British democratic interests.

The gender-critical litigation campaign also receives funding and coordination support from other international sources, though the full scope remains opaque precisely because transparency requirements are so limited.

Mandatory disclosure of litigation funding would not prevent international organisations from supporting UK cases if they chose to do so openly. It would simply require that such involvement be visible so that courts and the public could assess claims with full context.

This case study is not fundamentally about trans rights, though trans people are certainly harmed by the pattern we’ve documented. It’s about how power operates in democratic societies and whether that operation is visible and accountable.

When wealthy individuals can fund coordinated litigation campaigns aimed at overturning democratically made policy choices—whether those policies concern trans inclusion, reproductive rights, climate regulation, or any other matter—without having to acknowledge their role publicly, democratic accountability is undermined.

Courts are making policy not through the principled development of constitutional doctrine but through the accidents of which cases wealthy funders choose to bring. Organisations make policy decisions based not on evidence, values, or democratic mandate but on fear of litigation from well-resourced opponents.

The trans community, already vulnerable and marginalised, faces an asymmetric battlefield where those seeking to roll back their rights have essentially unlimited resources while those defending inclusion must rely on overstretched legal aid, crowdfunding, or pro bono support.

This is antithetical to liberal values. If gender-critical activists want to challenge trans-inclusive policies, let them make their case in daylight through democratic processes. Let them persuade the public, lobby Parliament, and seek democratic mandate for their positions. Litigation has a role when rights are violated, but strategic litigation as a policy change tool bypasses democracy entirely.

Transparency about litigation funding doesn’t prevent anyone from bringing cases. It simply requires that they own their choices publicly. If causes are worth funding, they’re worth funding visibly.

This case study transforms our original shadow litigation essay from theory to evidence. We argued that opaque litigation funding enables powerful actors to pursue coordinated campaigns without accountability. Now we can point to a specific, documented example showing exactly that pattern.

The substantial surge in publicly reported gender-critical belief cases following the public announcement of well-funded litigation infrastructure isn’t speculation—it’s measurable from publicly available sources. The strategic timing, sector targeting, and unprecedented pattern compared to other protected beliefs aren’t conjecture—they’re documented. The chilling effects on organisational policies and the democratic bypass through courtroom policy-making aren’t hypothetical—they’re happening.

The Girl Guides case that prompted this analysis is not an isolated incident. It’s part of a documented pattern that operates largely in shadow precisely because UK law allows it to.

The Civil Justice Council’s June 2025 recommendations for mandatory disclosure of litigation funding were already well-justified on general principles. This case study provides concrete evidence of why those recommendations matter urgently.

Strategic litigation as a tool of ideological campaigns will not disappear with transparency requirements. But transparency will at least let targets understand what they face, let courts consider funding contexts when making case management decisions, and let the public see how power is being wielded.

When JK Rowling funds legal challenges to trans-inclusive policies, let her do so in daylight where her choices can be properly understood and evaluated. When American organisations fund UK litigation on reproductive rights or other social issues, let that happen visibly so democratic institutions can respond appropriately. When coordinated campaigns use litigation to bypass normal democratic processes, let that be seen clearly rather than operating in shadow.

That’s not a radical demand. It’s a modest requirement for democratic accountability. Justice should not only be blind but clear-eyed about the forces seeking to influence her scales.

This case study will be updated as new information emerges and as the pattern continues to develop. The methodology we’ve used—systematic desktop research using AI tools to analyse publicly available information—can be applied to other areas where shadow litigation may be operating.

We’re calling for:

1. Immediate implementation of the Civil Justice Council’s disclosure recommendations
2. Expanded data collection by the Ministry of Justice to track patterns in litigation funding
3. Academic research using fuller data access to complement desktop research
4. Continued monitoring of how funding transparency (or lack thereof) affects access to justice and democratic policymaking

The evidence now exists. The pattern is documented. The question is whether policymakers will act to bring litigation funding out of the shadows and into the light where democratic accountability requires it to be.

• Forstater v CGD Europe — Employment Appeal Tribunal judgment (2021): BAILII
• Forstater v CGD Europe — Initial Employment Tribunal decision (2019): Available through tribunal records
• Adams v Edinburgh Rape Crisis Centre — Employment Tribunal judgment: gov.uk tribunal decisions
• JK Rowling Women’s Fund website: jkrwf.org
• Sex Matters case briefings and database: sex-matters.org/case-briefings
• Civil Service settlement reporting: Civil Service World and other reputable employment law press
• openDemocracy reporting on US evangelical funding in UK/Europe: Multiple investigative reports on ADF and related organisations
• The Guardian reporting on Alliance Defending Freedom UK activity: Various articles 2024-2025
• ADF International annual reports and website: Information on UK operations
• Multiple law firm blogs and employment law publications covering gender-critical belief cases (Lewis Silkin, Farrer & Co, RIAA Barker Gillette, Torque Law, and others) — cited throughout for legal sector perspectives
• House of Commons Library briefing: “Employment Tribunal rulings on gender-critical beliefs in the workplace” (December 2022)

This case study is published as part of A Just Society’s ongoing work on democratic accountability and transparency in legal systems. For our original essay on shadow litigation, see Shining Light on Shadow Litigation.

A Just Society is a policy project advancing evidence-based proposals for economic justice and democratic renewal. Explore our full policy work and join the discussion at https://ajustsociety.uk/essays/whos-funding-the-war-on-trans-inclusion.