Helen Zille’s Transphobia: Hate Dressed up as “Common sense”

In the wake of a regressive UK Supreme Court ruling, Helen Zille, the Chairperson of the Democratic Alliance’s Federal Council, has continued to make dangerous and misinformed claims about transgender people.

She has asserted that they are a danger to society, children and women’s rights and, most recently, that trans identities are equivalent to eating disorders. In the meantime, the DA – the second-largest political party in South Africa – remains silent.

In a statement, published in full below, the African Trans Network has responded to both the court decision and Zille’s views, asserting that they are part of a growing international campaign to limit the rights, visibility, and personhood of trans people.

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The African Trans Network is outraged and deeply disturbed by both the recent UK Supreme Court decision excluding trans women from legal protection and Democratic Alliance (DA) Federal Council Chairperson Helen Zille’s subsequent post on Twitter (X) calling the fight for trans rights a “contagion as dangerous as Covid.”

This was followed by a longer Facebook post on Wednesday which called trans identities “trendy” and compared them to eating disorders, all while aligning herself with prominent anti-trans figures from the UK and USA.

The Ruling

On April 16th, Britain’s highest court handed down a decision that opens the door to widespread legal discrimination against trans people. This devastating ruling, which strips trans women of recognition under equality law, represents a profound regression of human rights and a direct assault on trans dignity and personhood. We categorically condemn this decision as an unconscionable attack on transgender lives that threatens to legitimise discrimination not only in the UK but globally.

This ruling specifically allows service providers to exclude trans women from single-sex spaces without violating the Equality Act, effectively creating a legal framework for discrimination. By redefining “sex” as exclusively biological and immutable, the court has set a dangerous precedent that devalues trans identities and threatens to strip away hard-won protections. This is not merely a legal technicality-it is a ruling that directly affects the safety, dignity, and access to public life for transgender people.

As history has repeatedly demonstrated, such legal regressions in the Global North echo loudly throughout the Global South, creating dangerous precedents that embolden anti­ trans and anti-rights actors worldwide. This ruling is not merely a British issue but a dangerous signal that threatens trans rights across borders and continents.

Zille’s Comments

Days after this alarming ruling, Helen Zille celebrated on Twitter (X), declaring:

“They have protected the rights of women across the English-speaking world from a contagion as dangerous, socially, as Covid was, medically. We thank you from the Southern tip of Africa.”

This sickening comparison of transgender identities to a deadly virus that ravaged communities worldwide isn’t just deeply offensive-it’s a dangerous attack that puts real lives at risk by perpetuating the view that our existence is a threat to be eradicated.

Zille’s words are not incidental or one-off, they are part of a growing international campaign to limit the rights, visibility, and personhood of trans people through the language of fear and containment.

On Wednesday morning, Zille continued spreading hateful rhetoric and misinformation on Facebook, repeating common anti-gender assertions that trans rights are antithetical to women’s rights and claiming:

“the priority emphasis on Trans Rights provides an avenue for men to gain access to women’s spaces again – from change rooms, to prisons, to sport – so that they can once again dominate unfairly and make many women uncomfortable (at the very least).”

She continued by repeating global anti-trans talking points, painting gender diversity as a threat to children, a dangerous ‘trend’ akin to bulimia and anorexia and expressed her support for South African anti-gender affirming care advocacy group ‘First Do No Harm’.

We are witnessing through the UK Supreme Court decision and Zille’s remarks the global circulation of an anti-trans agenda dressed up in the language of “women’s rights” and “common sense.”

In reality, these narratives are vehicles for exclusion and control, shaped in Western courtrooms, funded by foreign institutions, and increasingly adopted by African political elites. It reflects a broader set of forces at work:

• The imposition of colonial gender norms that displaced many of Africa’s precolonial understandings of gender diversity.
• The influence of Western legal precedent being used to justify the rollback of rights beyond its borders.
• The continued funding and strategic export of anti-LGBTQ+ ideology from the Global North into African legislatures, media, and civil society spaces.
• And the willing participation of African leaders, who reproduce these narratives and structures under the guise of cultural defence or political pragmatism.

At the same time, the Democratic Alliance continues to position itself as a defender of LGBTQ+ rights. Its website claims:

“We all have the constitutional right to dignity and representation. So we stand up for lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, intersex and queer (LGBTIQ+) South Africans.”

But this public commitment is sharply contradicted by Zille’s current and past remarks and the party’s ongoing, deafening silence. The gap between what the DA says it stands for and what it permits its leaders to say reveals not only inconsistency, but betrayal.

Given the nature of Zille’s comments and their potential consequences, we urge the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) to investigate whether these remarks may constitute hate speech under the Promotion of Equality and Prevention of Unfair Discrimination Act (PEPUDA).

We further encourage individuals and civil society to consider referring this matter to the Equality Court, where it can be tested against South Africa’s constitutional values and the broader commitments outlined in the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights and the Maputo Protocol.

We Demand:

• A full public apology and retraction from Helen Zille.
• A clear and unequivocal statement from the Democratic Alliance affirming the rights and dignity of trans people in South Africa.
• International condemnation of the UK Supreme Court ruling and solidarity with trans communities in Britain fighting against this dangerous precedent.
• A continent-wide reckoning with the ongoing colonial legacies embedded in our laws and institutions – and the ways these legacies are being revived and legitimised through globally coordinated anti-rights movements.
• Recognition that such discriminatory precedents directly conflict with the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights Resolution 275, which calls for protection against violence and discrimination based on real or perceived sexual orientation and gender identity.
• A rejection of frameworks that cast trans people as incompatible with public life, womanhood, or African values – and a collective effort to build legal, cultural, and political systems that recognise the full humanity and belonging of all people.

We stand at a critical moment in the fight for transgender civil rights. The task now is not just to respond, but name these forces that seek to erase us, confront their sources, and hold those in power accountable.

We stand alongside our community in full throated condemnation of both the UK Supreme Court ruling and Helen Zille’s hateful comments and call upon our fellow Africans to reject the imported political ideology that continues to stand in the way of liberation and human dignity for all.

We reaffirm, trans people and the fight for our civil rights are not the real threat. The true danger is the hateful, dehumanising rhetoric fuelled by moral panic that are exemplified in judicial decisions like that of UK Supreme Court and in public comments like Zille’s.

 

The African Trans Network (ATN) is a pan-African network dedicated to advancing the rights, visibility, and well-being of transgender communities across Africa. Established to address systemic inequalities, stigma and discrimination, ATN operates as a platform for advocacy, capacity building and movement strengthening throughout the 5 subregions of Africa. The organisation collaborates with a diverse range of stakeholders including activists, community organisations, researchers and policymakers, to promote social justice and drive transformative change.