After a year marked by legal and political setbacks for LGBTQ+ rights, Leah Thomas and Craig Court, both partners at Harding Evans Solicitors – winning firm of the Legal News Wales Social Impact award 2025 – reflect on the urgent need for genuine allyship—and the practical steps being taken to support the community beyond Pride Month.
It has been a tough 12 months for the LGBTQ+ community. Particularly, it would seem that there has been a significant push back against the progression of trans rights in the UK which has resulted in negative shockwaves throughout the wider LGBTQ community.
The Supreme Court Ruling on Gender recognition was released in April 2025 and ruled that under the Equality Act 2010, ‘sex’ must be interpreted based on biological sex assigned at birth, even if someone holds a Gender Recognition Certificate.
The Court ruled that single-sex spaces such as toilets, prisons and sports teams can now legally exclude trans people. Whilst there was widespread backlash to the ruling and many people continue to support trans voices, the LGBTQ community felt their dignity was being undermined.
The same has also been the subject of political debate and the conversion therapy ban, previously promised by Labour has been delayed, further aggravating the situation. Many LGBTQ people in the UK feel transphobia and homophobia is on the rise.
At Harding Evans, we are attempting to ally with the Community to try to alleviate the impact of this. We are also very aware that this needs to come from a genuine place.
We have a responsibility to ensure that the community do not feel like it is another token gesture, designed to monetise or commercialise their experience.
As a result, we have opted to take practical steps to show our support. Not only are we the only law firm in Wales to sponsor Pride Cymru and Pride in the Port, but we offer specialised services for LGBTQ people, services which are frankly, incredibly difficult to find in the legal sector.
As a firm, we engage with the community regularly to establish if there is more that we can be doing. Following a recent such discussion, it was brought to our attention that a disproportionate number of LGBTQ+ individuals are suffering discrimination when it comes to social housing, something that our Public Law team is currently looking into.
Despite the Supreme Court’s position in relation to the definition of ‘sex’ under the Equality Act 2010, we are committed to assisting those who may suffer discrimination.
We are committed to assisting victims of discrimination and will continue to do so utilising all aspects of the law – not just the Equality Act.
Those who identify as LGBTQ+ have often reported that they have considerable difficulty in finding legal advice that understands their particular context, so we are proud to be able to put our knowledge and expertise to good use in order to provide the community with much-needed access to justice. It is also an area which comes with some risk for lawyers.
It is a developing area and so the Family Team have all undertaken specialist training in respect of transgender rights in the Family Court, surrogacy and Gender recognition certificates.
Our Family Team have partnered with LawWorks and LGBTQ+ Law Clinic CIC, and have launched an in-person Pro Bono clinic to provide family advice to members of the LGBTQ+ community. Taking place at Harding Evans’ office in Cardiff, the clinic is one of the only free legal in-person advice clinics for people identifying as LGBTQ+, in the whole of the UK.
Our engagement with the community at the recent Pride Cymru event in Cardiff illustrated just how much more work there is to do, and it was sobering to hear the level of fear that is being experienced on a day-to-day basis. We will continue to support the LGBTQ+ community in the hope that we can alleviate that fear and assist in the fight for their rights.
