The new chief executive of Stonewall has sought to defuse the increasingly toxic row over transgender rights, telling the Observer that her organisation would no longer seek to persuade its critics to accept its views on gender. “I’m really focused on the idea that we don’t have to convert everybody to our way of understanding gender,” Nancy Kelley said in her first interview since taking up the position as head of the UK’s leading gay rights charity. “For Stonewall to succeed, it doesn’t have to make people believe as it believes. What it has to do is make people support changes that make trans lives easier.” Three years ago, Theresa May pledged to “eradicate transphobic bullying” and “[demedicalise] the process for changing gender because being trans is not an illness and it should not be treated as such”. More than 100,000 people responded to the government’s subsequent consultation process on reforming the 2004 Gender Recognition Act. While the results have not been released, it is understood that a majority backed plans to allow trans people the right to declare and define their own gender identity in order to obtain a gender recognition certificate. At present, trans people must undergo two medical checks, receive a diagnosis of gender dysphoria and provide proof that they have lived in their chosen gender identity for two years. The decision to grant the certificate is then taken by a judiciary panel. “The [current] process is extremely intrusive, incredibly bureaucratic, stressful and dehumanising,” said Kelley. But proposals leaked this month suggest that Boris Johnson will scrap May’s promise. A ban on trans women using women’s toilets and refuges has also been mooted. Kelley warned that a government U-turn “would take us backwards” and be “out of line with data on public attitudes”. “I don’t know if the government is stoking a culture war,” said Kelley, “but they’re certainly not reassuring the trans community that they will make positive steps, and the trans community is incredibly distressed and worried.” Kelley, who is 47 and lives with her civil partner and their two children in east London, worked at the National Centre for Social Research (NatCen) before joining Stonewall. In her last role as deputy chief executive and director of policy research, she published the annual survey into British social attitudes, tracking public opinion and changes in social, political and moral beliefs. “It’s really important to not mistake the way [the trans] issue gets talked about in the media, particularly social media, as a reflection of British attitudes,” said Kelley. “The general public as a whole – and women in particular – are not anti-trans or really worried about trans inclusion. There is no real evidence to suggest that. “What you see instead is that the overwhelming majority of people [83%] don’t see themselves as transphobic and don’t agree with transphobia. And the majority position around things like bathrooms is that women feel fine about it.” Trans people can currently change their passport, driver’s licence, bank account and utility bills to match their self-declared gender identity with a letter from their doctor, proof of a name change (for example, a deed poll) and evidence that they are using their new name (such as a payslip). Yet reforms to bring birth certificates and gender recognition certificates in line with that have been met with considerable resistance. The issue has become a battleground for a debate pitching trans rights as a threat to cis women’s rights. Kelley’s predecessor, Baroness (Ruth) Hunt, was accused of running “a militant trans agenda”, by the writer Maureen Chadwick, creator of Bad Girls and Footballers’ Wives, who withdrew her support from the charity and opposed its “trans women are women” campaign. In a shift from Hunt’s era, Kelley said that her priority was to reach a broad consensus that trans people need protection and that reforms to the administrative process – “which makes little difference to anybody apart from trans people” – are treated as just that. “There is a lot of debate on the theory of gender and sex, it’s all terribly interesting and there are a million PhD theses to be written about it,” said Kelley, “but for the experience of trans people’s lives to be more positive, and for them to have lower levels of hate crime, better access to health services and more inclusive schools and workplaces, we don’t need people to agree on what constitutes womanhood. “We must come back to the basics of building empathy for the idea that we want our fellow humans to experience a dignified, positive life,” said Kelley. “And there are things that as a society that we can change to make that more likely.” Sunday marks 51 years since the Stonewall riots, and the organisation is hosting a month-long series of digital-only Pride events. Kelley says the pandemic and the global Black Lives Matter protests have sharpened her focus to fight for liberation movements that are inclusive and celebrate each other. “Pride is seen as a glitter party now, but we are a human rights organisation and our roots are protest. This year feels more political to me than at any [other] point during my lifetime.”