The EHRC document I wrote about yesterday devotes a fair amount of space to encouraging public authorities that they need to earn the trust of trans people. It will be an uphill struggle. Today’s big media splash illustrates why.

Our current Maximum Leader, Gordon Brown, is well known to be a man with a very short fuse. The Tories, because no gutter is too slimy for a modern politician to wallow in, are busy making much of the fact that staff at No. 10 live in fear of their boss. And because this is a matter of Great National Importance the CEO of the National Bullying Helpline (yes, there is such a thing) has seen fit to talk to the press and explain that yes, someone from No. 10 did come to them for help, and to do so in such a manner that the person in question will be easily identified by other staff at No. 10.

Of course this is the Daily Malice we are talking about here. It is therefore entirely plausible that Christine Pratt was tricked into revealing confidential information, and by no means beyond the bounds of possibility that she never said anything to them at all. However, people working in anti-bullying charities are horrified, and with obvious good reason. Who is going to approach a bullying helpline for support if they think that their story is going to end up in the Malice next week?

Which brings us back to the EHRC document. Public authorities have to earn trust. They can’t do that if their employees exhibit exactly the sort of prejudice that members of minority groups are afraid of. Nor can they do it if their record-keeping is horribly insecure. So, for example, a lot of trans people are afraid of the NHS. That’s partly because there’s a good chance that the staff there will treat them with hostility, and partly because once they use NHS services it is possible that the fact that they are trans will be recorded in a national computer database accessible by thousands of NHS staff all over the country. It is hard to build trust in such an environment, and even harder with things like the No. 10 bullying story around.