Legislative Definition of Sex

Rosie Duffield Excerpts

Monday 12th June 2023 Westminster Hall

[Rosie Duffield (Canterbury) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to speak in this debate under your chairship, Mrs Cummins. I rise to speak in favour of clarifying the Equality Act 2010; that will not exactly be a shock to anyone here. The debate over trans rights and women’s rights has become toxic in recent years, partly because the law as it stands is not clear. In fact, without doubt, this is one of the most toxic issues that politicians and campaigners will ever have been involved in. I experienced some pretty terrible online abuse at the height of the antisemitism crisis in the Labour party, but I almost look back on those days fondly, given the spite, vitriol, constant attacks, name calling, trolling and defamation that I face personally every single day, along with women’s groups and my friends whose names are in the media.

If you talk to ordinary people—elected politicians do so most days—they will tell you that women as a group need protection in law, and trans women also need protection, but these are not the same groups. That was recognised in the Equality Act when it was passed. The Act was one of the last measures of the last Labour Government, of course. It was the outcome of 14 years of campaigning by equality and human rights organisations. It is carefully balanced, and it had cross-party support for nearly all its provisions. It is something that we can be rightly proud of as a country, and it is a law that protects against sex discrimination and transgender discrimination—separately, because they are not the same thing.

We know that one in four women will experience domestic abuse in her lifetime. Two women a week are killed by a current or former partner. Forty-one per cent of women provide care for their children, grandchildren or older and disabled people, compared with 25% of men. Around 90% of single parents are women. Men are almost twice as likely to be a manager, director or senior official than women, and only one third of MPs are women despite us making up over 51% of the UK’s population.

Because of those and other differences in men’s and women’s lives, we need to be able to monitor sex discrimination and provide for the needs of women and girls, particularly when they are most vulnerable. The Equality Act is the law that allows for that, but confusion within and about the Act has led to a toxic debate where people have become terrified even to talk about women’s rights—but not all people.

Since I started speaking up, I have had so many women and men write to me to say thank you. Many have written to say that they are frightened to speak up for women’s rights. They include women and men who work in jobs where it is extremely important that they are able to be clear about the difference between male and female, and about who women are and who men are. They include people whose jobs involve safeguarding children—headteachers, teachers and social workers. They include people who work in healthcare—nurses, told that they should ensure that hospital accommodation is in single-sex bays for men and women, but also that they should allow people to choose which sex they want to be housed as. They include women who work in domestic violence shelters, who are terrified of being sued or losing their job if they make it clear that those are female-only spaces. They include female athletes who want their sport to be fair but are afraid to speak up because of the response that they will get.

This was not the world that the Equality Act was meant to create. It was meant to continue from the Sex Discrimination Act 1975, to ensure that men and women were treated equally while single-sex services, sports, associations and charities could be safeguarded. Instead, it is being used to stop people talking about sex—not gender—and sex discrimination.

The Equality Act was also meant to ensure that organisations should treat trans people fairly and with sensitivity as employees and customers. But that did not mean requiring other people to pretend that they believe that being trans—for example, being born male and perhaps changing name and clothes, and maybe taking hormones or even having some physical surgery—is the same as being a woman.

The Gender Recognition Act was passed to allow trans people to obtain legal status to marry in their acquired gender and to be treated as male or female for the purpose of pensions. It was not, however, intended to provide an access-all-areas pass to single-sex services, associations, schools, colleges, sports or charities.

We really need to offer clarity on the law. It is the only way. Clarity would mean that we could treat all people with respect. The UK has led the way on equality law, and it can do so again by finding a grown-up way through this debate on trans rights and women’s rights. Until we do so, I will continue to speak up, death threats or not.