Claire Coutinho is Shadow Energy Secretary, former Secretary of State for Energy and Net Zero, and Shadow Minister for Equalities. She is the current MP for East Surrey.
Late last year I met the courageous Darlington Nurses who were forced to share their changing room with a biological man who self-identifies as a woman. When the nurses complained to the Trust, they were told that they were the problem, and that they needed to ‘re-educate themselves.’ Worse still, they were told it was the explicit policy of their NHS Trust – that men who identify as women were allowed to use women’s showers, changing rooms and toilets without challenge.
They are not alone.
Last year a 17-year-old girl with suspected autism was handed a six-match ban by the Football Association simply for asking a question about the presence of a biological man in her women’s football team. The British Transport Police also recently issued guidance that trans-identifying biological men with a gender recognition certificate (GRC) can strip-search women.
All of these cases fail women and girls. Our institutions are turning a blind eye to injustice in the name of inclusivity – but that is anything but compassionate.
The definition of sex and provisions on single-sex spaces in the Equality Act 2010 need clarification. That’s why the Conservatives have been crystal clear that if there is any doubt, Parliament should legislate to make sure that organisations know that single-sex spaces means spaces reserved for biological women.
However, as the cases above show, our problems go much further than the Act. Freewheeling institutions have adopted policies – often at the behest of Stonewall and other radical lobby groups – which misinterpret the law and put the privacy, safety and dignity of women and girls at risk. This must all be unpicked and that work must start now.
After much pushing, the Labour Government has finally published their response to the Call for Evidence that Kemi Badenoch set up as Equalities Minister last year, asking the public to share examples of bad guidance on access to single sex services and spaces.
The new Minister, Bridget Phillipson, sat on the data for months – only publishing it after I urged her to multiple times. But after I asked further questions, the Government has now admitted that rather than the 400 responses they told us about, there were actually over 3,000 submissions from the public.
The Government initially shared just 42 of those responses – that’s 1% – with the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), the body which gives advice to our institutions on equality law.
Why did they rule out 99% of the public’s responses? We don’t know – but the public deserve to have every single one of their submissions considered properly.
This all amounts to an enormous betrayal of Labour’s manifesto commitment to protect single-sex spaces. Instead of covering up the public’s submissions, we need full transparency with all 3,000+ responses published and shared with the EHRC.
This bad start does not bode well for a Government which says it cares about the safety of women, and it comes after years of Labour Ministers struggling to even define what a woman is. Well, we Conservatives know what a woman is and will fight with every fibre of our being to make sure their rights are not limply handed over to radical activists.
In the months ahead we will have the results of a Supreme Court case on the definition of biological sex, guidance on gender questioning children for schools, and Relationships, Sex and Health Education guidance for schools. These are all big moments for the protection of women and girls – and indeed of boys at school and in healthcare – and we Conservatives will not shy away from making sure that the new Minister for Women and Equalities, Bridget Phillipson, is held to account.
As we have seen in the grooming gangs scandal, in women’s prisons and in the case of cousin marriage, turning a blind eye to injustice because of progressive ideology only puts the most vulnerable in our society at risk. This Labour Government, which has already lost so much trust with the public, must not backtrack on yet another commitment by sacrificing women and girls on the altar of gender ideology.
Claire Coutinho is Shadow Energy Secretary, former Secretary of State for Energy and Net Zero, and Shadow Minister for Equalities. She is the current MP for East Surrey.
Late last year I met the courageous Darlington Nurses who were forced to share their changing room with a biological man who self-identifies as a woman. When the nurses complained to the Trust, they were told that they were the problem, and that they needed to ‘re-educate themselves.’ Worse still, they were told it was the explicit policy of their NHS Trust – that men who identify as women were allowed to use women’s showers, changing rooms and toilets without challenge.
They are not alone.
Last year a 17-year-old girl with suspected autism was handed a six-match ban by the Football Association simply for asking a question about the presence of a biological man in her women’s football team. The British Transport Police also recently issued guidance that trans-identifying biological men with a gender recognition certificate (GRC) can strip-search women.
All of these cases fail women and girls. Our institutions are turning a blind eye to injustice in the name of inclusivity – but that is anything but compassionate.
The definition of sex and provisions on single-sex spaces in the Equality Act 2010 need clarification. That’s why the Conservatives have been crystal clear that if there is any doubt, Parliament should legislate to make sure that organisations know that single-sex spaces means spaces reserved for biological women.
However, as the cases above show, our problems go much further than the Act. Freewheeling institutions have adopted policies – often at the behest of Stonewall and other radical lobby groups – which misinterpret the law and put the privacy, safety and dignity of women and girls at risk. This must all be unpicked and that work must start now.
After much pushing, the Labour Government has finally published their response to the Call for Evidence that Kemi Badenoch set up as Equalities Minister last year, asking the public to share examples of bad guidance on access to single sex services and spaces.
The new Minister, Bridget Phillipson, sat on the data for months – only publishing it after I urged her to multiple times. But after I asked further questions, the Government has now admitted that rather than the 400 responses they told us about, there were actually over 3,000 submissions from the public.
The Government initially shared just 42 of those responses – that’s 1% – with the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), the body which gives advice to our institutions on equality law.
Why did they rule out 99% of the public’s responses? We don’t know – but the public deserve to have every single one of their submissions considered properly.
This all amounts to an enormous betrayal of Labour’s manifesto commitment to protect single-sex spaces. Instead of covering up the public’s submissions, we need full transparency with all 3,000+ responses published and shared with the EHRC.
This bad start does not bode well for a Government which says it cares about the safety of women, and it comes after years of Labour Ministers struggling to even define what a woman is. Well, we Conservatives know what a woman is and will fight with every fibre of our being to make sure their rights are not limply handed over to radical activists.
In the months ahead we will have the results of a Supreme Court case on the definition of biological sex, guidance on gender questioning children for schools, and Relationships, Sex and Health Education guidance for schools. These are all big moments for the protection of women and girls – and indeed of boys at school and in healthcare – and we Conservatives will not shy away from making sure that the new Minister for Women and Equalities, Bridget Phillipson, is held to account.
As we have seen in the grooming gangs scandal, in women’s prisons and in the case of cousin marriage, turning a blind eye to injustice because of progressive ideology only puts the most vulnerable in our society at risk. This Labour Government, which has already lost so much trust with the public, must not backtrack on yet another commitment by sacrificing women and girls on the altar of gender ideology.