Annabelle Sanderson was a Conservative candidate in the 2025 local elections. She previously served as UKIP’s Head of Media.
Since the Supreme Court’s ruling on the 16th April 2025, publicly funded institutions across the South West have declined, delayed or quietly worked around the law on sex.
The region does not have a monopoly on this refusal to comply with the law; the same pattern is almost certainly replicated elsewhere in the country. But here, the pattern is remarkably consistent.
Readers of this site will not need reminding that the Supreme Court ruled, in For Women Scotland Ltd v The Scottish Ministers, that the terms “man”, “woman” and “sex” in the Equality Act 2010 refer to biological sex, and that a Gender Recognition Certificate does not alter a person’s sex.
However, 16 months on, and some weeks after the Equality and Human Rights Commission’s statutory code came into force, we are seeing institutions quietly deciding that the law does not apply to them. And since they provide public services, they are denying residents, and predominantly women, those safeguards.
Cornwall Council pursued an independent Councillor, Dulcie Tudor, after she asked the council’s Liberal Democrat leader whether a trans woman is a woman. Naturally, the Leader dodged the question. It’s no wonder that many women in the Liberal Democrats feel alienated from their own party’s dogmatic adherence to the fallacy that a man can pop on a frock and magically become a woman – although I do concede that it takes balls for a six foot strapping chap to pull off a pink cardie.
The council then commissioned a barrister, at public expense mind you, to investigate an elected member for stating what the Supreme Court had already confirmed. In February this year, the barrister concluded that her remarks were protected political opinion.
No action was taken but the costs were incurred, and they fell on Cornish taxpayers.
Despite its political differences with Councillor Tudor on many matters of policy, the Cornwall Conservative group supported Dulcie fully. They also ran an online petition calling on the council to respect sex-based rights, which has gathered more than 5,000 signatures from Cornwall residents thus far.
Moving up the country, the Royal Devon University Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust’s guidelines instruct staff that ‘trans identifying’ patients should be accommodated on single-sex wards ‘according to their gender identity’. Devon Partnership NHS Trust’s guidance similarly states that transgender people ‘must be able to use the facilities of their preferred gender while admitted’.
It should be a matter of common sense and common decency that women and men should be on single-sex wards. It was a former Liberal Democrat, now Conservative Peer, Emma Nicholson, who relayed the appalling story of a woman who said she was raped while in hospital. She reported it to the police but, said Baroness Nicholson, the police spoke to the hospital, and the hospital informed police that there was no male in the hospital, therefore “the rape could not have happened.“
CCTV footage subsequently proved that the rape did, in fact, happen.
Devon County Council still says it is “awaiting updated and final guidance” from the regulator before revising its own instructions; ignoring the law dressed up as diligence.
The University of Bath tells students plainly that ‘you are entitled to use toilets for the gender you identify with.’ Guidance has not changed despite the university saying, since August last year that it is “under review”. There is no need for a review – the law is clear.
Men and women deserve single sex-spaces, particularly when those spaces, such as lavatories, changing rooms and hospital wards are where people are at their most vulnerable.
Wiltshire Council’s chosen response was to relabel single sex staff toilets at County Hall into unisex facilities, a move its leader defends as compliant. It’s no surprise: Wiltshire’s Council’s cabinet includes a vocal transgender activist. The Liberal Democrat group even put forward a motion to try to undermine the rights of women to single-sex spaces which was thankfully amended by the Conservatives.
Meanwhile, Bristol City Council has taken to relabelling its facilities ‘trans inclusive’ rather than ‘female only’, a form of words that preserves the practice of denying women single-sex spaces.
Two women who questioned this from the public gallery were banned from council meetings for six months “as a consequence of their intimidating behaviour”, according to a statement from the council. The two women in question are now pursuing a judicial review.
These are only a few of the more egregious examples, but they illustrate something wider. Radical trans activism in our region is not confined to the big cities. Councils, hospital trusts and universities have each, independently, undermined the rights of those who want single-sex spaces and prioritised culture warriors over the law.
They hide behind reviews and consultations in an attempt to carry on as if the 16th April 2025 never happened.
But it did happen.
This is not correlation; it is causation, but it should come as no surprise. After all, the Liberal Democrats either control or are the largest party in Wiltshire, Somerset, Devon, Cornwall, Bath and North East Somerset, Dorset, Cotswolds and Gloucester City. Bristol City Council is run by the Greens.
Sir Ed Davey has called on the Government to withdraw official guidance which states that men should be barred from female lavatories and changing facilities, demanding the EHRC’s guidance be withdrawn because it is ‘not fit for purpose.’
Just look at the names of those MPs who have signed the EDM calling on Parliament to ‘disapprove’ of the EHRC’s Code of Practice. It features the names of 17 out of the 22 Lib Dem MPs who represent constituencies in the South West. The party also banned Liberal Voice for Women from having a presence at party conferences until they were threatened with legal action.
If residents of the South West wish to know where its public bodies’ priorities actually lie, it need look no further than the contrast between those who are trying to swerve or even rewrite the law and those who want women to be safe and respected.
Kemi Badenoch, by contrast, marked the ruling’s first anniversary by ordering Conservative-run councils to draw up plans which prohibit biological men from entering women’s facilities and pledging to compel every council in the country to do the same if elected.
Her advocacy on these issues is one of the reasons I backed her to lead this party. She has always been driven by biology, not ideology; by common sense, not culture wars.
Anyone who wants women’s and girls’ sex-based rights to be respected has only one choice at the next election
Annabelle Sanderson was a Conservative candidate in the 2025 local elections. She previously served as UKIP’s Head of Media.
Since the Supreme Court’s ruling on the 16th April 2025, publicly funded institutions across the South West have declined, delayed or quietly worked around the law on sex.
The region does not have a monopoly on this refusal to comply with the law; the same pattern is almost certainly replicated elsewhere in the country. But here, the pattern is remarkably consistent.
Readers of this site will not need reminding that the Supreme Court ruled, in For Women Scotland Ltd v The Scottish Ministers, that the terms “man”, “woman” and “sex” in the Equality Act 2010 refer to biological sex, and that a Gender Recognition Certificate does not alter a person’s sex.
However, 16 months on, and some weeks after the Equality and Human Rights Commission’s statutory code came into force, we are seeing institutions quietly deciding that the law does not apply to them. And since they provide public services, they are denying residents, and predominantly women, those safeguards.
Cornwall Council pursued an independent Councillor, Dulcie Tudor, after she asked the council’s Liberal Democrat leader whether a trans woman is a woman. Naturally, the Leader dodged the question. It’s no wonder that many women in the Liberal Democrats feel alienated from their own party’s dogmatic adherence to the fallacy that a man can pop on a frock and magically become a woman – although I do concede that it takes balls for a six foot strapping chap to pull off a pink cardie.
The council then commissioned a barrister, at public expense mind you, to investigate an elected member for stating what the Supreme Court had already confirmed. In February this year, the barrister concluded that her remarks were protected political opinion.
No action was taken but the costs were incurred, and they fell on Cornish taxpayers.
Despite its political differences with Councillor Tudor on many matters of policy, the Cornwall Conservative group supported Dulcie fully. They also ran an online petition calling on the council to respect sex-based rights, which has gathered more than 5,000 signatures from Cornwall residents thus far.
Moving up the country, the Royal Devon University Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust’s guidelines instruct staff that ‘trans identifying’ patients should be accommodated on single-sex wards ‘according to their gender identity’. Devon Partnership NHS Trust’s guidance similarly states that transgender people ‘must be able to use the facilities of their preferred gender while admitted’.
It should be a matter of common sense and common decency that women and men should be on single-sex wards. It was a former Liberal Democrat, now Conservative Peer, Emma Nicholson, who relayed the appalling story of a woman who said she was raped while in hospital. She reported it to the police but, said Baroness Nicholson, the police spoke to the hospital, and the hospital informed police that there was no male in the hospital, therefore “the rape could not have happened.“
CCTV footage subsequently proved that the rape did, in fact, happen.
Devon County Council still says it is “awaiting updated and final guidance” from the regulator before revising its own instructions; ignoring the law dressed up as diligence.
The University of Bath tells students plainly that ‘you are entitled to use toilets for the gender you identify with.’ Guidance has not changed despite the university saying, since August last year that it is “under review”. There is no need for a review – the law is clear.
Men and women deserve single sex-spaces, particularly when those spaces, such as lavatories, changing rooms and hospital wards are where people are at their most vulnerable.
Wiltshire Council’s chosen response was to relabel single sex staff toilets at County Hall into unisex facilities, a move its leader defends as compliant. It’s no surprise: Wiltshire’s Council’s cabinet includes a vocal transgender activist. The Liberal Democrat group even put forward a motion to try to undermine the rights of women to single-sex spaces which was thankfully amended by the Conservatives.
Meanwhile, Bristol City Council has taken to relabelling its facilities ‘trans inclusive’ rather than ‘female only’, a form of words that preserves the practice of denying women single-sex spaces.
Two women who questioned this from the public gallery were banned from council meetings for six months “as a consequence of their intimidating behaviour”, according to a statement from the council. The two women in question are now pursuing a judicial review.
These are only a few of the more egregious examples, but they illustrate something wider. Radical trans activism in our region is not confined to the big cities. Councils, hospital trusts and universities have each, independently, undermined the rights of those who want single-sex spaces and prioritised culture warriors over the law.
They hide behind reviews and consultations in an attempt to carry on as if the 16th April 2025 never happened.
But it did happen.
This is not correlation; it is causation, but it should come as no surprise. After all, the Liberal Democrats either control or are the largest party in Wiltshire, Somerset, Devon, Cornwall, Bath and North East Somerset, Dorset, Cotswolds and Gloucester City. Bristol City Council is run by the Greens.
Sir Ed Davey has called on the Government to withdraw official guidance which states that men should be barred from female lavatories and changing facilities, demanding the EHRC’s guidance be withdrawn because it is ‘not fit for purpose.’
Just look at the names of those MPs who have signed the EDM calling on Parliament to ‘disapprove’ of the EHRC’s Code of Practice. It features the names of 17 out of the 22 Lib Dem MPs who represent constituencies in the South West. The party also banned Liberal Voice for Women from having a presence at party conferences until they were threatened with legal action.
If residents of the South West wish to know where its public bodies’ priorities actually lie, it need look no further than the contrast between those who are trying to swerve or even rewrite the law and those who want women to be safe and respected.
Kemi Badenoch, by contrast, marked the ruling’s first anniversary by ordering Conservative-run councils to draw up plans which prohibit biological men from entering women’s facilities and pledging to compel every council in the country to do the same if elected.
Her advocacy on these issues is one of the reasons I backed her to lead this party. She has always been driven by biology, not ideology; by common sense, not culture wars.
Anyone who wants women’s and girls’ sex-based rights to be respected has only one choice at the next election