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December 19, 2024 - 1:00pm
The Government has quietly broken another promise it made to women. Not the Waspi cohort this time, although that was bad enough. Now Anneliese Dodds, the laughably-titled Minister for Women and Equalities, has given a pat on the head to men who want to use women-only spaces. The announcement was sneaked out in a dry statement from the Government’s Office for Equality and Opportunity earlier this week, and amounts to nothing less than the acceptance of an informal policy of self-ID in shops, gyms and refuges.
The change is buried in a report on the way organisations interpret the single-sex exception in the 2010 Equality Act. Earlier this year Dodds’s predecessor as women’s minister, Kemi Badenoch, launched a call for evidence to discover whether public and private bodies were wrongly suggesting that people have a legal right to access single-sex spaces on the basis of self-ID. Badenoch takes a robust line on men who want to invade women-only spaces, but the responses have fallen into the hands of a government much more open to the unrelenting demands of trans activists.
According to Dodds, the replies indicate that some organisations are operating a policy of allowing men to access single-sex spaces which “correspond with their self-identified gender”. But, she argues that this is not a breach of the law so long as they don’t “incorrectly suggest that this is mandated by the Act”. Companies can allow men into women-only toilets and changing rooms, in other words, as long as they claim it’s their own policy and not based on the act.
It’s self-ID by the back door, as Sex Matters was quick to point out. “It’s a green light to any man who wants to get naked in front of women, in spaces that are supposed to be women-only,” the organisation declared on X yesterday. Dr Michael Foran, a leading expert on equality law, thinks it may not even be legal. “Important development on the govs [sic] position on single-sex services, suggesting it is lawful to operate a single-sex service on a mixed-sex basis determined by Self-ID,” he wrote online. “I don’t think this is correct,” he added with admirable restraint, pointing out that it might amount to indirect discrimination or harassment.
It certainly appears to break Labour’s manifesto commitment to uphold single-sex spaces. It also contradicts Keir Starmer’s insistence, during the general election campaign, that it’s “very important” to protect them. Does his government care? Not likely. Labour’s eagerness to suck up to Stonewall and PinkNews in Opposition hardly suggested the party could be trusted with women’s rights.
Even Labour’s most disillusioned supporters, however, did not expect so many announcements penalising women within months of the election. This week the Waspi women affected by changes in the state pension age, who were promised “fair and fast” compensation by Starmer when he was leader of the Opposition, were rewarded with a slap in the face. At least half a dozen members of his current Cabinet made similar pledges, which they’re now content to ignore.
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SubscribeLabour have broken their promises to everyone and everything as is their wont. The disheartening truth is that they’re just continuing on from 14 years of betrayal and lies from the Tories, and from Blair and co before that.
Although Reform have done little yet to convince me they have the means and competence to turn the ship around they simply cannot be worse than the saboteurs and traitors who have destroyed the UK over the past 30 years.
It’s bad, I agree. But here’s another take on this. Companies wishing to cave on the issue can no longer hide behind “we can’t do anything about it, guv, it’s the law”. They will now have to justify themselves when challenged (challenges which will surely come). This means they have to decide whether explicitly to align themselves with genderism at a time when it’s becoming less fashionable and less cost-free.
After the hysterical tone of the article your comment was a bit of good common sense. Thank you.
Companies are not being forced to toe any kind of line. What the author objects to is them not being forced to toe her line.
In formulating their own policy, companies could easily consult with employees and/or customers to see what their preferences would actually be. Or even seek out innovative ways to avoid conflict.
Did anyone really believe Labour on this issue? Unlike the WASPIs who were shamelessly courted and lied to (but I still believe shouldn’t be compensated) if there was a single woman who took Starmer at his word on allowing single-sex spaces then they are fools and deserve it.
They are a sad shower of a political party. They are closest in spirit to Trudeau’s rabble where there are murmurings that his party may become extinct like the Canadian conservatives once did.
I actually think that in the UK this is more likely of Labour than the Tories. The Conservatives can reinvent themselves but Labour risk being completely discredited by British culture aside from their trade union funders.
Hopefully the Waspi women will get their compensation. Sounds like they were very badly treated. Maybe men will be allowed to identify as women and get compensation too.
If I self-ID as a member of Parliament, can I have all the benefits that MPs are entitled to? Including subsidised dining?
In Switzerland they put issues of this kind to the public in the form of a referendum. It’s a shame we don’t do this more in the U.K.