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.

Labour used to be the party of equality. Now, it’s notorious for a series of broken promises. Starmer’s own problem with women has long been evident, but this latest in a series of betrayals suggests his government is happy to treat them with contempt too.

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Joan Smith is a novelist and columnist. She was previously Chair of the Mayor of London’s Violence Against Women and Girls Board, and is on the advisory group for Sex Matters. Her book Unfortunately, She Was A Nymphomaniac: A New History of Rome’s Imperial Women was published in November 2024.

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