Labour has banned trans women from the main hall at its women’s conference next year. That, at least, is how the news is being spun. What it really means is that men won’t be able to attend an event created for women to discuss policies which directly affect them. Biological males who claim to be women will still be allowed to attend fringe events at the conference and an evening reception, demonstrating how reluctant Labour still is to risk offending activists.

They’re already indignant about this half-hearted compromise, of course. Labour for Trans Rights denounced the decision as “terrible” and made the ludicrous claim that “trans members are being cut out of the democratic processes of the Labour Party.” In reality, there’s nothing to stop anyone who identifies as trans attending party meetings, knocking on doors or standing for election.

What they can’t do is muscle in on events for women. Trans activists have been indulged by Labour, however, with the party taking the extraordinary step of cancelling this year’s women’s conference after a Supreme Court judgment confirmed in April that “women” in the Equality Act 2010 means biological women. That was an attack on democracy, denying hundreds of women the opportunity to meet in a single-sex space because the leadership is scared of a handful of very entitled men.

Gender identity politics is so deeply embedded in Labour that the party has spent the eight months since the judgment trying to do as little as possible. Women and Equalities Minister Bridget Phillipson still hasn’t published new guidance on single-sex spaces drawn up by the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), allowing organisations to carry on breaking the law.

The EHRC’s outgoing chair, Baroness Falkner, has now launched a devastating attack on Labour’s record, accusing the party of “abandoning” women’s rights. Many women will agree with her claim in the Times that the leadership is “terrified” of Labour MPs who support self-ID. Indeed, the party’s squirming over who can attend the women’s conference is another example of its reluctance to face down activists, given that biological men should never have been admitted in the first place.

Labour could have taken the opportunity to break with the past, acknowledging that it fully supports the right of women in the party to meet in single-sex spaces. Instead, a spokesperson admitted that the decision to exclude trans-identified men had been taken “after a comprehensive legal review”. According to LabourList, it had considered other alternatives, including scrapping the 2026 women’s conference as well as this year’s.

Some of this is no doubt an attempt to send a signal to trans-supporting Labour MPs that the party leadership is being forced into decisions it really doesn’t want to take. The “judges made us do it” excuse won’t wash with women who are already sick of the party’s equivocation.

It’s also why it’s important to be clear about what’s going on. For the third time this week, we’re being told that trans women have been banned from something. No one should be taken in by this framing: the only people who have been excluded from Girlguiding, the Women’s Institute and the Labour women’s conference are biological males. And it’s the law, not principle, that’s driving this return to sanity.

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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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