Transgender people could be banned from single-sex spaces based on how they are perceived by other people according to the Times. The newspaper reports seeing a copy of the Equality and Human Rights Commission’s transgender guidance that was handed to ministers in early September.
On April 16, the Supreme Court ruled that the meaning of the terms ‘sex’, ‘man’ and ‘woman’ in the Equality Act refer to biology. More than three months later, you might think that the Youth Hostels Association (YHA) – an organisation that provides single sex dormitories in hostels across England and Wales – would have reviewed their policies to ensure that they were consistent with the law.
The Supreme Court judgment on sex and gender was a welcome return to common sense. As far as the Equality Act is concerned, even Keir Starmer now knows that a woman is a biological female and a man is a biological male.
Kemi Badenoch is considering a change to the Equality Act 2010 that would restore the meaning of sex to what everybody once understood. I am a science teacher, so I know this. There are two sexes: male and female. Females produces large gametes called eggs while males produce small motile gametes called sperm. Science doesn’t care whether it happens in frogs, monkeys or people – sexual reproduction is a robust process that has been around for millions of years.
The omnishambles playing out in Scottish politics makes one thing clear: Nicola Sturgeon has no clue what she is doing when it comes to trans rights. The First Minister’s flagship Gender Recognition Reform Bill has hit the buffers. Now an ‘urgent review’ has been launched on an issue that hardly requires much common sense: that transwomen should not be housed in women’s prisons.
Gender identity ideology has had a profound impact on western society. The concept of an innate and immutable gendered essence — like a gendered soul, perhaps? — has displaced the reality of biological sex in law and policy, even compromising the meaning of words as basic as man and woman.
For saying that teachers shouldn’t pander to trans pupils, Suella Braverman has found herself in hot water. The Attorney General suggested in an interview with the Times that male pupils should not be able to use girls’ toilets, and that single-sex schools can indeed restrict admission to children of just one sex. These are hardly revolutionary ideas, but they appear to have upset the National Education Union.
Mermaids is one of Britain’s most controversial trans charities, yet its overarching aim is hard to fault. The organisation says it wants ‘to create a world where gender diverse children and young people can be themselves and thrive’. To that end, its goal is ‘to relieve the mental and emotional stress’ of transgender kids. Unfortunately that laudable objective is hard to square with what it tells vulnerable children who identify as transgender.
Since 2016, I have written over 200 pieces about the transgender debate. When I am not writing, I’m reading. I don’t restrict myself to authors I agree with; I’ve learned a lot from my political opponents. Recently, The National Wales published an opinion piece written by Leanne Wood.
Debbie Hayton