Trade unions ‘put women’s rights in jeopardy’ by supporting gender self-ID

The Trades Union Congress (TUC) has committed its 5.3 million members to campaign for gender self-identification.

The TUC, made up of 47 different member unions, passed a motion to “Oppose the EHRC Code of Practice” at its annual gathering, which involves campaigning to prevent single-sex spaces being segregated by biological sex in the UK.

The Code of Practice, which applies to services, public functions and associations, was recently updated to ensure compliance with the Supreme Court’s ruling that ‘sex’ in the Equality Act 2010 refers to biological sex.

Rewrite the law

Speaking at a fringe event of the TUC, Labour MP Nadia Whittome described the EHRC guidance as “as bad as it is possible to be”.

The MP for Nottingham East set out: “What we need is a change in the law so that the law properly protects the rights, privacy, and inclusion of trans people.”

However, the Shadow Minister for Women and Equalities, Joy Morrissey, said: “The court was extremely clear and Labour MPs and trade unions should be supporting its ruling, not seeking to undermine it.

“The Equality Act already protects gender reassignment and the Gender Recognition Act remains in force. The answer is not to rewrite the law simply because Labour MPs and their union paymasters dislike the clarity the Supreme Court has provided.”

Sex-based rights

Journalist Paul Knaggs criticised the TUC motion for not once mentioning the word ‘women’, writing: “It commits the entire trade union movement, nearly five and a half million working people, to campaign for the reintroduction of gender self-declaration into UK law. And it does so while treating the women whose legal protections are actually at stake as a subject too awkward to name.”

He added: “Every general secretary who backed this motion, or let it pass without a recorded objection, owes their women members a plain answer to a plain question: do you believe the Equality Act’s protection of sex-based rights for women is a settled matter, or a temporary inconvenience to be campaigned away?”

The political commentator continued: “If the TUC wants to campaign for trans self-declaration, it should have the courage to say so plainly, and the honesty to say plainly what that campaign would cost the women whose legal protections it is designed to reverse.”

Dismantle protections

Maya Forstater, CEO of women’s rights charity Sex Matters, remarked: “It’s extraordinary that union officials would put women’s rights in jeopardy by attempting to amend anti-discrimination law.”

She explained: “The Equality Act already protects people from being fired from work, turned down for housing or harassed because they are transgender.

“The only direction this can go is to dismantle vital protections for the sex-based rights of women and girls.”