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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

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Original poster

“It never occurred to us for one second that anybody would think of sex as anything other than biologically determined”

41 replies

IwantToRetire · 02/08/2026 22:03

As chairman of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, Phillips helped to shape the Equality Act 2010,which included protections from discrimination for people undergoing gender reassignment. He says he failed to anticipate the strength of the trans movement in subsequent years. “It never occurred to us for one second that anybody would think of sex as anything other than biologically determined,” he says. “It was an oversight on our part that you would get the rise of a movement based in fantasy. We never imagined that there would be people peddling the fantasy that you can just make up what sex you are. And it never occurred to me that people who make decisions on these things would be engulfed by this fantasy.

“The problem is that the grown-ups in the room have turned into cowards, and they are all running away from the fantasists. When I was a student, one of the things we fought for was that women could operate independently of men. Now, according to this new fantasy world, the one thing women cannot do is decide when they want to be separate from men. It’s not just outrageous, it’s insane.”

Just a couple of paragraphs in quite a long interview about many other issues: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2026/08/02/trevor-phillips-london-liberals-hated-britain/

Also https://archive.is/WF0sD

OP posts:
GlosGirl82 · 02/08/2026 22:08

I could not LOVE this more - says correctly exactly what is going on. Reminds me of the Monty Python scene in Life of Brian where one of the MEN wants the right to give birth to a baby…

RogueFemale · 02/08/2026 22:33

So good to see sanity having a thorough airing.

Lins77 · 02/08/2026 22:33

Wow, strong words! And true, of course. Well said.

DisappearingGirl · 02/08/2026 23:00

We never imagined that there would be people peddling the fantasy that you can just make up what sex you are.

Brilliant. Absolutely spot on. I actually didn't know who chaired the EHRC at the time of the Equality Act 2010. That's fantastic that he has said this, and so clearly.

RedToothBrush · 02/08/2026 23:17

Trevor Phillips understands rights.

Which is good given his previous job. It shows up the fuck wits today.

CrumbocalypseNow · 02/08/2026 23:26

Why didn't all those who were part of putting together the Equality Act speak out right at the start when it was misinterpreted in the first place? When it has been clear that parliament were being ridiculous on the matter? It's been over a decade of this craziness to the point it's so entrenched it's a nightmare to unpick even with the Supreme Court Ruling. Surely if they'd spoken up then, someone would have listened?

Screamingabdabz · 02/08/2026 23:58

Legend.

RogueFemale · 03/08/2026 00:00

CrumbocalypseNow · 02/08/2026 23:26

Why didn't all those who were part of putting together the Equality Act speak out right at the start when it was misinterpreted in the first place? When it has been clear that parliament were being ridiculous on the matter? It's been over a decade of this craziness to the point it's so entrenched it's a nightmare to unpick even with the Supreme Court Ruling. Surely if they'd spoken up then, someone would have listened?

Edited

This.

OldCrone · 03/08/2026 00:12

CrumbocalypseNow · 02/08/2026 23:26

Why didn't all those who were part of putting together the Equality Act speak out right at the start when it was misinterpreted in the first place? When it has been clear that parliament were being ridiculous on the matter? It's been over a decade of this craziness to the point it's so entrenched it's a nightmare to unpick even with the Supreme Court Ruling. Surely if they'd spoken up then, someone would have listened?

Edited

Trevor Phillips has been speaking out against this for years. This is from 2018.

https://www.thetimes.com/comment/article/trans-extremists-are-putting-equality-at-risk-fjv8skwz0

Archive link.
https://archive.ph/dy1bE

Imnobody4 · 03/08/2026 00:54

I have a lot of respect for him. He was thrown out of Labour for a while over accusations of Islamophobia.
He's a man of integrity.

Original poster
IwantToRetire · 03/08/2026 01:30

CrumbocalypseNow · 02/08/2026 23:26

Why didn't all those who were part of putting together the Equality Act speak out right at the start when it was misinterpreted in the first place? When it has been clear that parliament were being ridiculous on the matter? It's been over a decade of this craziness to the point it's so entrenched it's a nightmare to unpick even with the Supreme Court Ruling. Surely if they'd spoken up then, someone would have listened?

Edited

From earlier threads on here and discussion elsewhere he may well have thought this but they farmed out the writing of the legislation to young eager Labourites. One of them even boasted about how the writing of the section on single sex exemptions was (in effect) a way of starting the process to maybe at a later date shift the balance of the protected characteristic of sex away from biology to identity.

Just think about it for a moment. Those who had not been "queered", ie people like Phillips of course just assumed sex meant biology. But what is most significant is that rather then writing the SSE to say that yes of course sex was biology, they actually turned it round so that is most instances a GRC would make legal sex the same as actual sex. And only in rare "proportionate" occasions would sex be allowed to be just biological sex.

Anyone who thought like Phillips and most of the world would have made the exemptions the other way round. ie single sex would of course be based on biology, and only on a very few, if at all occasions, would a GRC say that legal sex would be equal to biological sex.

And without saying there were actual secret briefings about this, there is absolutely no doubt that the wording of that part of the EA has been the trojan horse.

Because I am so bad with names I am not going to post any name, but I remember that there was a thread about how she explained this on the C5 show with the stupid and arrogant man who also has a BBC show. And for a while there was a clip of her saying this on the show's facebook page. But it got taken down.

Just think about. Why else would it have needed to be spelt out that if women support services were really good they would be allowed to have the right in a few instances of biological women only services. In the normal world it would have of course been obvious, natural that women only would be those born female.

Sex is the only protected characteristic in the EA that has another protected characteristic undermine it. The Judge in the Supreme Court ruling pointed it out, and it was partly because of this discrimination against the characteristic of sex that the ruling was made.

It has come up on threads recently but it was really common at one time that many of FWR said that repeal of the GRA was the only thing that would protect women's sex based rights.

I certainly cant see this impingement of women's sex based rights being taken out of the EA.

OP posts:
Original poster
IwantToRetire · 03/08/2026 02:06

Just to say I have found the thread I was talking about but the JV show link is no longer active https://www.channel5.com/show/jeremy-vine/season-2023/episode-27 where one of the panelists was Ayesha Hazarika

AI blames Harriet Harman not a relatively junior Spad, quote:

Trevor Phillips, the first Chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), and other early architects conceived the Equality Act 2010 strictly as an anti-discrimination framework to protect distinct, neatly defined, and immutable characteristics. 1, 2]

This deep division demonstrates that the Equality Act was not born out of a singular, harmonious vision. Instead, it was shaped by an intense tug-of-war between the original, biologically grounded anti-discrimination architects like Phillips, and a younger wave of political advisers whose ideological intent was ultimately struck down as unworkable by the UK's highest court. src="https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/2K6n0I5BEPI" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen> 1]

OP posts:
TheSandgroper · 03/08/2026 02:41

I read or heard recently an interesting with one of the Yogyakarta conference attendees. And he said “lesbians in any shape, form or effect upon never once entered our heads”. Which says it all, really.

@CrumbocalypseNow if you care to read the Parliamentary Papers leading to the development of the UK Discrimination Act, you will provide find plenty of submissions detailing the effects that GRA would have on women. That’s certainly the case in Australia when Julia Gillard changed our SDA.

But women get ignored. That’s all there is to it. Any submissions were unlikely to have been brought to the attention of the Minister or Prime Minister for consideration so they have perfect deniability (per Julia just recently 😡)

SodThisHeadache · 03/08/2026 06:55

He's a good bloke, Phillips.

Used2 · 03/08/2026 08:41

CrumbocalypseNow · 02/08/2026 23:26

Why didn't all those who were part of putting together the Equality Act speak out right at the start when it was misinterpreted in the first place? When it has been clear that parliament were being ridiculous on the matter? It's been over a decade of this craziness to the point it's so entrenched it's a nightmare to unpick even with the Supreme Court Ruling. Surely if they'd spoken up then, someone would have listened?

Edited

Yes good point. He has spoken out a lot but maybe not soon enough. Perhaps he steered Baroness Falconer in the correct direction behind the scenes. She was a LibDem peer who was not captured by her party's nuttiness and suicidal empathy for a made up ideology.

Used2 · 03/08/2026 08:42

SodThisHeadache · 03/08/2026 06:55

He's a good bloke, Phillips.

He spoke out about DEI having gone too far as well which as a black man, he can lol.

Shedmistress · 03/08/2026 08:44

GlosGirl82 · 02/08/2026 22:08

I could not LOVE this more - says correctly exactly what is going on. Reminds me of the Monty Python scene in Life of Brian where one of the MEN wants the right to give birth to a baby…

The fact it WAS a Monty Python sketch should have been pause for thought. Maybe he should have read up on some feminist literature that was saying this decades ago?

Used2 · 03/08/2026 08:51

You can be sure Starmer et Al always understood, ditto Blair who was PM when the ridiculous GRA 2004 was passed. Starmer blatantly lied about what a woman was and Blair the Catholic convert kept eerily quiet. The Catholic Church is the only institution which has not capitulated but is hardly a bastion of women's rights for other reasons. Other EU countries and NZ Australia etc have quietly abolished sex in favour of gender identity in law, so those wanting a single Brexit benefit, here it is, that ability to resist gender identity ideology in law. It was Boris Johnson who eventually and belatedly steered Tories away from May's suicidal empathy for T rights.

RedToothBrush · 03/08/2026 09:01

Surely Trevor is a far right extremist.

Oh wait no ..

...he's just sane.

There was me getting mislead by tropes in an unthinking moment.

OldCrone · 03/08/2026 09:04

Used2 · 03/08/2026 08:41

Yes good point. He has spoken out a lot but maybe not soon enough. Perhaps he steered Baroness Falconer in the correct direction behind the scenes. She was a LibDem peer who was not captured by her party's nuttiness and suicidal empathy for a made up ideology.

Show quote history

He started speaking out about it in 2018 when
the changes to the GRA were proposed. How much earlier do you think he should have done anything, and would anyone have paid attention to it before all the TWAW nonsense started?

Baroness Falkner is an intelligent woman who was quite capable of seeing the trans nonsense for what it is without needing a man to "steer her in the right direction".

Used2 · 03/08/2026 09:12

OldCrone · 03/08/2026 09:04

He started speaking out about it in 2018 when
the changes to the GRA were proposed. How much earlier do you think he should have done anything, and would anyone have paid attention to it before all the TWAW nonsense started?

Baroness Falkner is an intelligent woman who was quite capable of seeing the trans nonsense for what it is without needing a man to "steer her in the right direction".

Show quote history

Also a good point but I am seriously impressed by her and merely trying to help Phillips. I am daft enough to credit Boris Johnson with presiding over her appointment and ultimately I think the rot started with Cameron in coalition with the LibDems and then I check myself and realise it has happened across the western world so there must be a conspiracy somewhere behind all the madness. It is bewildering that you could lose your job for daring to state that human beings cannot change sex.

Pingponghavoc · 03/08/2026 09:26

Not Phillips, but I think a lot of the people claiming to have had a hand in writing the EqA arent telling the whole truth about its intent.

The EqA doesnt suggest that a person with the PC of GR be treated as if they'll were the opposite sex. Given that GR includes 'proposing to undergo', it wouldnt make any sense.

The confusion has always been about the GRC. But even that doesn't require anything more than a diagnosis and 2 years worth of identification. So its not given that including a man with a GRC would be compatible with SSE.

SSE exist for a reason. If men were to be allowed to use women's SSE, women may not use it, defeating its purpose.

Think of a women only swim session to encourage female health. If men were admitted, the target demographic - women who dont want mixed sex swimming, wouldnt attend.

The PC of GR allows for trans only swimming sessions. The PC of sex allows for female only sessions.

The activists who claim the PC of GR make men into women aren't being realistic. The only way it could happen is if criteria for PC of GR be very limited, more so than what's needed for a GRC.

Pingponghavoc · 03/08/2026 09:32

Used2 · 03/08/2026 09:12

Also a good point but I am seriously impressed by her and merely trying to help Phillips. I am daft enough to credit Boris Johnson with presiding over her appointment and ultimately I think the rot started with Cameron in coalition with the LibDems and then I check myself and realise it has happened across the western world so there must be a conspiracy somewhere behind all the madness. It is bewildering that you could lose your job for daring to state that human beings cannot change sex.

Show quote history

I think it was Theresa May who pushed this in the coalition/tory government. She was was minister for equalities in 2010.

But as you say, this is everywhere.

Rightsraptor · 03/08/2026 09:35

I knew I'd heard Phillips say this but it's very good to have it written down.

ParsleySageToiletDuckAndBinBags · 03/08/2026 09:52

It's insane that Trevor is in the tiny minority who are confidently speaking common sense, and sticking to it without being willing to be gaslit.

The problem is with the group of men who just will not accept being told No. If the facts make it clear that they can't get what they demand, they simply rewrite the 'facts'.

It's bonkers that people have been forced to specify biological sex, when it's always been obvious, even to little children, what a man is and what a woman is. But when people are forced into specifying this, their response is just to either claim that biological sex is a matter of (bigoted) belief and not scientifically settled at all; or otherwise they just come right out and claim that they are biologically female, as though their claiming something magically makes it true.

It's all a case of working backwards from the avowed entitlement to whatever they want and then twisting words and meanings to 'prove' anybody who doesn't roll over and let them take whatever they want as 'wrong'.

Even with the definitions of sex and gender: they mean the same thing when it suits them; but they're completely different things when that furthers their agenda... and we're all somehow meant to know and bow to this. Ironically, if they consider that you have been 'assigned wrong' (whether at birth or not), there is nothing of value or truth that you could ever possibly say.

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