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Katie Alcock is an unlikely heretic. For a decade she helped run Brownie and Girl Guide groups in Lancaster. Then she was expelled.
Girlguiding said she had violated its policies on equality and diversity. Her offence was to suggest that people born male who now say they are female should not automatically be welcomed by a female-only organisation and, for instance, share tents or bathrooms with girls.
In any other context, Alcock’s views would be uncontroversial. Organisations like Girlguiding have safeguarding policies to control interactions between girls and those whose male anatomy gives them the potential to be a threat to those girls. In any other context, Girlguiding would stand squarely behind Alcock.
So why, when the interests of transgender people are invoked, does Girlguiding seem to apply a different standard? It is far from alone. Universities, local councils, the BBC, and charities are among organisations where women who question policies intended to promote transgender equality fear sanction and dismissal.
A common concern is that measures intended to make life easier for people born male who now identify as women will have consequences for services and opportunities previously reserved for people born with female bodies.
Toilets come up with depressing frequency in this debate. Lots of organisations are adopting “gender neutral” bathrooms, or renaming their women’s toilets “gender neutral” to spare transgender people the awkward choice of whether to use the facility that aligns with their physical sex or their professed gender.
Yet what about women who aren’t happy sharing such spaces with biological males? Or who worry that opening up services reserved for women to male-born transwomen is unfair on women who have faced a lifetime of social and economic sexism?
I know women in half-a-dozen organisations, mainly public sector ones, who have such worries but say they don’t dare raise the issue for fear of violating diversity policies or of being accused of prejudice. The well-meaning drive to do better for transgender people can leave women feeling silenced. Strikingly, the organisations responsible pride themselves on being progressive, inclusive employers who would never dream of treating women so poorly in other circumstances. So how does this all come about?
This is a story of institutional capture and skilful lobbying. Many organisations embracing trans-inclusive policies do so in light of advice from trans-rights groups that don’t just provide workplace training, but also lobby politicians to change laws and policies to favour transgender people. There is nothing untoward about the activities of trans-rights groups such as Stonewall and Gendered Intelligence, but it is a fact that they are not neutral providers of objective advice on implementing equalities laws.
Such advocates can exert great influence, partly because the law on transgender rights is complex and messy. Even the language can baffle. Many public bodies routinely conflate “sex” and “gender”, which mean very different things in law. “Sex” denotes a person’s fundamental biology. “Gender reassignment” indicates a person is seeking to change the social role in which they live; crucially, no physiological change is required.
Imagine you are a public sector manager trying to navigate this social and legal minefield. An authoritative-sounding group advises you that failing to respect someone’s “gender identity” could breach equality laws, making no mention of your obligation to consider sex too. In the back of your mind is the knowledge that if you get this wrong, you could face a career-ending accusation of transphobia. Is it any wonder that so many organisations subscribe unquestioningly to trans-rights orthodoxy?
This is how a woman such as Katie Alcock finds herself having to sue Girlguiding to have her concerns take seriously. And all of this is possible because politicians have either refused to engage in the complex, emotive debate about sex and gender, or have simply signed up to the trans-rights orthodoxy without question or scrutiny. The results are bad for women and transgender people alike. In the absence of leadership, Katie Alcock’s case will not be the last.