Labour won’t close biological sex ‘loophole’ in Equality Act

[IwantToRetire]

The Government will not carry forward plans to rewrite the Equality Act 2010 that were aimed at protecting single-sex spaces, the Minister for Women and Equalities has confirmed.

Anneliese Dodds said there were no plans to update the existing legislation, which the Conservatives had promised to reform ahead of the general election.

The Tories planned to rewrite the Act in order to make it clear that “sex” in the legislation means “biological sex” instead of the gender with which a person identifies.

This would have allowed public bodies to stop transgender women entering women’s lavatories or changing rooms, as well as preventing them joining all-female sports teams.

Baroness Falkner of Margravine, the chairman of the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), is among those who have argued the Equality Act should be updated.

Lady Falkner said this would help clarify the balance between women’s rights and trans rights as well as reducing the need to refer to court rulings, sometimes by “activist judges”.

“There are easier ways to do things and I think sometimes Parliament does have to assert its own primacy in terms of the legislation that it has passed,” she told The Telegraph in March.

But Labour is standing by its plans to make it easier to change gender by “modernising” the Gender Recognition Act (GRA).

Transgender people are currently required to submit evidence they have lived as their preferred gender for two years so that they can obtain a gender recognition certificate.

Labour is instead expected to replace this requirement with an effective cooling-off period that would last for the same amount of time, while scrapping a panel of doctors and lawyers in favour of a single specialist doctor.

This is NOT the whole article, ie there are other points made.
See https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/09/08/labour-wont-close-biological-sex-loophole-in-equality-act/

Can also be read at https://archive.is/n7Naw

And as the new Chair of the Women and Equalities Committee will be full on TWAW and No LGB without the T, we can safely assume Labour is planning to annihilate women's sex based rights.

Women know your place.

Everyone elses issues will always take precedent over women.

Just stand quietly at the back of the queue.

Well it’s disappointing, but not surprising.

The Labour Party more or less successfully avoided scaring the chickens in the run up to the election and, now they have a stonking majority, will do what everyone (paying attention) knew they would.

It's exactly what they said they would do, so no suprise.

Yep, Labour is doing exactly what they said they would do - just as we have started to get some momentum going the other way. I’m not particularly optimistic about the next 5 years

If I've understood this correctly, the Sex Matters Technical Briefing for MPs suggests that either the EA or the GRA could be amended.

There is no need to rewrite the Equality Act. The most recent guidance from the Office of the Parliamentary Counsel suggests a simple one-line amendment that could be used: 18 “Section 9(1) of the Gender Recognition Act 2004 is to be disregarded for the purposes of construing this Act.” Alternatively, an amendment could be made to the Gender Recognition Act: “The fact that a person’s gender has become the acquired gender under this Act does not affect their sex for the purposes of the Equality Act 2010” Both amendments would have the same effect. It would mean that for the purposes of the Equality Act a person’s sex would clearly refer to their actual sex, whether they have a gender-recognition certificate or not. It can be done within primary legislation or through secondary legislation using the power provided by Section 23 of the Gender Recognition Act.
(My bold)

So if Labour won't change the EA, we have to encourage them to change the GRA in this way, when they 'modernise' it

So if Labour won't change the EA, we have to encourage them to change the GRA in this way, when they 'modernise' it
Sorry, but that's delusional. Why the heck, post-election, would they listen?

Part of what is so disgusting is this casually slipping this information out.

At the moment the Labour Party is now yards ahead of the Tories, with only a few weeks in power, of acting in a high handed undemocratic way.

For those who dont remember, there were 2 petitions on the Parliament web site. Each had enough signatures to ensure a response and in fact a meeting.

ie as part of a democratic process a meeting was held, and the result of that was that the then Government said there would be further investigation.

So any decent Government made up of people who actually believe in democracy would at the least say they have removed whatever further work was done as a result of the meeting and then explain why not.

Why is everybody just going, oh they said they would do it.

Where did they say they would do it.

The meeting clearly showed that there were some Labour MPs who thought the EA should be ammended.

And the outcome of a democratically called public meeting of the countries political representatives were told there would be further work.

It seems that those who got all het up about the Tories acting as though they could by pass normal procedures seem to think it is okay when Labour is doing it.

If after all that campaigning by any number of groups, MPs and petition signers, posters of FWR just shrug there shoulders makes you wonder what the point of this board is.

For some reason someone started another thread.

Anneliese Dodds must listen to women

The centuries of male dominance and sexism that the Sex Discrimination Act sought to combat did not suddenly vanish with the passing of the law. There continue to be men determined to cheat women and to harass, belittle and abuse them. The #MeToo movement is still exposing this more than 50 years later.

Now girls are told to bite their tongues and “be kind”. They are told to accept and celebrate the sexist idea that men who wear makeup, have long hair and wear dresses – and worse still, who do this as a sexual fetish – are women, and that women and girls have no right to their own privacy, spaces, sports, data or language.

https://sex-matters.org/posts/updates/anneliese-dodds-must-listen-to-women/

There've been a few moments lately when the thought has crossed my mind, was I wrong to not vote Labour? After all, they're bound to do 'some' good things. Then I see a thread like this...

Im shocked that people are surprised by this. Starmer has been telling us for a long time he supports trans ideology and giving more men access to womens and girls spaces.

He isnt going to support safeguarding until he is forced to do so.

They always said they would amend the GRA, not the EA. So this is still "on message".

Thought I wouldn't need to roll this out again, but

"We need to recognise that sex and gender are different – as the Equality Act does. We will make sure that nothing in our modernised gender recognition process would override the single-sex exemptions in the Equality Act. Put simply, this means that there will always be places where it is reasonable for biological women only to have access. Labour will defend those spaces, providing legal clarity for the providers of single-sex services."

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/jul/24/labour-will-lead-on-reform-of-transgender-rights-and-we-wont-take-lectures-from-the-divisive-tories

As usual totally misses the point.

ie not taking into account Parliament petitions leading to a discussion by MPs. The conclusion of this ie the House of Commoons via a meeting called as laid out in the petition procedures, was that further discussion was needed and a report would be issued.

But if the implications are that Labour MPs have no committment to democracy and see being an MP and a Government to abuse the system to impose their personal beliefs, then yes I agree.

Far from the Tories being the nasty party we see that Labour is the real nasty party, and think their own delusion of virtue means then can to what they want.

ie their politcal practices are as mature as the days of their first year student union.

Eh? The party is elected on the basis of their manifesto. The updates to the GRA and protection of the EA was in their manifesto.

A new government follows its manifesto, not what was decided by the last lot. That is democracy

Thought I wouldn't need to roll this out again, but

Talk is cheap, Cassie, Now the govt. has to judged by its actions.

I think a lot of what they are doing is performative.

ie there are interests groups they are appeasing.

But hey, this is only social media, why be so mundane as to talk about proper democratic processes.

The government is not completely wrong to say that the existing law permits single-sex provision (excluding even GRC-holders) by way of exemption.

What neither they nor the previous administration has explained is how institutions are going to be forced to use the exemptions, when it's so much easier (and cheaper) for them to be all inclusive and gender neutral and blah blah.

Lack of single-sex provision is actually illegal, because of the discriminatory effect on women and religious minorities. We shouldn't have to keep going to court to stop this law-breaking.

How about a cross-bench working party? Other suggestions? I really don't think just tweaking the words of the law is enough.

I'm shocked, SHOCKED I tell you 🙄

Yes everybody knows this.

That is why there was, and hopefully still is a campaign to ensure that the word sex is legally defined as being the biological reality.

Because the "experiment" ie social engineering of the GRA creating a category of "legal women" means that as with everything else, men's rights take priority of women's rights.

That's why it is so disgusting that Labour who likes to paint itself as somehow more democratic and promoting equalies, have shown they far from being democratically appointed and accountable representatives, see being in power as imposing their belief systems on others.

If Les Streeting can use a Tory commission report to justify his actions, how come a non publicly appointed MP can arbitrate on women's rights is saying, who care is there were petitions, who cares that MPs who do listen to their constituents met to discuss this as a result of Parliamentary sanction petitions and an agreement that more work needed to be done of changes to the EA, can just say its not going to happen.

Its not just that Labour dont care about women, but want to ingratiate themselves with younger voters, and just like pensioners, think women who are frightened as losing their sex based rights, are just irrelevant dinasours.

Labour is the new nasty party.

Labour is doing exactly what they were elected to do. If you want right-wing policies, vote for a right-wing party. Gender critical people got their wish with puberty blockers, at least.

Labour haven't been in power five minutes. And clearly, they've got a lot on their plate. I'm not wailing and gnashing my teeth just yet, but like I said, they will be judged by their actions, and I agree that the signs don't look too positive, despite their soothing words before the election.

It seems the simplistic days when right-wing governments enacted right-wing policies, and left-wing governments enacted left-wing ones, are now over.

I don't think that changing the definition of sex is the cure-all, as long as the protected characteristic of gender reassignment exists. Something more is needed.

You are dead right. The Labour party were pretty clear on what they would and wouldn't do. I think that they were slightly disingenuous in suggesting that the EA provides effective support for single sex spaces and services but nobody can accuse them of lying. Which is why I didn't vote for them.

I don't think that changing the definition of sex is the cure-all, as long as the protected characteristic of gender reassignment exists. Something more is needed.

Totally agree, but this was my response to how and if the SSE actually worked in practice.

Best and quickest solution is to annul the GRA and re-write and other laws that have been distorted by it.