Bridget Phillipson delivers Commons statement on Supreme Court's gender ruling

[IwantToRetire]

Bridget Phillipson, the Minister for Women and Equalities, is speaking to MPs about the 'For Women Scotland' Supreme Court ruling providing 'clarity' on the legal definition of a woman
https://news.sky.com/video/bridget-phillipson-delivers-commons-statement-on-supreme-courts-gender-ruling-13353841

Have not had time to listen and not sure if it is every thing she said.
Think this is the Parliament TV link https://www.parliamentlive.tv/Event/Index/8649ad2d-00b8-485d-ab0a-ce3be0799678

I hope it include Kemi Badenoch's reply as she didn't hold back!

Ooh thanks

I welcome what is being said, but she is attempting to rewrite history. She is speaking as if the Labour Party have always support SS spaces. It’s lie after lie. Do they think we are stupid.

Whose the women with the green top, short hair and glasses asking about Mermaids and Stonewall, Brava!

Nadia Whittome asking how removing trans women from women's toilets is proportionate and legitimate?

Bridget Philipson - businesses have to provide for ALL and can do so using unisex as well as single sex or enclosed spaces.

Watching now. Thank you 👍

I'm glad she referred to single sex spaces not safe spaces, and gender-questioning children not trans children - that's huge - but my goodness the brass neck of the woman who until recently insisted TWAW and that the law was clear all along! When asked a question about whether the ruling applied retrospectively, she turned it into a criticism of the Tories for not clarifying for "14 years".

Politicians are so disappointing - they always have try to score points. Pathetic.

Does NW never ask herself why it's so important for males who claim to be women to be in the toilets with her?

And where was BP until today? Oh yeh, saying men could use women's toilets! As Women's minister she should hang her head in shame except she hasn't got any shame!

Why are they so bothered about trans dignity when they weren’t bothered about the dignity of women? NPR about hate crimes towards women? Boils my piss they whoever it was brought intersex into their argument 🤬

I've had to stop watching, some of the MPs are driving me up the wall.

Anyway, well done BP, even though your hand was forced, at least you are accepting it gracefully and without caveat.

A lot of partisanship from both sides. Definitely a lot of rewriting history on the government side, but some of it on the Conservative side too.
It sounds like Nadia Whittome has misunderstood the SC judgment - she seemed to imply there needs be a proportionate reason for excluding TW from women's spaces. That's not my understanding.

Why are they so bothered about trans dignity when they weren’t bothered about the dignity of women?

Women winning at Employment Tribunals and winning six figure settlements paid for by the taxpayers can concentrate their minds wonderfully.

A clear question asked about Trade Unions’ statements about ignoring the law - BP dodged the question using nonsense party politics.

BP states they’re bringing forward the conversion ban bill and that it will be trans inclusive

When asked about trans people having to go to sex based loos and “out” themselves, BP said she “disagreed with the questions “ and then gave a slimy non-answer similar to that which women have been given for years… trans people must be free to go about their lives free of discrimination.

Basically for every question she spoke as though it was all fine and nothing to see here.

Duplicitous was the word that came to mind. They will have to be watched like hawks

I thought that too as above, NW's question suggested she has not understood the implications of the judgement, and what 'proportionate' means in this context. I hope MPs are not advising their constituents incorrectly.

BP rather seems not to want to be doing this session.

I’m shocked shocked I tell you that NW doesn’t understand the law & is talking nonsense

Hmmm, that conversion ban bill being “trans inclusive” sounds like a sop to try to appease. And super dangerous to just say that as a throw-away remark - that bill needs to die, before it results in more damage to gender questioning kids.

I agree - they need to be watched like hawks.

Thanks for this thread as I can't follow the debate. Has she said / has anyone asked whether the government are still committed to making it easier to get a GRC?

Edited to add that I can't see the point of their doing this now but I'd kind of like to see them admit as much. And if I'm wrong and there is still a point, then I'd be interested in hearing what it is.

I don’t think we heard from Kemi did we?

That's why I posted the Parliament TV as I hoped it would be on there.

She definitely spoke up.

No time now, but will try and find it if the link I gave doesn't include it.

I thought there was too much politicking in the end.

Some clear statements others just deflecting back by saying that Tories are worse.

Didn't answer whether women can have a penis. Obviously didn't want to be on record on that.

Didn't answer mention NHS or toilets / changing rooms in the list of places where single sex spaces are needed.

When the consultations come out we need to be on it.

Yes, BP and KB just spent the whole time arguing that their own party has always been in favour of exactly this and each tried to take credit that the SC confirmed what they had apparently been loudly and unequivocally saying all along…

It’s all very 1984.

Unusually, Kemi Badenoch, the Conservative leader, responded to Phillipson’s statement on behalf of the opposition. She was minister for women and equalities in the last government and often sounds more animated when talking about transgender issues than anything else.

She started with the customary thanks for advance sight of the ministerial statement. But she said it was “mostly a shameless work of fiction”.

She explained:

I could not believe my eyes or my ears this afternoon. In 2021 the prime minister said it is not right to say only women have a cervix. In 2022 he said it is the law that trans women are women. In 2023 he said, and I quote, “99% of women don’t have a penis”.

I know what a woman is, and I always have the people of this country know what a woman is. We didn’t need the supreme court to tell us that, but this government did - a Labour government so desperate to jump on a bandwagon that they abandoned common sense, along with the SNP, who put rapists in women’s prisons, and, of course, the Liberal Democrats.

She claimed that Tories fought for women at every point but that it faced “hostility from activist groups”.

She said that, when she was in government, she argued for sex to be defined as biological sex. And she said she blocked the SNP introducing from introducing “their mad self identity laws”.

David Lammy, the foriegn secretary, even described opponents of gender self-ID as dinosaurs, she said. She goes on:

Labour now says that they knew what a woman is and the transgender should use services and facilities designated to their biological sex. They’ve never said this before. This is a U-turn, but we welcome it. Now that we have legal clarity.

Badenoch said that Starmer should apologise to Rosie Duffield, the former Labour MP who quit the party because, she said, she was virtually ostracised for her gender critical views.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2025/apr/22/supreme-court-single-sex-provision-bridget-phillipson-uk-politics-latest-updates-news?filterKeyEvents=false&page=with%3Ablock-6807c7e08f0821bd49f8111f#block-6807c7e08f0821bd49f8111f

Labour MP Tonia Antoniazzi asked if the charities Stonewall and Mermaids will be held to account for the “damage” they have caused, and said she had witnessed a “lobby” push MPs into asserting that trans women are women.

Antoniazzi said: “Since I’ve been in this House, I have felt the force of the lobby which has made people and MPs across this House stand there and say that trans women are women.

“What happened last week was the Supreme Court said that sex in the Equality Act is actually biological sex. That, I welcome. But what is (Bridget Phillipson) going to do to deal with the types of damage, or the damage that Mermaids, and Stonewall have caused for a generation, that’s 14 years, under a Tory government.

“What steps is she going to take to make sure that they rectify the damage they’ve done to a generation of trans and gender questioning children?”

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2025/apr/22/supreme-court-single-sex-provision-bridget-phillipson-uk-politics-latest-updates-news?page=with%3Ablock-6807d6118f08881f19d8ab07#block-6807d6118f08881f19d8ab07

https://x.com/christiancalgie/status/1914723374678303111
Here's a clip from Kemi's speech

Kemi was on fire!!! Fabulously clear and wide-ranging.

I am not a Conservative but I do believe this is an issue she is personally passionate about, and that she genuinely will hold Labour (who I no longer trust) to account. I feel SO glad that she is Tory leader at this time, as I do not think that any of the others would have been half as powerful