Labour tears itself apart over trans rights as biological man 'breaks party rules' and stands to become women's officer

[IwantToRetire]

Labour has become embroiled in a fresh row over trans rights after activists put forward a biological man to be the women's officer for an LGBT+ group.

The Trans Rights Alliance, a newly formed organisation seeking to change Labour's approach to gender issues, has put forward a number of candidates for election on July 19.

One of them includes Steph Richards - a transgender woman in possession of a gender recognition certificate - who is standing for women's officer.

However, a gender critical group within the party, Labour LGB, said the move breaks party rules by 'putting a man forward to be a women's officer'.

Sharing the list of candidates, the group posted on X: 'Many people say that trans ideology is a men's rights movement.

'The "Trans Alliance" (seeking to take over the once-great LGBT+ Labour) has set out to prove this.

'Also breaking party rules by putting a man forward to be Women's Officer.'

Continues at https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14887747/Labour-trans-rights-biological-man-women.html

I can’t actually see where it says the women’s officer has to be a woman. However, the Labour Women’s Network and the Jo Cox Leadership fund have to exclude men, however they identify, otherwise they would be in breach of the Equality Act.

@fromorbit "Also note the Trans Rights Alliance slate of 14 is made up of 12 biological males including two males standing for each co-chair position, and only two actual women and only one ethnic minority. The current committee in contrast has about 7 real women on it and two minority people."

😬

LGBT+ Labour has been critical of Labour on: puberty blockers, the Cass report and self-id; their stance toward the SC ruling is defiance, and they've been hectoring on a conversion therapy ban which it seems is not going to happen. NEC could disaffiliate them if they go too far. I wonder if they've made the calculus of at what point they prefer LGBT+ Labour pissing in rather than pissing out of the tent.

I said "If"

I don't have access to the regulatory documents of the committee in question. Maybe men and women are equally allowed to stand.

If there is no restrictions on who can be the women's officer and men are equally welcome to stand, then, as I also said, a man without a fetish fantasy that coopts women for his own pleasure would be a better rep than one with such a disregard for women's personal autonomy and freedom.

As far as I can see the post that Steph is standing for is not within a CLP but a Labour campaign, which, as others have said, is a membership organisation that includes both Labour Party Members and people allied to the campaign aims.

The LGBT+ Campaign website doesn't seem to give details of its own rules for committee elections, so we don't have enough information to judge whether Steph is breaking the rules.

However, what Steph says about the Equality Act isn't quite right (and neither is the related information on the LGBT+ Campaign website). Given the sheer size of the committee we can guess that there are over 25 members, so the Equality Act provisions definitely apply, eg Steph cannot be discriminated against in relation to relevant protected characteristics.

If the rules of that Campaign group say that anyone, with male or female on their birth certificate, can stand as Women's officer, then Steph and any other member can stand. My guess is that many people within and without the Party and/or the Campaign will find that surprising and will have things to say about it.

Big Development

Labour LGBT+ AGM on June 19th postponed. The statement issued claims this is due to legal uncertainty following the Supreme Court ruling i.e the males standing for women's positions in the AGM. The possibility of potential legal action played a part. Full details:

LGBT+ Labour suspends AGM amid fears of legal action over trans candidates running for women’s roles
https://labourlist.org/2025/07/news-labour-lgbt-agm-suspends-trans-rights-women/

The TRA are having a huge meltdown and claiming this is a plot against them. They were the ones who deliberately engineered the crisis. What did they think would happen? Getting the press to publish a tonne of articles about Labour being confused about who women are must have sent the Labour leadership into panic mode as they are desperate to avoid the issue. It looks like the TA overplayed their hand and it backfired.

Statement from

LabourLGB
Well the LGBT+Labour AGM gets cancelled. We would like to think we helped them to stay within the law. While they are reflecting on their organisation it might be worth sorting out a number of applications to join where subs have been taken from bank accounts but nothing heard since.

LesbianLabour
Looks like someone in UKLabour has had a word. We asked how many LGBs were members of LGBT+Labour and were told it’s very few, some left because it went the way of Stonewall, others had applied but were not accepted. Maybe UKLabour needs to take a closer look?

Trans Activists inside Labour have clearly scored a massive own goal.

This could have wider implications inside Labour and further supports the reality based agenda.

This seems to be similar to the situation engineered by the Tories ... deliberately bang your head against a law in an attempt to gain a "moral" platform to ignore it.

It's a right wing wet dream to have a(n even more) discretionary legal system

Brilliant news.

I love threads like this where we revisit the bad old days. Who would have thought Madigangate was only 8 years ago! How the turns have tabled since then. What gains we have made!

Whilst I am more than grateful that we have contributors ot FWR keeping us up to date, it is a real worry that UK based news outlets cant do their job.

Not claiming it should get as much coverage as for instance uncollected bins, but surely part of the purpose of political reporters is to track issues like this.

Even if only a footnote to some other Labour fiasco about whether words means what words mean when words are political.

Just being a bit nitpicky, but as someone who gets easily confused the meeting that has been postponed was going to happen on 19 July, not that it would have happened on 19 Jue. ie a recent action:

The AGM for the party’s affiliated socialist society for LGBT+ members was due to take place in north London on July 19, and the cancellation has prompted criticism from activists running on a pro-trans rights slate.
https://labourlist.org/2025/07/news-labour-lgbt-agm-suspends-trans-rights-women/

From the link upthread, statement from the TRA:

edit: sorry the screenshot didn't post. here's the alt text:

"This afternoon, LGBT+ Labour's leadership informed the National Committee that they'll be delaying the AGM to an unspecified date, on the justification that it's unclear whether trans people will be allowed to run as their own gender.

Make no mistake: the National Committee are doing this because they’re running scared and knew we would win a democratic vote next weekend. If they planned to make these changes to the elections, they would have done so before our slate was announced, not when our campaign was picking up steam.

It’s beyond disgusting that an LGBT+ organisation is willing to betray its trans members in such a fundamental way just to cling on to committee positions. It is not, however, a surprise: it simply confirms what we already knew about the cliquey, careerist and top-down way in which the organisation has been operating. LGBT+ Labour has failed to speak up for trans members, and is now content to deny their existence. We fully intend to contest LGBT+ Labour AGM..."

I never fail to gasp and laugh out loud at how horribly teenage and sullen every announcement sounds. How on earth did this ideology ever gain traction when it seems to be editorialised by a group of arsey schoolkids?

Sorry brain scramble moment wrote June for July.

Responding to the Trans Rights Alliance statement:

LabourLGB
Jul 11
The Labour TRAs are spitting feathers now and are going to contest the decision taken by LGBTLabour. Interesting that angelaeagle has said nothing yet, she is the patron of the first but cheerleader of the second, it’s always difficult when the children fall out.

Just a point about why this drama is significant. Right now Trans Activist MPs are trying to block Mary Ann Stephenson from becoming head of the EHRC because she has some pro-women views. Bridget Phillipson, the education secretary and minister for women and equalities is going to be the one deciding what to do. Developments like this where internal feuds make Labour look bad are good reasons for Phillipson to put Stephenson in charge because that will allow Labour to sideline the gender dramas and pretend everything is fine now because EHRC can take the blame.

It is pretty clear that significant figures in the Labour leadership want the gender wars over asp. They don't want to admit that anyone was hurt, or mistakes were made or anything like that. They just want to skip to the end because allowing Reform/Tories to use it as electoral issue in 2028/9 would be a disaster.

Thanks for your posts @fromorbit

No need to apologise, as the info was important. And as someone who constantly mis types I can sympathise. (Is there a word for typing
malapropisms?!)

It was really if any one was as slow as me working this all out, and trying to get the time line.

And you pass so well.

ETA hadn’t realised that had quoted a post from 5 days ago!