Women & Equalities Committee 2.30pm Today, 9th June, Mary-Ann Stephenson Chair at EHRC giving oral evidence

[TheNoWord]

Work of the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) 20026-27 - Oral evidence, Mary-Ann Stephenson, Chair at Equality and Human Rights Commission and John Kirkpatrick, Chief Executive Officer at Equality and Human Rights Commission.

Considering the absolute balloons on this committee, it will be well worth a watch. Only Rosie Duffield and Rebecca Paul have any sense.

You can watch live on Parliament TV from 2.30pm

https://committees.parliament.uk/event/27280/formal-meeting-oral-evidence-session/

I'm going to hold you personally responsible for her election from now on. 😉

I lolled 👏

Fair enough. High dependency units are unlikely to be hives of sexual assault.

Absolutely not. They were there to grandstand, fIgHT the Evil Terfs, and be as hostile as possible to those with different views. MAS handled it very well, from what I saw - she was measured and engaged and didn't rise to the bait.

Yeah, it was high dependency neurosurgery, so very ill kids. There were definitely issues with lack of privacy for the older kids because everyone knew everyone's business, but the nurses couldn't even pop to the toilet in the night without getting cover to wait in the room as people needed constant observation. Shutting curtains was also severely restricted (getting changed, toileting/being washed or medical examinations only) for the same reason.

It's a bit of a segway though, but getting the care needed was the most important thing. The NHS doesn't have time or money to pander to people's wants when it's trying to meet everyone's needs.

Kevin Mckenna going on about hospital beds misses the point. My local hospital said it didn't tolerate mixed sex wards but the internal policy was to allow TIMs on to female wards. It is that dishonesty that I object to. I understand that sometimes it will be difficult to accomodate everyone's wishes but don't lie to me.

Who appointed these committees roles? Can they be removed? The bias is so obvious.

Don't they have a Speaker any more? I kind of miss Betty Boothroyd....

It's the WESC, they have a Chair. Unfortunately, this is Sarah Owens.

As was Rachel Taylor

TRA Reddit thinks MAS was a car crash. Amazing how different perceptions can be, depending on starting perspective.

Yes, they seemed to think her pausing before answering was a sign of confusion or that she didn't know what she was talking about, when in fact it's a sign of her refusing to be rushed and speaking calmly with confidence.

I suppose for people who just run off at the gob thinking before you speak is an alien concept, not surprising the poor darlings are wrong again. 😂

Exactly, a calm silence is an effective way of gaining control of a discussion. I'm unsurprised they don't realise this.

The day the TRAs finally realise that vacuous gesture politics isn't actually how things change, we will be in trouble.

Shhhhh.....

I've had a fairly swift response from my MP to the email I sent asking her why she'd signed a motion against the ECHR guidance.

In her automated office response to my original email it stated that she no longer signed such motions as she believed them to be a waste of time that achieve nothing.

She is a former member of the 'Socialist Campaign Group' within the Labour party and quite pally with Kate Osborne:

"Thank you for sharing your views and for taking the time to write to me on this important issue.

I appreciate that many women have strong concerns about the protection of single-sex spaces, services and categories, and I recognise the significance of the Supreme Court's judgment and the need for organisations to comply with the law as interpreted by the courts.

However, I also hear from many constituents who are concerned about the practical impact that changes to guidance and policy may have on trans people. My view is that these issues require a careful and balanced approach that protects women's privacy, dignity and safety while also ensuring that trans people are treated with respect and are protected from discrimination and harassment.

Please see below a letter I sent to Bridget Phillipson MP, Secretary of State for Education and Minister for Women & Equalities addressing a range of concerns"

11th May 2026

"Dear Secretary of State,

I have been contacted by a significant number of constituents who are concerned about the possible content of the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) Code of Practice on Services, Public Functions and Associations which you announced in a statement on 14th April that the government intends to lay before the House in May or as soon as possible thereafter.

The judgement by the Supreme Court in April 2025 in the case of For Women Scotland Ltd v The Scottish Ministers [2025] UKSC16 was greeted by the government as providing welcome clarity that the terms ‘man’, ’women’ and ‘sex’ in the Equality Act 2010 mean biological sex.

However, in the absence of statutory guidance it has remained unclear what practical steps service providers must take following that judgement. Initial guidance published in April by the EHRC on the implications of the judgement was subsequently withdrawn in October and was also the subject of a legal challenge.

It is perfectly understandable that the government will have wanted to get the guidance right in what is a complex and controversial area where opinions can be very sharply divided.

Nevertheless, many of the constituents who have written to me on this subject are concerned that the focus of the EHRC’s interim guidance was very much on the exclusion of trans people from services and activities.

The key question in the Supreme Court’s judgment was the intention of the Equality Act 2010 and it found that the definition of sex on which the Act was based was a biological one so that under the Act a trans woman (someone born as a man) would not be regarded as being biologically female even if they possessed a Gender Recognition Certificate.

I should stress that I believe that there might be very good reasons why some spaces should be kept separate for ‘biological’ women to protect their privacy, dignity and safety.

For example, I am very much aware of your own experience of running a refuge for victims of domestic abuse and I have also campaigned very strongly on the need for safe accommodation for victims of domestic violence where they can start to rebuild their lives.

There are other situations as well where the justification for providing separate spaces for ‘biological’ women seems relatively clear such as sharing a prison cell or a changing room where there are not lockable rooms.

Nevertheless, my constituents argue that there are other cases where the argument for the exclusion of trans people from single-sex services is much less clear, such as in the case of a walking or book club.

Even the issue of the arrangements for public toilets is not straightforward given the practical issues involved and was the focus of the legal challenge at the High Court over the EHRC’s interim guidance.

Trans people view the Supreme Court judgement against the background of the discrimination and harassment that many of them experience. Even when making allowance for changes in the way that crime is recorded, it is shocking that instances of hate crime recorded against transgender people more than doubled between 2017-18 and 2024-25 for example.

I strongly urge the government to take renewed action to tackle discrimination, hatred and bigotry against trans and non-binary people and to legislate to finally ban conversion practices aimed at transgender people which would give them greater confidence that the government takes trans rights seriously.

I make no claims to legal expertise, but I note that even before the Supreme Court judgement the Equality Act provided for access to same-sex services to be restricted in the case of trans people where that was ‘a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim’.

My constituents ask that the government adopts an approach in the Code of Practice that is workable and sensitive, focusing not just on circumstances where trans exclusion might be reasonable, but also setting out how service providers that wish to remain trans inclusive can do so.

The fact that it has taken so long to produce the Code of Practice suggests just how complex the issues involved are; we must safeguard both the right of women to safety and the right of trans people to be protected from discrimination and harassment. Neither blanket trans exclusion nor inclusion will properly do that"

"As you will see from the letter which I sent to the Secretary of State, I have urged the government to ensure that any Code of Practice is workable, proportionate and sensitive to the complexities involved. While I support legal clarity for service providers, I do not believe that either blanket exclusion or blanket inclusion provides an appropriate answer in every circumstance. Different settings may require different approaches, consistent with the Equality Act and the Supreme Court's judgment.

For that reason, I am joining colleagues in calling for the draft Code of Practice on Services, Public Functions and Associations to be disapproved via prayer motions in Parliament, as I believe further consideration is needed to ensure that the guidance strikes the right balance between protecting women's rights and safeguarding the rights and dignity of trans people.

I hope this helps to explain my position, even if we may not agree on every aspect of this issue"

What exactly is a 'workable' approach that both provides accessibility and provision for women who want and need single sex spaces in accordance with their legal rights and may not be able to access mixed sex spaces at all,

and yet still provides men with trans identities to have access to those single sex spaces?

What about the rights of women to have a women only book club because women there want spaces away from men or cannot use mixed sex groups?

Always, always, the main focus is on the men, and the women's rights are minimised if mentioned at all, and mostly only seen in terms of how they inconvenience men. The sexism is disturbing.

TBH, I couldn't be bothered go into great detail in my response to the above, but this was how i did respond.

The code of practice is entirely legal, proportionate and workable; and in fact most establishments are already implementing it. Take, as one example, the new Yoko Ono Auditorium at the University of Liverpool. It has installed, quietly and without fuss, an additional single occupancy 'gender neutral' facility alongside the single sex blocks - and this is sufficient to meet everyone's needs for dignity and privacy. All that is required in many large establishments is one additional accessible toilet or changing room. Most small establishments already have just single occupancy facilities and so are not impacted in any great way. It is vital that pubic institutions such as the NHS and local authorities abide by the ruling and do what is right by their female users,

The ECHR does not make the law, it simply issues guidance. I watched the Q &A session of the Women and Equalities Committee on Tuesday 9th June - with the ECHR, and I was appalled at the attitude and conduct of a number of MPs, including Labour MPs. They displayed open, personal hostility and a total refusal to engage in a mature and rational way. They compeletely failed to mention the rights and protections of women at any point in that session. Personally, I feel their behaviour and their abuse of parliamentary process merits discipline.

'Trans' people are either male or female like the rest of us. Single sex provsions are predicated on 'sex' not assumed 'gender identity' ( a recent construct). Women and girls have every right to expect that a facility that is designated as 'female only' is for female people only. Schools in the city of Liverpool, such as Chesterfieled High ( I am an ex teacher) which have flouted the requirements for single sex facilities in spending thousands of pounds on non compliant unisex toilets are breaking the law, and furthermore subjecting their pupils to unnecessary indignities. That organisations are having to be takien to court in order to ensure compliance is an affront to democracy and to the hard won proetctions enshrined in the Equality Act.

You have spoken about your trans identified constituents, but what about your female constituents, which is approximately 50% of them? I, and others, expect you to stand up for our established protections and not to sacrifice them on the altar of an ideology. The reason that Bridget Phillipson sat on the code for so long was entirely due to political expediency and to allay the outrage from members of her own backbenches - and when she finally produced it she managed to inject a clause ( which it has to be assumed she thought no-one would notice) which was entirely without legal basis ( and which will be challenged) purely to placate these activists. Your office response to my initial email was to say that you no longer sign such motions as you don't think they are effective. So, I have to wonder why did you choose to sign this one? These measures are purely obstructive and an abuse of process as far as I am concerned - and pay scant attention to legal rulings and what they imply.

For too long the Labour party tried to suppress the voices of people on this issue with the edicts of 'No Debate' and oft repeated mantra of 'TWAW'. In doing so the Labour party, including my own MPs, have alienated many former members and supporters. I don't recognise what the Labour party has become...subsumed in the americanised politics of identity and so called 'progressive' ideology. There is not a chance, going forward, that I will be voting Labour again, until it comes to its senses and starts to reflect the concerns and interests of the majority of the population.

Not to mention that once it's possible for men to be women sometimes, the salami slicer is in action. Case by case just means men win everything and women are left where they are at the moment - with women's groups destroyed or driven under ground, lesbian groups, women's health groups. These men are all too often not a benign and harmless presence.

Workable approaches are already covered in both the original ruling and in the ECHR guidance, of course,

I'v also added to my response to my MP an example of the sort of 'inclusivity' she was so concerned to maintain.

Using the example of a book club, a walking group or a yoga session - if you want it to be 'inclusive' you should advertise it as being open for 'all/everyone'. But if you advertise or promote is as being for 'women only' then that is what it should be.

This is not complicated and has already been covered by the original Supreme Court Ruling and by the ECHR code of practice.

She hasn’t objectively thought about why a yoga group might legitimately exclude men, and whether that reason is nullified by a man thinking he’s a woman.

Great response to your MP, Shortshriftandlethal! Well said!

Am I going too far in suggesting that her letter was... not the worst I've ever seen? She did actually engage, and has put some thought into her reply - not that I agree with it, but it wasn't a knee-jerk brush-off [which sounds like something from professional wrestling😃].
Your response to her was thoughtful and well-argued, and who knows? it might actually make her think a bit more deeply..

Thank you so much for the Dennis Kavanagh summary, Arabella
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/2064415765986427208.html
It was so funny in places - the 'Rapid Onset Butch Lesbian Concern', and the 'professional Naomi Cunningham impersonator' had me lol-ing😂 but he was also devastatingly accurate about the deficiencies of the committee.

@Shortshriftandlethal - Thanks for sharing the correspondence from your MP, and your reply to her.

Her reply sounds an awful lot like the sort of letter other MP's have sent out. I'm beginning to think there's some sort of resource on the Labour Party intranet, that they can copy & paste answers for FAQ.

They all seem to mention "I have been contacted by a significant number of constituents ...." for a group that's only 0.5% of the population, all the Labour MP's seem to have a significant number of them in the constituencies, all of whom are very good at contacting their MP's.

She doesn't say what they're concerns are, she doesn't stipulate how the Guidance is in any way 'unfair' to 'trans' people.

"Nevertheless, my constituents argue that there are other cases where the argument for the exclusion of trans people from single-sex services is much less clear, such as in the case of a walking or book club."

Because your constituents don't want women to have anything for themselves.