Gender Critical Beliefs: Equality Act 2010

16:00:00

I beg to move, That this House has considered gender critical beliefs and the Equality Act 2010. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Twigg. The Equality Act, passed by a Labour Government in 2010, protects people from discrimination based on nine protected characteristics: age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex and sexual orientation. The Act has a commendable objective: to prevent people from acting on their prejudices and disagreements in a way that results in the discriminatory treatment of others. It exists not to eliminate difference or ensure conformity, but to foster good relations and tolerance between different groups. Sometimes rights clash. Very few examples of that clash have played out as publicly and discordantly as that between sex and gender identity: that is, the rights of biological women, and sometimes men, and the rights of those who change their social gender to transition to women. Significant feminist gains have been made in policy and law since the women’s liberation movement of the 1970s. Those gains include recognition of specific rights and services for women on the basis of their sex, be that in hospital wards, prisons, rape services, domestic abuse shelters, lesbian dating sites and clubs, women’s health organisations and women’s sports teams—spaces that meet our specific requirements as women. Those gains are being eroded by the blind acceptance by some, including policy makers in this place, that anybody who identifies as a woman de facto becomes one. At a time when male violence against women and girls is at epidemic levels in the UK, women’s single-sex spaces could not be more important. Our desire to be kind, inclusive and accepting are worthy and valuable human traits. It is that pursuit of tolerance that underpins our law on discrimination.

I commend the hon. Member for Canterbury (Rosie Duffield) on her stance, courage and wise words. Does she agree that respect is a two-way street? Although we should respect someone’s belief, we have been edging towards a place where biblical questioning of a view is taken as an offence. I treasure, as the hon. Lady does, biblical beliefs. I fight for anyone to live their faith in so far as it does not lead to harm or injury. Does the hon. Lady agree that the Government should also take that approach?

I thank the hon. Member for his point. I agree that all of those beliefs should be—and are—protected under the law. Our desire to be kind, inclusive and accepting are worthy and valuable human traits, and it is the pursuit of tolerance that underpins our law on discrimination. They are essential values in a pluralistic democracy where we can acknowledge, navigate and respect our differences. Yet a tendency has arisen in polarised debates, particularly around sex and gender, to treat holding a belief opposing one’s own as not merely a point of disagreement, but a moral defect in the person with whom one disagrees. That has been clearly demonstrated in the terms that have been used for women who think that our biological sex matters, that it is a material reality that cannot be changed and is entirely different from gender identity—that is, gender-critical women like me. Nasty, puerile terms, many unrepeatable in this place but repeated ad infinitum across social media, such as bigot, Nazi, fascist and TERF—trans-exclusionary radical feminist—are just some examples.

I wonder whether the hon. Member is aware of the case of my constituent, Roz Adams, who was employed as a counsellor and support worker at Edinburgh Rape Crisis. She was investigated for potentially transphobic views, having asked how she would respond to a woman service-user who asked the sex of a support worker who identified as non-binary. Does the hon. Member agree that targeting women with gender critical views in turn targets women advocating for women’s services, especially for women survivors of rape and sexual assault?

Absolutely, and I thank the hon. Member so much for raising that case. It shocked and peaked quite a lot of people that just asking for single-sex services when they are more vital than ever got Roz Adams into so much hot water. It is absolutely unbelievable, and good luck to her in her fight. Ironically, the name calling—the extreme, nasty and degrading names used for women and sometimes men who do not accept that biological men can be women—is often under the guise of “being kind”. Gender critical women are frequently shut down, told to be quiet, or told that it is not right to use accurate language to describe our bodies. Words and language matter, and material reality matters infinitely. There are situations where sex matters and the rights of women and girls must take precedence. Women and girls must be able to use language to describe our experiences and not be persecuted for causing offence or distress. To believe in women’s sex-based rights and publicly advocate for them results in being readily labelled as hateful or transphobic. However, I am gender critical because I am a feminist and care deeply about the rights of women and girls. I do not seek to destroy the rights of trans-identifying people or any other group, and never have done. My sex-based rights as a woman have nothing to do with those other groups of people. Gender critical beliefs are legally protected philosophical beliefs under the Equality Act 2010, following the Forstater employment tribunal case in 2021. The tribunal found that Maya Forstater’s beliefs, which she sincerely holds, are widely shared, based on fact, and are reflective of the law of the land, yet despite that judgment, in the four years since there has been an unprecedented run—a steady stream—of similar high-profile and costly employment tribunal cases involving gender critical beliefs that point to a problem that many in this place refuse to acknowledge, including, I am afraid, the Minister responding to this debate. The normalisation of visible hostility towards anyone expressing widely held gender critical beliefs, even on our own green Benches, has been framed as an expression of solidarity with trans and non-binary people. Those within organisations that sign up to expensive re-education programmes, many of which misrepresent the law, and diktats on all employees signing off emails with pronouns, legitimise the constant, passive-aggressive and soft—or even aggressive and open—bullying of those who refuse to comply. Those who disagree with gender critical beliefs routinely stigmatise women like me as bigoted, a view that arises from a total misunderstanding of what our beliefs are or the motivations of many of those who share them. The social and financial costs of voicing gender critical beliefs, and of challenging assumptions in their workplace, mean that many are afraid and feel they cannot afford to speak up. Still, day after day people who raise concerns about boundaries around single-sex spaces such as changing rooms are being disciplined, dismissed, and hounded from their workplaces. Two such cases currently attracting huge attention are those of the Darlington nurses and the Fife nurse, Sandie Peggie. Their tribunals have brought the clash of rights into sharp relief. Few people reading that when adult female nurses challenged their employers to stop biological men changing in the women’s changing room could believe that they were disciplined. I have yet to speak to a single British voter who believes that a man should have whatever access he desires to spaces where women are getting dressed or undressed for work. . Our evidence base is limited, as academics are afraid to research this area for fear of ending up hounded out of their jobs, as academics Kathleen Stock, Jo Phoenix, Laura Favaro and many others have been. None the less, the body of evidence is growing. In its rapid evidence review on harassment and censorship to inform the Khan review published in March last year, More in Common found significant anecdotal evidence of harassment faced by groups of gender critical activists. Gender critical people face high levels of harassment in their everyday lives, leading to self-censorship on a scale that should alarm anyone who believes in liberal democracy—including gender critical MPs who have yet to speak up in public. Gender critical people face severe consequences for engaging in the debate, ranging from social ostracization to loss of employment and livelihood, all for holding three core beliefs: that women—adult human females—are materially definable as a class of human being; that women are culturally, legislatively and politically important, with our own set of needs, rights and concerns; and that women have the right to meet and discuss freely that which affects our lives profoundly.

I take the opportunity to acknowledge the hon. Lady’s bravery in standing up for what she believes in. Does she agree with me that there is a wider political danger from this form of indoctrination and extremism about gender and sex, which is that if the only people in politics who are prepared to speak out about it are from extreme right-wing movements, and mainstream politicians are too afraid to say anything, it pushes ordinary people in the direction of political extremes?

I thank the right hon. Gentleman so much for raising that important point. Just for speaking up, I, a left-wing member of the Labour party, have been called a Reform member and all kinds of names, and it has been suggested that I join a right-wing party, yet an awful lot of the articles I read agreeing with me are in the Morning Star. People do not really listen to the ideology behind our beliefs and why we speak up for the rights of working women, which is what the Labour party was founded to do. We have a duty in this place to ensure that people who hold gender critical beliefs are given the respect they are entitled to. We need to find a workable solution that respects everyone’s beliefs and protected characteristics. I finish by paying tribute to the brave and incredible women—and some men—who know that only women have a cervix and who have stood up to those hounding them at great personal and financial risk to themselves: Maya Forstater, Allison Bailey, Jo Phoenix, Rachel Meade, Roz Adams, Denise Fahmy, Eleanor Frances, Almut Gadow, Laura Favaro, Amelia Sparrow, Jenny Lindsay, Kathleen Stock, Rosie Kay, Selina Todd, Rosa Freedman, Lizzy Pitt and my dearest TERF friends Jo Rowling, Suzanne Moore and supreme shero pioneer Julie Bindel. Those women are just the tip of the iceberg. I was elected on a manifesto pledge to make the country work for working people. These are working people who are being persecuted for their legal and respectable beliefs. They continue to be let down by cowardly leadership. I have been hounded, harassed, sidelined and briefed against by a party now in government. It is time the Government got to grips with this issue, perhaps by following the lead of the incredibly brave women I have referenced here and the unsung foot soldiers who fight for women’s rights in the workplace the world over.

16:12:00

It is a real pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Twigg. I start by thanking the hon. Member for raising the issues that she has raised this afternoon. I am going to call it more of a discussion than a debate, because I think the purpose of this session is to explore how we can express our beliefs freely, frankly and respectfully, upholding our shared values of tolerance and freedom of speech. Championing freedom of expression is critical, even when beliefs are varied or opposing. To be protected under the Equality Act, a philosophical belief must be genuinely held and more than just an opinion. It must be cogent, serious and apply to an important aspect of human life or behaviour. In case law, gender critical beliefs have been recognised as such, which this Government acknowledge and respect. The protection of philosophical belief under the Equality Act is one of the foundations of freedom of expression, ensuring that individuals can hold and express deeply held convictions without fear of discrimination, harassment or victimisation. This protection creates space for diverse beliefs in a democratic society. We must not forget that in many countries across the world, such protections do not exist. We should not take them for granted and must continue to view freedom of expression as a right, not a privilege. We must strive to protect freedom of expression for all, whether we agree or disagree, because we should challenge, probe and inquire, not shut down or silence. We will of course always protect the right not to be discriminated against, harassed or victimised. The Equality Act prohibits discrimination or harassment on the basis of a number of characteristics, including a person’s religion, belief, sex, sexual orientation or gender reassignment. That is why the Act is crucial in protecting us all and why we are proud to uphold it. Given the polarisation of belief on sex and gender issues, as well as the disagreement and discomfort such matters can provoke, I am glad that the hon. Member for Canterbury has been measured, considered and respectful, promoting a tone and quality of discussion that refuses to lower itself to the politics of division and anxiety. Let us carry that example forward beyond this Chamber. It is important that we continue to protect freedom of expression for all, and the hon. Member has set out some examples where the law has protected that freedom, but we must try to support people’s freedom of expression in the first place rather than simply relying on the courts.

Does the Minister agree that, on freedom of expression and those protected characteristics, we must do all that we can within policy to avoid a hierarchy where some of those protected characteristics are inadvertently—or perhaps at times deliberately—considered to be more important than others, and that it is essential that we keep a level playing field within that legislation?

These are very tricky issues, and sensible discussion of them, rather than polarisation, is the way forward. We must remember that we have a collective responsibility to express our beliefs respectfully. By consistently adopting that approach, we can all help to lower the temperature of discussions about sex and gender issues, fostering a more positive and inclusive environment where everyone can contribute without fear of being cancelled or silenced.

Does the Minister accept that in recent years being respectful of others’ views has meant silencing those who have gender critical beliefs? That continues to be the case, although we see some signs of the tide turning. Does she agree that it is up to this Labour Government to ensure that those views are genuinely respected, rather than silencing those with gender critical views?

That is exactly what I have been explaining with regards to the Equality Act and respect for all established views, including gender critical views. We want to make sure that everybody is treated with dignity and respect; that is why it is important that we uphold the Equality Act and provide everybody with the reassurance that it protects them against unlawful discrimination and harassment. It is perhaps important to dwell for a moment on what is considered harassment under the Equality Act. Free speech is protected when it is lawful, but harassment is behaviour that the law specifically defines as unlawful in certain situations, such as the workplace. Harassment is not simply a case of taking offence; there is a seriousness threshold, and conduct that is trivial or causes minor offence will not be sufficiently serious to meet the definition of harassment. Harassment is a serious matter, involving being subjected to unwanted conduct of various types, as set out in the Equality Act, which “has the purpose or effect” of violating the employee’s dignity or of “creating an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment” for the employee. Those who seek to harass people at work will not be tolerated, hence our provisions in the Employment Rights Bill to keep workers safe from harassment. Establishing those parameters is essential for maintaining the healthy and respectful standards of discussion that I just mentioned. It is also important to highlight that these discussions affect real people, their communities, their careers and their families. Therefore, as we exercise our freedom of expression, let us do so with humanity. We hold our beliefs everywhere we go, which often means that we express them in different places, including at work. The Equality and Human Rights Commission has produced guidance on belief as a protected characteristic, and we would expect employers to refer to that before taking action in a given case. We know that single-sex services are important to people for many different reasons. For example, single-sex services can provide safety and comfort, especially for those who have previously had negative experiences using mixed-sex services. Everyone should be able to access specialist services and everyday facilities that meet their needs while protecting their privacy, dignity and safety. However, as outlined by various Ministers in this Government, there will be circumstances where certain groups need to be excluded from single-sex services and facilities to ensure the best outcomes for users—safety, dignity, fairness and privacy, to name a few. That is why we are proud to uphold the Equality Act, which already gives providers the flexibility to deliver single-sex services exclusively for those of the same biological sex where that is a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim.

The Minister will be aware that the last Conservative manifesto committed to reforming the Equality Act to protect single-sex spaces and services for women and girls, and in particular to listening to the voices of those women across the country. The Labour Government have indicated periodically that they agree with that, but will they commit to taking action—and, if so, when?

I think the point the hon. Lady is making is that there needs to be some clarification on guidance. She will be well aware that the last Government put out a call for evidence, asking people to provide examples of how the Equality Act is being interpreted. The Act sets out that providers have the right to restrict the use of services, including toilets and women’s refuges, on the basis of sex and gender reassignment in circumstances where it is a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim. We are proud of the Equality Act and the rights and protections it affords women. We will continue to support the use of its single-sex exceptions by providers. It is vital that service providers understand the single-sex exceptions in the Equality Act and feel confident using them. The Government are committed to ensuring that there is guidance in place that gives service providers assurance about the rights afforded by the Act and how to lawfully apply single-sex exceptions. We will be setting out our next steps on that work in due course. As hon. Members will know, the Equality and Human Rights Commission has published guidance on separate and single-sex services. It has recently concluded its consultation on its draft updated code of practice for services, public functions and associations.

The Minister mentioned the Equality and Human Rights Commission. She has mentioned several times the need for understanding and empathy, to allow space for people to have various views. Does she agree that that should be shared by the likes of the Commission and other bodies, and that it is their responsibility to carry out their functions and ensure that people know that they have an empathetic hearing within such bodies, so that they are not seen as being opposed to the views of gender critical people?

Indeed. The Commission and other bodies have a very responsible position to interpret and ensure that, where there are potential conflicts between the different protected characteristics, those are dealt with in a sympathetic and fair manner. We will be considering the Commission’s proposals on its updated code of practice for services, public functions and associations, and Ministers will make a decision whether to approve them after the final draft of the code has been submitted. The previous Government put out a call for input on single-sex spaces guidance, and over 400 policy and guidance documents that fitted the response criteria were submitted. After reviewing these examples, it was found that the vast majority did not wrongly state or suggest that people have a legal right to access single-sex spaces and services according to their self-identified gender. In fact, only about 10% of the examples submitted seemed to have misinterpreted the Equality Act’s single-sex spaces provisions in some way. As the independent regulator of the Equality Act, the EHRC is the appropriate body to ensure that this question is looked into in more detail, and it has the ability to follow up directly with organisations if necessary. We are in the process of sharing all the submissions that met the criteria of the previous Government’s call for input on single-sex spaces guidance so that the EHRC can review them. Although guidance does exist, including from the EHRC, the result of this call for input suggests that there is further work to do to ensure everyone has clarity about how the single-sex exceptions in the Equality Act operate. Moving forward, we will explore the best ways in which we can give providers assurance about the rights afforded by the Act and how they can lawfully apply its single-sex exceptions. Our beliefs have always played a fundamental role in shaping our identity, purpose and direction in life. At times we share those beliefs with others, fostering a sense of unity and belonging; at other times our beliefs may differ, leading to discord. However, discord does not have to propagate hatred. Progress hinges on our ability to respect different beliefs even when they challenge us. We must cultivate a culture of safety, one that encourages open expression without fear of discrimination or harassment, rather than a culture of silence. While our beliefs matter, it is equally important to look beyond them and recognise the shared values of tolerance, respect and fair-mindedness that connect us. As we move forward, let us hold on to those values and remain vigilant against attempts to erode them. True progress and equality lie not just in defending our own beliefs, but in upholding the principles that allow all voices to be heard with dignity and respect. Question put and agreed to.