Baroness faces backlash after publicly backing female-only spaces

How a gender battle engulfed Britain’s equalities watchdog: Baroness faced backlash from left-wing MPs after publicly backing female-only spaces

• Baroness Kishwer Falkner published letter to equalities minister Kemi Badenoch
• Read more: Human rights commission boss facing ‘witch hunt’ from trans lobby

Britain’s equalities watchdog has come under fire from activists and Left-wing MPs since it made a series of interventions in the fraught area of trans rights.

Just over a year ago, the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) published a set of guidelines on single-sex spaces that said transgender women can be excluded from female bathrooms or refuges to protect privacy or prevent trauma.

There was a backlash from some campaign groups and it even led to a bizarre protest outside the EHRC’s London office last September in which radical trans activists left behind 60 bottles of urine. But a bigger row broke out last month, when the EHRC published a letter written by its chairman Baroness Falkner to equalities minister Kemi Badenoch.

Although it merely proposed further legal exploration of a possible technical amendment to the Equality Act 2010, which currently uses the words sex and gender interchangeably, its meaning and consequences were explosive. What Lady Falkner was supporting was a far-reaching change to anti-discrimination law that would mean sex is defined on the basis of biology rather than gender identity.

It would mean anyone who was born male could not be considered female for the purposes of accessing female-only spaces such as toilets, changing rooms, hospital wards or prisons.

Under fire: Equality and Human Rights Commission chairman Baroness Falkner

Even transgender women who had in recent years legally changed sex by obtaining a gender recognition certificate could in certain circumstances be forced to use male facilities.

Lady Falkner said the proposed change would ‘bring greater legal clarity’ in eight different areas.

She said the current situation means trans women can be ‘legally lesbian’ and so same-sex support groups for women would have to admit them, but the ‘biological definition’ would mean membership could be restricted to those born female. The same would apply to women’s book clubs, job applications at girls’ hostels, female-only shortlists, sports clubs and hospital services.

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Lady Falkner said: ‘Government may wish to undertake a broader consideration, including through consultation, of the societal changes that have occurred in this area and how we, as a nation, want to approach issues of sex and gender in the evolving context.’

She added: ‘We believe that redefining ‘sex’ in the Equality Act to mean biological sex would create rationalisations, simplifications, clarity and/or reductions in risk for maternity services, providers and users of other services, gay and lesbian associations, sports organisers and employers.’

The move has long been demanded by women’s rights campaigners, including Harry Potter author J K Rowling, as a way of ensuring fairness and safety.

It is now for Mrs Badenoch to decide how to proceed, but Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said soon afterwards that he supported the change, declaring that biology is important in protecting women’s rights. However, it was the EHRC – and Lady Falkner in particular – who bore the brunt of the backlash for providing the legal advice to ministers.

Transgender youth support charity Mermaids said: ‘It’s extremely distressing to see the UK’s equality watchdog, the EHRC, seeking to strip trans people’s rights from the Equality Act 2010.’ Labour backbencher Nadia Whittome added: ‘This proposal is an attack on the limited rights and protections that trans people currently have… We must stand with them and resist this.’

Fellow Labour Left-winger Mick Whitley said: ‘Yet again, this Government is throwing the most marginalised communities under the bus to stoke its culture war.’ And last week former Labour minister Ben Bradshaw hit back at the EHRC when it marked an international day against homophobia and transphobia, writing: ‘Breathtaking from the EHRC, our so-called ‘independent’ ‘human rights’ organisation, which is proposing to take these very rights and protections away.’

Another vocal critic has been barrister Jolyon Maugham, who recently highlighted a UN report on the EHRC’s proposals, saying: ‘Kishwer Falkner would, if she had an ounce of self-respect, resign.’

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