Rishi Sunak is set to rewrite equality law to protect women by clarifying ‘sex’ is biological, making it easier to bar trans people from female sports and single-sex spaces. The Telegraph has the story.
On Tuesday, it emerged that the Government had asked the equalities watchdog for advice on changing the wording of the Equality Act to specify that it protects “biological sex” rather than “sex”.
The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) recommended that such a change would “bring legal clarity” in eight areas, including sports and single-sex areas.
A source close to the Prime Minister said on Tuesday night that he remained committed to his leadership election pledge to ensure the facts of biology are written into the Act.
During 2022’s Tory leadership campaign, Mr. Sunak said: “I think biology is critically important as we think about some of the very practical functions, like toilets or sports.”
The source said he remained committed to this, and that he had asked Kemi Badenoch, the Equalities Minister, to take this work forward.
“The Prime Minister remains committed to his campaign pledge,” the source said. “This is a sensitive and complicated issue but the Secretary of State is taking that work forward and he supports her in doing so.”
At present, the equalities legislation states that people can be protected on the basis of their “sex”, but some have since interpreted this to mean the gender someone identifies as rather than the sex they were assigned [sic] at birth.
It has caused confusion over whether trans women can be barred from participating in women’s sports or entering female-only spaces such as hospital wards, changing rooms and rape refuges.
Anyone who has been granted a gender recognition certificate is at present legally recognised as belonging to the opposite sex.
In February 2023, governing body U.K. Athletics said that it could not prevent trans women from competing in women’s categories because of the Equality Act. It changed its stance last week after receiving assurances around the law.
The law could now be changed to make it clear that the word “sex” in the Equality Act means “biological sex” and not gender.
However, the EHRC also said such a definition of “biological sex” could cause problems in three areas regarding the rights of trans people. It called on the Government to do more work to ensure this does not result in discrimination.
On Tuesday night the EHRC’s guidance was warmly welcomed by campaigners.
Maya Forstater, co-founder of the group Sex Matters, said it was a “huge step forward for common sense”.
“The Equality and Human Rights Commission is taking leadership to protect everyone’s human rights,” she said.
“It has listened to women concerned about single-sex services, including more than 100,000 people who signed my petition to Parliament. It has also listened to businesses and charities that say they are confused about the law and frightened that they will be sued if they provide a changing room, shower, women’s refuge or a sports competition that is female-only. We are looking forward to a debate in Parliament on this after Easter. We hope the Government quickly amends the Equality Act to make it clear.”
Worth reading in full.
Thanks to all Daily Sceptic readers who signed Maya’s petition, which she wrote about for the site. This does look like progress.
Incidentally, shame on the Telegraph for using uncritically the misleading activist phrase “sex assigned at birth”, by which I assume it means biological sex, particularly in an article all about the importance of biological sex. A person’s biological sex is obviously not “assigned” at birth, as though someone has arbitrarily designated it one way or the other. It is recorded based on observing the child’s anatomy. When even the more conservative press uses nonsense phrases like this and insists on using ‘preferred pronouns’ rather than accurate ones, you sometimes despair.
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I think he needs to embrace his inner hermaphrodite.Perhaps he is already there. This is one of the characteristics of WEF types. The men are rather effeminate and skinny like sexless creatures or Thunderbirds puppets. Trudeau, Sarkozy, Blair etc. Peter Mandelson with his sock suspenders. There is an American academic, I forget her name who talks about how this sort of dysphoric state comes about at the end of civilisations. I think that when the spirit and the soul encounter a deep malaise they will look for the most fundamental and radical solutions especially when they are young and developing. You have to experience some joy and a few carefree moments in your youth as something to fall back on and remember. When you’ve poisoned the songs of innocence there is no beauty and posterity is just a heap of ashes.
Yes, contemporary civilisation has become an abode of demons, and that is why it is about to come crashing to the ground (Rev 18:2).
When the Towers Fall: A Prophecy of What Must Happen Soon.
So you’ve noticed the Thunderbirds “look” as well.
I’ve been saying for months that when he gives a speech, with his head nodding up and down and arms bouncing from side to side, Sunak reminds me of Scott Tracey.
You’re thinking of Camille Paglia. Fast-talking, difficult voice to listen to sometimes, but makes a hell of a lot of sense. A first-wave feminist who is sick and tired of the LGBTQBANANA agenda, given its threatening attitude to real women. Try this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IqrwKkrCzOY&ab_channel=BrandonVanDyck
It’s a long lecture but worth every minute.
Britain has been at the centre of occultism and ts dissemination all over Europe for five centuries but hardly anyone knows about these networks and yet from an historical perspective their role was crucial. You can’t just pretend that this side of things doesn;t exst or fall foul of some post-enlightenment smokescreen. If someone has access to a realm that you don’t know about then if they are a base character they will treat you with contempt.
We sat back like a bunch of twats thinking we could just be lazy. Jefferson talked about constant vigilance – we haven;t done that. We don’t even have a true creed to unite our forces. We are in a weakened state all around this has to be acknowldeged and addresed.
Can we also protect boys from discrimination and aggressive feminist indoctrination in schools?
We are what remain and will be for a very long time.They won’t beat us they will try to convince us of our redundancy. We are the only people keeping civisation alive. So don;t feel anxious about this situation.
We will fight back just at the moment we are sad. Trust me I always fight back and these circumstances invite it. Just acknowledge our reality and that we have a duty to deal with it.
Freedom granted by the State is not freedom. Femininity is similarly not in the gift of a Prime Minister.
Billy Bragg is apparently opposed to clarification of the Equality Act:
“What do we want?”
“No clarification!”
“When do we want it?”
“Now! – by which we mean we want no clarification now, nor ever, we don’t mean we want clarification now, we mean we want no clarification.”
“What do we want?”
“Confusion!”
“When do we want it?”
“We don’t want it!”
The Telegraph haven’t been doing their job for years and have lied on many occasions especially over Covid and the vaccines saying they are “safe and effective” (when clearly they are not) at the end of any vaguely critical article on that subject. Which is why I no longer read it. Unfortunately my Partner still persists – and no it’s not worth the argument!
After the DT took Gates’ shill it lost all credibility. I could not in all conscience ever buy that harlot paper ever again. The money I save by not buying the DT is donated to Daily Sceptic and TCW.
Quite a smart political move by Badenoch and Sunak.
Looking forward to Starmer standing at the Dispatch Box and opposing the change on behalf of the 0.1% of “women” he thinks there are who have a penis.
Oh …..and Mordaunt, who hasn’t told us how many women-with-penises she thinks there are.
If the Tories were not 20% behind in the polls would they have felt inclined to take this initiative? The last 13 years of fake Conservatism may suggest they feel they are having to take this initiative rather than wanting to.
Shame on the Telegraph indeed – and on all journalists who occasionally write pieces which critique the LGBT agenda (albeit only by implication) yet who continually use the pronouns/adjectives demanded by their subject, thereby furthering their ’cause’. No instances at hand but you know what I mean. I assume that either they’re legally obliged or that they’re a bunch of saps/useful idiots.
As the article points out, anyone with a gender recognition certificate is currently recognised as legally belonging to the opposite sex.
This stems from the 2004 Gender Recognition Act. Section 9 states that “where a full gender recognition certificate is issued to a person, the person’s gender becomes for all purposes the acquired gender (so that, if the acquired gender becomes the male gender, the person’s sex becomes that of a man, and if it is the female gender, the person’s sex becomes that of a woman)”.
Therefore sex and gender are the same thing with no allowance for something called “biological sex”. I wonder how the Equalities act can be “clarified” without also repealing the Gender Recognition Act.
Females have xx chromosomes.
Males have xy chromosomes.
Has this changed?