‘Labour men’ heckle own MP over gender law
Rosie Duffield shouted down by party as she calls for protection of single-sex spaces in trans reform row
RIFTS in the Labour Party over Nicola Sturgeon’s gender reforms were exposed yesterday as a female MP who praised the Government’s veto attacked male colleagues for heckling her in the Commons.
Rosie Duffield, a prominent women’s rights campaigner, welcomed the unprecedented move by the Government to issue an order preventing the trans legislation getting royal assent.
The Canterbury MP for Labour said the legislation “clearly conflicts with the Equality Act and would have repercussions for women across the UK”.
However, she was shouted down and accused of talking “rubbish”.
She later said on Twitter: “Being shouted down in the chamber by Labour men who clearly don’t want women to speak up for our rights to single-sex spaces. How very progressive.”
Ms Duffield said “SNP men” had also yelled at her but added: “The protection of single-sex spaces for the most vulnerable women are at stake, so why on Earth are Labour colleagues OK with this?”
The incident further exposed deep divisions in Labour over the legislation, which was backed by the party’s MSPS in the Scottish Parliament.
A senior Labour MSP she was “very disappointed” with Sir Keir Starmer for expressing “concerns” about the Gender Recognition Reform Bill and stating he was opposed to the measures being extended to 16-year-olds.
Monica Lennon, who stood unsuccessfully for the Scottish Labour leadership, said he should be “better briefed” on issues debated in the Scottish Parliament.
She was one of a series of Labour backbenchers at Holyrood from the party’s Left wing who launched outspoken attacks on the UK Government’s “shameful decision” to block the Bill. They also included Richard Leonard, the former Scottish Labour leader.
Mark Drakeford, Labour’s Welsh First Minister, said the decision was a “very dangerous moment” and he agreed with Ms Sturgeon that it “could be a very slippery slope indeed”.
However, Labour did not oppose the veto when it was tabled in the Com
‘Labour men ... clearly don’t want women to speak up for our rights’
mons by the Scottish Secretary yesterday. In a statement to MPS, Alister Jack said he had received “very senior legal opinion” that the Bill would have “serious adverse effects” on the operation of Uk-wide equalities legislation.
Ms Sturgeon’s reforms would allow Scots as young as 16 to change their legal sex by signing a statutory declaration, removing the need for a medical diagnosis of gender dysphoria. Anyone born or resident in Scotland could use the system, opening the door to “gender tourism” in which men could temporarily move north of the Border to exploit the provisions.
A 13-page “statement of reasons” for the veto warned that “traumatised” women could leave female-only clubs and sports after encountering people who have quickly changed their legal gender.
It said the reforms could lead to a rise in the number of transgender people “accessing single-sex services, spaces and roles”. The statement said this would change the public’s view of whether a setting, such as a female changing room, is “likely to be biologically sex-segregated”.
With Ms Sturgeon’s changes requiring people to only live in their “acquired gender” for six months, down from two years at present, the papers warned it was “more likely that people will encounter others who do not conform to their expectations”. But SNP MPS dismissed the statement of reasons as “flimsy” and Ms Sturgeon repeated her warning she would go to court for a judicial review to try to overturn the veto. Any action would start in the Court of Session but could be appealed all the way to the Supreme Court.
The First Minister said the veto would “inevitably end up in court” and concluded: “In short, we’ll be defending Scottish democracy.”