Tory MP Jackie Doyle-Price wants to ‘devise a law’ to keep trans women out of women-only spaces
Tory MP Jackie Doyle-Price
Anti-gay marriage Tory MP Jackie Doyle-Price has called for a law to keep trans women out of women-only spaces.
Speaking in parliament to mark International Women’s Day, the former health minister suggested that new legislation is needed to revise the current provisions for single-sex spaces under the Equality Act 2010.
Tory MP says it’s ‘not a hate crime’ to want to exclude trans people from women’s spaces.
Jackie Doyle-Price said: “It is surely not beyond the wit of policymakers to devise a set of rules and principles that protect the rights of transsexuals to find a way of living their lives and do not discriminate against women at the same time.
“Those of us who want to see women-only safe spaces are not guilty of hate crime against trans people – not at all.”
Doyle-Price went on to claim that trans people “want to quietly get on with their lives” and don’t want to be “pitted against women”.
Jackie Doyle-Price, Conservative MP for Thurrock (Rob Stothard/Getty Images)
She continued: “The only people who are winning through this debate are those men who use their power to oppress women, and see the opportunity to claim the right to self-identify as a weapon.”
Referencing transgender sex offender Karen White, she said: “We must be able to devise a law that stops that happening but also supports those who are most vulnerable and need to have their rights defended.”
Jackie Doyle-Price definitely loves defending the rights of minorities.
For someone so interested in defending the rights of minorities, oddly Doyle-Price voted against equal marriage in England and Wales, and abstained on extending same-sex marriage to Northern Ireland.
At the time of the 2013 equal marriage vote, she argued – and stop us if this sounds familiar – that affording basic rights to same-sex couples would in some way lead to untold discrimination against others.
She had claimed that allowing same-sex couples to get married “interferes in church affairs” because “for me marriage is a sacrament, it is not a creation of the state”. She added: “I was not sent to parliament to make bad law.”
While serving as a health minister in 2017, Doyle-Price also dismissed calls to impose an outright ban conversion therapy – claiming there is no evidence that the practise is “widespread” in the UK – a week after a leading conversion therapist was interviewed on Good Morning Britain.
Responding to a request for comment, Jackie Doyle-Price said that PinkNews has “wilfully distorted” her views due to “misogyny.”
She clarified that she is not planning to put forward backbench legislation on the issue, adding: “My job is to be clear that I expect [the government] to make sure that any new legislative initiative does not compromise the rights of women or discriminate against them.”
Doyle-Price also clarified that she wishes does not wish to discriminate against same-sex couples, but simply strip them of their right to marry by “replacing civil marriage with civil unions as I believe marriage is a sacrament not a creation of the state.”
