Labour government has no plans to rewrite Equality Act to make ‘sex’ mean ‘biological sex’

The Labour government will not be rewriting the 2010 Equality Act to make “sex” mean “biological sex”, the women and equalities minister has insisted.

Prior to being ousted from government in July, the Conservatives planned to rewrite the legislation in a change which would have allowed public bodies to stop trans people using the single-sex spaces which correspond with their gender, such as toilets and changing rooms. It would also have prevented transgender women taking part in female sports.

The proposal was criticised by LGBTQ+ advocates and human rights groups, who branded the idea “alarming”.

On 29 July, Conservative MP John Glen asked new women and equalities minister Anneliese Dodds in a written question “whether the government plans to amend the legal definition of what a woman is”.

In a reply issued last week, Dodds said: “We are proud of the Equality Act and the rights and protections it affords women. The government does not plan to amend legal definitions in the act.”

The response has unsurprisingly prompted an outcry from the right, with shadow minister Mims Davies stating that Labour “simply cares more about appeasing woke ideologues than delivering on women’s safety”, adding: “We introduced this change to provide much-needed clarity in the law to stop potential abusers exposing loopholes, and acting in stopping the diluting of women’s safety.

“Only by legally enshrining the importance of single-sex spaces can this Labour government give biological women the clarity, dignity, privacy and safety we need.”

While Labour’s decision will be welcomed by trans people, who were concerned by the implications a change in the law would have on their day-to-day lives, the new government’s record on trans rights remains contentious.

In the run-up to the general election, the party vowed to simplify the “degrading and tortuous gender transition process” but then suggested they would ban schools teaching children about trans identities. Labour leader Keir Starmer also performed a U-turn, by backed gender-critical Labour MP Rosie Duffield, whom he criticised in the past.

When asked on Good Morning Britain if it was “right or wrong for Rosie Duffield to say women have a cervix” Starmer, then the leader of the opposition, replied: “Biologically, she of course is right about that.”

That was a shift from comments he made in 2021 when he said such statements were “not right”.

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