It’s no great surprise that members of a Labour MPs’ LGBT+ WhatsApp group would be raising concerns about the impact of this week’s Supreme Court ruling on the trans community.
But the critical contributions reportedly made by some of the group’s higher-profile ministerial members highlight the underlying divisions with the Labour Party over the issue – and point to future tensions once the practical implications of the judgement become clear.
Messages leaked to the Mail on Sunday allegedly include the Home Office minister Dame Angela Eagle writing “the ruling is not as catastrophic at it seems but the EHRC [Equality and Human Rights Commission] guidance might be & there are already signs that some public bodies are overreacting”.
Culture minister Sir Chris Bryant reportedly replied he “agreed” with another MP’s opinion that the EHRC chair Baroness Falkner was “pretty appalling” when she said the ruling would mean trans women could not use single-sex female facilities or compete in women’s sports.
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Gender ruling – How it happened
Government sources argue these messages are hardly evidence of any kind of plot or mass revolt against the Supreme Court’s ruling.
But they still raise uncomfortable questions for a party that has been on a tortuous journey over the issue.
Under Jeremy Corbyn, Labour was committed to introducing self-identification – enabling people to change their legal sex without a medical diagnosis – a position dropped in 2023.
Back in 2021, Sir Keir Stamer said the then Labour MP Rosie Duffield was “not right” to say “only women have a cervix”. But three years later he acknowledged that “biologically, she of course is right”.
Duffield, who now sits as an independent, is asking for an apology – but that doesn’t seem to be forthcoming from a government keen to minimise its own role in changing social attitudes to the issue.
The Conservative position on this has also chopped and changed – with Theresa May‘s support for gender self-ID ditched under Boris Johnson.
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As the Conservatives’ equalities minister, Kemi Badenoch led the UK government’s fight against Scotland’s efforts to make it easier to change gender – and she’s determined to punch Labour’s bruise on the issue.
This weekend, she’s written to the cabinet secretary calling for an investigation into a possible breach of the ministerial or civil service code over a statement made by the Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson in response to the ruling, which said “we have always supported the protection of single-sex spaces based on biological sex”.
The Tories claim this is false, because last summer Ms Phillipson herself gave an interview in which she suggested that trans women with penises could use female toilets.
Ms Phillipson has been approached for a response.
Her comments, however, are entirely in keeping with the government’s official statement on the judgement, which claims they have “always supported the protection of single-sex spaces based on biological sex” and welcomed the ruling as giving “clarity and confidence for women and service providers”.
The government statement added: “Single-sex spaces are protected in law and will always be protected by this government.”