by Joan Smith, UnHerd
Women’s rights are still not safe. Too many organisations on the Left, including trade unions, are still committed to destroying single-sex spaces. Activists from these groups have the 2010 Equality Act in their sights, and much will depend on Andy Burnham, a politician who has only recently dropped his wholehearted support for men who claim to be women.
Pressure on Government ministers to rewrite the Act is growing this week, as the Trade Union Congress (TUC) meets in Brighton. A motion which passed earlier this week by the TUC’s LGBT+ conference “unequivocally condemns” the guidance published by the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC). An unnamed trade union boss said the “only way to get out of” observing the guidance is to change the act.
This idea was echoed by one of the most hardline trans activists in the House of Commons, Labour MP Nadia Whittome. At a fringe meeting in Brighton, she called for a change in the law to protect “the rights, privacy, and inclusion of trans people”.
Trans activism hasn’t gone away, in other words. Four unions, including Aslef and the country’s largest, Unison, are boycotting Labour’s women’s conference later this month because it won’t admit trans-identified men. Thus far, junior ministers are resisting calls to rewrite the Equality Act, but the final decision will rest with Burnham. And his track record suggests he is a far-from-reliable ally of women.