"THE status quo is not working.”

The frank and honest beginning of Jess Phillips MP’s speech during the parliamentary debate about the definition of “sex” in the Equality Act hit the nail on the head.

The discrimination that women have been subject to through the ages is a result of our biological sex and equality law protections designed to prevent discrimination against women have always been intended to protect us from sex-based discrimination.

The Equality Act also allows for single-sex exceptions in routine situations where the general prohibition against sex discrimination based on sex does not apply so that single or separate sex services may be provided. Good examples are women’s toilets, changing rooms and support services for the survivors of male violence.

Jess went on to say: “We all know that men’s violence against women and girls happens to women. Of course, violence happens to men and, frankly, if someone needs services because they are a victim of domestic or sexual violence, I do not care which category they fall into – they are 100% entitled to expect access to those services.

"But the Equality Act has to allow for the fact that we need different kinds of services for different people’s needs, understandably.

“The Equality Act is a carefully balanced piece of legislation that recognises that women and men – let us be honest, it is less men – need protection from sex discrimination.”

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However, increasingly across the whole of the UK, services for survivors of domestic abuse or sexual violence are not being provided on a single-sex basis.

Many service providers have been cowed by so-called “Stonewall Law” – shorthand for the interpretation of the law put forward by the lobby groups like Stonewall and the Equality Network which replaces sex with gender identity.

These lobby groups have influenced the conditions attached to local and central government funding with the result that organisations are forced to accommodate biological men into women’s services or risk losing the funding which they rely on to operate.

We know that traumatised women are self-excluding and not using services which they fear having to share with biological males in support groups or refuges.

This is why JK Rowling and a group of fantastic women have set up Beira’s Place in Edinburgh to provide a single-sex service.

Services for trans people who are affected by domestic abuse and sexual violence must absolutely be commissioned by local authorities. But different people need different services, and the Equality Act provides for that.

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Last week, when the report of the Scottish Government’s independent “Violence Against Women and Girls: Strategic Review of Funding and Commissioning of Services” was published, it recommended that single-sex provision should remain as part of a range of services. As one interlocutor argued, “it is possible to be pro-woman and not anti-anyone else”.

Jess Phillips knows what she is talking about.

Prior to entering parliament, she worked for Women’s Aid in England managing refuges for victims of domestic abuse. She now serves as Labour’s shadow minister for domestic violence and safeguarding. When both she and an expert review set up by the Scottish Government say women across the UK need single-sex services, we should listen.

The definition of sex in the Equality Act has in recent times become very unclear. During the parliamentary debate I spoke in support of restoring clarity to the law by specifying that the terms “sex”, “male”, “female”, “man” and “woman” in the Act refer to biological sex, not sex as modified by a gender recognition certificate and certainly not self-identified sex.

The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) says that such clarity would assist not only with the provision of single-sex and separate-sex services but in other areas including sport, data collection, freedom of association for men and women and freedom of association for lesbians and gay men.

It also identified that human rights law may require the statutory recognition of biological sex in order to avoid breaches of the right to private and family life under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) as well as the freedom of association provisions in Article 11.

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As a National Human Rights Association, the EHRC is required to consider the rights of everyone – which is sometimes forgotten by those who have attacked it for advocating for the rights of women and LGB people as well as trans people.

The Equality Act attempted to strike reasonable balances between the rights of people, with nine different protected characteristics, including sex, sexual orientation and gender reassignment. The protected characteristic of gender reassignment is widely drawn to protect all trans people against discrimination at work and in the provision of goods and services.

It is rightly not confined to those who have undergone medical treatment or those who have a Gender Recognition Certificate (GRC).

There is no intention to remove the protection that trans people have under the Equality Act, and I would never support any move to do that. Protecting everyone from sex discrimination does not remove discrimination protections for transgender people.

IN the last year, two Scottish court cases have disagreed on the correct interpretation of sex in the Act. In the first case which went to appeal it was found that provisions in favour of women “by definition exclude those who are biologically male”.

However, a subsequent judgment at first instance in another case found that “sex” is not limited to biological or birth sex but includes those in possession of a GRC obtained in accordance with the 2004 Act.

Both cases were brought by the grassroots campaign group For Women Scotland and the second is now being appealed. But ordinary women should not have to crowdfund to clarify the law when the UK Government could use its power to resolve the issue and protect everyone’s rights.

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The petition which Jess and I spoke in favour of wants the Government to clarify the Equality Act. The rival petition wants to leave it muddled which is in no one’s interests.

Clarifying that sex means biological sex is also important for lesbians, gay men and bisexuals who share the protected characteristic of “sexual orientation”. LGB people all experience same-sex attraction – that is, attraction based upon biological sex, not gender identity.

Gender identity is not relevant to sexual attraction.

Yet in recent years, Stonewall has quietly modified their definition of homosexuality to centre around gender identity, and not sex. Since they also explicitly include “cross-dressers” under their definition of transgender, this means that many males now self-define as lesbians. Under this climate, it is impossible for lesbians to meet and gather openly without men wishing to join or simply disrupt our events.

Lesbians, in the words of Anne Lister (Gentleman Jack), “Love and only love the fairer sex”. It is unacceptable that we should be forced to include men in our social groups and on lesbian dating apps – indeed it is outright homophobia.

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In the Equality Act, sexual orientation means attraction to the same sex, opposite sex or both sexes. But if “sex” no longer means male/female, then sexual orientation has been redefined to mean “attraction to a government-issued certificate” – or, if the Gender Reform Recognition Bill became law in Scotland, attraction to self-declared sex.

In other words, “sex” would be defined out of existence.

This is particularly harmful for same-sex attracted people, who still suffer significantly from homophobia and require a clear definition of sexual orientation if our rights are to mean anything.

Clarifying the law would help service providers treat everyone fairly and protect rights to privacy and freedom of association.

Finally, it is important to recognise women as a group. When public authorities consider the impact of their policies, they should consider the impacts on women (and men).

Unless they are able to consider women and transwomen as separate groups, they can never consider that women’s interests matter where there is a conflict.

These are the sort of issues that were being debated in parliament on Monday. Trans rights were not up for debate, nor should they be. To suggest otherwise is irresponsible and has consequences as we have seen this week.