No more pious talk of “polarising debates†or “taking a breathâ€. The age of can-kicking, hand-wringing and obfuscation is over: the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) guidance on single-sex spaces is finally here and clear — now it's time for leadership.
Except leadership has never been more fragile, with Sir Keir Starmer, battered out of female penis talk by opinion polls, likely to be succeeded by Andy Burnham, who has said women demanding privacy are a tiny minority of “supposed feminists†damaged by male violence.
Now the man whose politics are more fluid than a drag queen's gender has about-turned. Conscious that in Makerfield he faces working-class, Reform-leaning voters, he said at his campaign launch that EHRC guidance should be implemented. The hardline trans activist MPs and Labour members he needs to make him PM will be livid. But maybe he'll acquire another opinion once in office.
Meanwhile the government has lost its “we're waiting for the guidance†excuse and needs to conduct a full audit of how it applies. Maybe start with women's prisons, since a new report from the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies (CCJS) outlines how they are flagrantly breaking the law.
The principle that women be incarcerated separately from men began 200 years ago with Elizabeth Fry and is enshrined in the Geneva Convention. Yet current Ministry of Justice rules state only that “normally†women's prisons should be single-sex. If a trans-identifying male has committed a violent or sexual crime, or retains male genitalia, he will go to the male estate.
But if he holds a Gender Recognition Certificate, available now for £6, he may be approved for a cell at Downview women's prison's E wing. Here, trans-identifying males sleep and shower, but during the day they can mix with female prisoners, who are overwhelmingly victims of male violence and sexual abuse.
The Tory MP Rebecca Paul has discovered E wing contains, among others, Zoe Watts, jailed for eight years for trying to manufacture a 3D printer gun and found with a stockpile of weapons, who posted videos in which he smashed a water melon bearing a woman's face with a baseball bat, and Joanna Rowland-Stuart, who killed his male partner with a samurai sword.
Traumatised, mainly low-risk women are confined, with no possible escape, among high-risk, violent men. Downview has even scrapped a rule whereby these males were guarded one-to-one at all times. The CCJS report, by Ben Cooper KC and Myles Grandison, a prison law expert, points out that while these trans prisoners are approved for Downview case by case, there is no parallel assessment of the history and mental health of each woman expected to be incarcerated among them. That only male feelings matter is discrimination.
The Ministry of Justice has argued with astounding sophistry that E wing is not part of the female estate. Yet its presence means Downview is not a women-only service, a breach of the EHRC code. The inmates of E wing could be safely incorporated into a unit for vulnerable prisoners in the men's estate.
The biggest services organisation to which the EHRC guidance applies is the NHS. We saw what happens when ideology is allowed to trump safeguarding in the shocking story of a 5ft 3in trans-identifying female who in 2022 was placed in a male psychiatric wing of the Maudsley Hospital in south London. Within an hour, male inmates screaming “no Adam's apple†cornered her in a cupboard, where she was raped.
Whenever I pass the Maudsley, it is flying the trans flag. Did activist medics congratulate themselves on admitting this vulnerable young person to a ward that matched their “gender identity� After the resulting catastrophe, the hospital panicked and withheld key files from police, resulting in an innocent man standing trial.
Thankfully in 2024 patient provision became single-sex, with trans patients placed when required in private rooms. Yet the NHS is also the country's biggest employer and, as the cases of Sandie Peggie and the Darlington nurses show, still expects its female staff to undress in front of males.
NHS trusts have also claimed to be waiting for the EHRC guidance before revising their rules. So the new health secretary James Murray — who once defended male competitors in female sports — has no excuse for not finally protecting the privacy and safety of female staff. Nor does the Cabinet Office, which has refused to root out unlawful Stonewall-influenced civil service rules.
Although softened around the edges by Bridget Phillipson, the EHRC guidance is still clear. Companies will spend a fortune creating “third space†toilets for trans people, which trans-identifying males, for whom using the ladies is “affirmativeâ€, will ignore. But gyms, say, will have solid grounds to eject men from female changing rooms, thus deterring predatory chancers. Some associations may go trans-inclusive: fine, but they can't claim to be women-only. Crucially, female-only services for victims of rape or abuse are protected.
At his campaign launch Burnham compared the gender wars to Brexit, saying the country is “constantly rerunning the argumentsâ€. Too true. Women never sought this divisive battle: until a decade ago we turned a blind eye to the few fully transitioned trans women who used our loos. Then activists pushed self-ID, threatened our safety and spaces, until women pushed back.
Now the war is over, trans activists have lost territory that was never theirs to control. It won't be women who reject the EHRC peace plan.
