Penny Mordaunt could have a big problem with the sex and gender debate

The week at Westminster has been dominated by the Tory party leadership election. While the Tories have indulged themselves in what is, superficially at least, a pleasing exercise in internal party democracy and debate, at Westminster democracy and debate have been further debased. The “caretaker government’, hastily assembled under the lame-duck PM Johnson, is busy pulling legislation from the parliamentary programme and refusing to submit itself to scrutiny.

Yesterday we heard that the enormously important, but also controversial, Online Safety Bill won't reach the end of its House of Commons journey next week despite 50 hours in bill committee and a full day on the floor of the House this week. Meanwhile, Priti Patel withdrew from a scheduled appearance before the Home Affairs Committee with less than 24 hours' notice, prompting a point of order from their Chair and an angry letter. Dominic Raab, who has long been scheduled to appear before the Joint Committee on Human Rights next week to be grilled about his repeal of the Human Rights Act, also pulled out. He gave us a week’s notice but that was still not enough time to replace him with other witnesses and so he has knocked off course a carefully planned schedule of evidence on one of the most important and far-reaching bills currently before parliament.

Those in authority seem unable to do anything about any of this, just as they have, to date, been unable to penalise Johnson for his lies. When the Alba MPs staged their stunt at the start of PMQs it seemed to me that the most noteworthy aspect of what followed was the contrast between the hysterical reaction to their protest and the notable inaction towards Johnson’s repeated contempt of parliament. Go figure.

The emerging favourite in the Tory leadership race is Penny Mordaunt. She’s a right winger who, like Keir Starmer, likes to be photographed between 2 union jacks. She knows, understands, and cares little for Scottish politics. But she has come up against what could be a big problem for her given the lies of her predecessor. For it seems she has been less than truthful about her past position in the conflict between gender identity theory and those who believe that biological sex matters and is immutable.

Up until recently, Penny Mordaunt was a fully paid-up supporter of gender identity theory who proudly recited the mantra “Trans women are women” at the despatch box, supported Self ID, and tried to remove the words “women” and “mother” from a maternity rights bill. Now she is backtracking, not by saying she was wrong, but by attempting to pretend that none of this ever happened and that she has always been on the other side of the debate.

The  problem here is that Mordaunt is persistently misrepresenting her previous position. That should override whatever view one might take on this issue. We don’t want another Tory Leader who is prepared to be so untruthful.. The starting gun on this tory leadership race was fired because of political dishonesty. Any candidate who tries to rewrite history so shamelessly should be out on their ear.

In my experience the approach people take to this particular issue is a pretty good indicator of their integrity as a politician. By that I don’t mean what side of the debate they are on but rather whether they are prepared to state their position clearly, answer questions about it, debate it and be tolerant and respectful of those on the other side of the debate.

On Monday I attended a cross-party parliamentary event in support of Free Speech. Unfortunately, our guest of honour, Martina Navratilova, was too unwell. after her recent bout of covid. to attend, but we enjoyed speeches from speakers from all the major parties. Many who spoke expressed concern about moves to favour gender identity over the lived reality of biological sex in policy making across a range of issues. including sport. This is not a culture war or a right-wing issue.  Many of the organisations who backed the event, including LGB Alliance, were founded by lesbians and feminists from the left-wing tradition who simply want to uphold the rights of women and lesbians while also recognising the right of trans people to enjoy equal rights. The key word here is equal. No one group’s rights should trump those of others. Balance is required.  Policy making should be evidence based.

Later in the week I tabled and spoke to amendments I have drafted to the Online Safety Bill to ensure that, when moderating online content, Twitter does not discriminate against women, those who hold gender-critical beliefs, or those with a same sex orientation. My amendments would make it clear that Twitter is subject to the Equality Act when operating in the UK and therefore must respect all the protected characteristics set out in the Equality Act, not just those dearest to the beardy Californian blokes who control its content.

The protected characteristics set out in the Equality Act are age; gender reassignment; being married or in a civil partnership; being pregnant or on maternity leave; disability; race, including colour, nationality, ethnic or national origin; religion or belief; sex and sexual orientation. It is against the law to discriminate, victimise, or harass anyone because of any of those protected characteristics.

But Twitter doesn’t include ‘sex’ as a protected characteristic in its hateful conduct policy and frequently deletes expressions of belief on the immutability of biological sex and penalises the account holders who post such tweets while failing to remove tweets threatening violence against women and taking no action against the perpetrators.

I also took time in parliament this week to applaud a very important court judgment on what the Equality Act means for freedom of expression, particularly in the workplace. In the of case of Maya Forstater vs Centre for Global Development, the Employment Appeal Tribunal and a subsequent Employment Tribunal have made it clear that that gender-critical beliefs are protected under the Equality Act and that women, and indeed men, must not be discriminated against, harassed or victimised for either holding those beliefs or stating them. This means that all employers will require to review their workplace practices and their equality, diversity and inclusion policies to ensure that they comply with the law as stated in that judgment.

Employers will now require to recognise that gender-critical beliefs align with the definition of man and woman in law and that workplace policies on sex and gender reassignment must not create a potential risk of discrimination, bullying or harassment against those with gender critical beliefs. They will need to consider whether their policies create a hostile environment for those with gender-critical beliefs for example, by calling them ‘transphobic”. If they have signed up to external benchmarking schemes such as Stonewall’s Workplace Equality Index which encourage discrimination against gender-critical people, they will need to revisit this decision. They will also need to make sure that their internal LGBTI+ and women's networks don’t seek to enforce sex denialism.

The Forstater judgments could also have very significant implications for political parties who are also bound by the Equality Act not to discriminate against their members on the grounds of any of the protected characteristics. Definitions of ‘transphobia” will require to be rewritten in order to be compliant with non-discrimination law. Likewise, political parties who discriminate in the provision of goods and services by banning organisations like LGB Alliance or gender-critical feminist groups from taking stalls at their conference may find themselves on the wrong side of the law.