Four Labour MPs have signed a pledge in which they make clear their belief that trans rights “do not conflict” with lesbian rights, in the wake of the Supreme Court’s ruling on the definition of “sex”.
Charlotte Nichols, Kate Osborne, Olivia Blake and Nadia Whittome put their names to a Lesbian Visibility Week pledge which rejects “attempts to divide our communities”.
Osborne, Blake and Whittome were three of the four LGBTQ+ Labour MPs who responded to PinkNews’ request to all 59 out members of parliament about whether they still believed trans women are women, in the face of the ruling, and after prime minister Keir Starmer’s comments where he stated the opposite.
Nichols, the MP for Warrington, the constituency where transgender teen Brianna Ghey was murdered two years ago, failed to reply ahead of the publication of the names.
Their signatures on the pledge come after the UK Supreme Court ruled that the legal definition of the protected characteristic of “sex” in the 2010 Equality Act does not include transgender women and refers solely to biological women.
In their 88-page ruling, the country’s top judges decreed that lesbians “must be a female who is sexually oriented towards (or attracted to) females, and lesbians, as a group, are females who share the characteristic of being sexually oriented to females” and this is “coherent and understandable on a biological understanding of sex”.
The judgement is expected to have wide-ranging implications for the trans and non-binary community as well as for public bodies, organisations and services who will be asked to update their polices on inclusion and single-sex spaces to reflect the court’s findings.
The pledge, drawn up for a Lesbian Visibility Week reception in parliament last week, reads: “We, the undersigned, affirm out unwavering commitment to the dignity, safety and liberation of lesbian and trans people in all their diversity.
“In the wake of the UK Supreme Court ruling, we reaffirm that the rights of trans people do not conflict with the rights of lesbians. We reject attempts to divide our communities and stand united against all forms of transphobia, lesbophobia and misogyny.
“Our liberation is bound together. There is no pride in exclusion. No feminism without solidarity.
“We stand firm. We will not be divided.”
During a debate in the House of Commons, Osborne also expressed concern about the effects the judges’ decision would have on masculine lesbians and possibly heterosexual women.
“Just last month, as I got off a train at King’s Cross, I was verbally abused by a man who shouted at me that I was obviously a lesbian, that I was a sexual deviant and that I was going to hell. I am frequently misgendered,” she said.
“I do not mean occasionally, it is a weekly occurrence. In January, I was misgendered three times during one two-hour train journey. I have been misgendered by staff of this House. I was misgendered while buying some jeans last week. This is genuinely a frequent issue for me and a number of my lesbian friends.
“I note that ministers said yesterday that there will be guidance regarding the Supreme Court verdict. That decision will have a huge impact on my life, on many other cis lesbians and, indeed, on heterosexual women.
“I suspect that I will get challenged even more now when accessing facilities. The impact on my life will be problematic but the impact on my trans siblings’ lives will be significantly worse.”
Her words echoed that of fellow Labour MP Dawn Butler who recalled witnessing her “butch lesbian” friends being questioned by strangers in women’s toilets.
“I don’t know if anyone else in the House has butch lesbian friends and has been with them when they’ve been told to get out of women’s toilets, but I have. It is not pleasant,” she told the Commons.
“So, those people using [the Equality Act clarification] as a political football should be ashamed of themselves. If you’re saying that trans women have to use men’s toilets, trans men then have to use women’s toilets. How are you going to stop them? By asking to see their genitalia? It makes no sense.”
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