Women and Girls: Economic Well-being, Welfare, Safety and Opportunities

Lord Strathcarron Excerpts

Thursday 14th July 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Strathcarron (Con)]

My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Baroness, Lady Gale, for the opportunity to join this debate. I want to focus on the safety of women and girls part of the subject matter. I feel slightly out of place here as a man among so many women—in fact, proportionately, it reminds me of my Pilates class—but it is the implications of a biological man taking part in a biological woman’s event that I would like to touch on briefly today.

I know that it may not look likely, but this old wreck standing before your Lordships today was once a keen rugby player. Rugby is a sport where no quarter is given or taken. I take the liberty of assuming that not many noble Baronesses here today have ever been rugby-tackled but, if they have, they will know that a rugby tackle is a form of uncontrolled violence where—in men’s rugby anyway—two big, beefy players run as fast as they can and the one from behind launches himself at the person in front with the simple intention of stopping him in his tracks and bringing him to the ground with as much force and as little subtlety as possible. The mind boggles at the damage that could be done by somebody like the person I used to be—15 stone of muscle and bone—launching myself flat out on to a 10-stone girl and bringing her down as forcefully as possible. At the very least, she would be battered and bruised, but it could easily result in broken bones or damaged brains.

It seems like madness that such a thing is permitted, yet this is exactly what England Rugby does permit, despite World Rugby being a pioneer in recommending that males are categorically excluded from female sports. England Rugby had to choose between fairness and inclusivity—clearly incompatible choices. It is obviously completely unfair that girls should have to compete in contact sports against fully developed biological men, yet they ignored fairness and common sense for the false god of woke inclusivity.

Other problems arise when the final whistle blows. Rugby is a sweaty and often muddy game; after it, we all repair to the changing and shower rooms. Typically, at club level, there will not be male and female changing rooms but just one room as, up to now, men and women have played the game separately and at different times. Most trans women still have their male equipment intact, so we now have a situation where women and girls obviously do not want to get undressed and shower with a fully equipped biological man present. At the very least, it is awkward and undignified. It is certainly uncivilised and potentially dangerous; it is amazing how it has been allowed to happen.

I must emphasise that this is absolutely not an attempt to dissuade trans athletes from playing any sport, including other contact sports such as kick-boxing where, unbelievably, biological men can kick-box women and girls. Rather, it is a plea that biological women play against biological women while there is a new third category—let us say, a form of open category—where trans athletes can compete for honours among themselves and win them fairly in the true spirit of sport.