International Women’s Day

Debate between Joanna Cherry and Peter Bottomley

Thursday 10th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Joanna Cherry]

I entirely agree with the hon. Gentleman. Even worse, there are many men—young men—involved in this debate who have embraced a new form of misogyny. I know that to my cost, and I hope that that will start to change.

But I am trying to be positive, and I want to list a couple of the other successes there have been in the last year for gender-critical women such as myself. My friends at the LGB Alliance are registered as a charity now, and they held a major conference that was attended by many parliamentarians. I see some of them here today. Sadly, however, a straight, married Member of this House saw fit to protest outside the conference, which was organised by lesbians to discuss the rights of same-sex-attracted people. I thought I had seen the last of that sort of lesbophobia in the ’90s, but it turns out I was wrong. I repeat that lesbian rights are not conditional on our accepting gender identity theory.

Another positive development has been the Equality and Human Rights Commission entering the debate on self-identification and on how to frame the quite appropriate ban on conversion therapy. The commission entered the debate with a voice of calm common sense, reminding us that human rights are universal and that all protected characteristics under the Equality Act deserve protection. Others have mentioned the very welcome interim report on the Cass review today, and I hope the Minister will be able to assure us that the Government will look carefully at that report and look into the alarming phenomenon of so many young women feeling so uncomfortable with their identity as women as they go through puberty in our society that they feel they have to change their identity to cope with those pressures.

[Sir Peter Bottomley]

Can I make two points to, and through, the hon. and learned Lady? First, Suzanne Moore ought to have been able to write her column for The Guardian, and I hope that The Guardian will report the hon. and learned Lady’s speech in full tomorrow and explain why Suzanne Moore cannot publish her thoughts in her own newspaper, as it once was. Secondly, on the LGB Alliance conference, which I attended, I went up to some of the people protesting outside and asked if they had read the book “Trans” or the book “Material Girls”. They said no. I invited them to join me in asking Liam Hackett, the chief executive of the anti-bullying charity Ditch the Label, if he would withdraw his words describing Kathleen Stock as a dangerous extremist for giving her plain views on women’s rights.

[Joanna Cherry]

I agree with what the hon. Gentleman says, and I am proud to call Professor Kathleen Stock a friend. She is an admirable scholar, a feminist and a lesbian who has written carefully about these issues, and the way she has been traduced by students at her university and, sadly, by some politicians in one of my favourite cities, Brighton, is absolutely disgraceful. I want to be positive today, however, and I think that on this issue the tide is turning. I am living proof that cancellation does not always work.

Just before I sit down, I have a couple of questions for the Minister. Will she back the Equality and Human Rights Commission to produce solid guidance on the definitions of protected characteristics and single-sex services? A lot of the harassment I have described stems from women setting out the case for single-sex services and then facing wrongful accusations of transphobia. Secondly, will she push for Government Departments to end the use of external human resource benchmarking schemes for legal compliance with the Equality Act? As we saw in the Akua Reindorf report from Essex University, some external benchmarks—sadly, some from Stonewall, of which I used to be, but no longer am, a supporter—have been wrong in law. Finally, once the EHRC has published some decent guidance, will she review civil service HR policies to ensure that they are in line with the law of the land under the Equality Act, rather than in line with prejudiced lobbying groups?