Legislative Definition of Sex

Debate between Nia Griffith and Jonathan Gullis

Monday 12th June 2023 Westminster Hall

[Jonathan Gullis (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Con)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Gower (Tonia Antoniazzi) on her balanced approach at the start and on listening to all sides of the debate.

I start by making it very clear that no one here is looking for some sort of culture war, despite what some may think. No one here is trying to pit different people against each other; in fact, I firmly believe that both women and the trans community have the right to be protected. They are already well protected under many existing laws, including the Equality Act, the Gender Recognition Act and the Human Rights Act. There are plenty of laws in place. If we are being asked to clarify the law—not change, but clarify it—this Parliament has the right to do so as long as the majority vote for that.

I speak passionately about this issue. I have someone in my life—a woman—who fled domestic violence and found a refuge with her young daughter. She would have been terrified to have been near anyone, whether male or a trans woman, in that system, because of the abuse, rape and torture that they had both suffered. This is about them having the safety of a women’s refuge, to be around other female survivors. I regularly commend the hon. Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips) for being such a passionate champion of the cause.

Having lived with the woman I have described and heard about all the tragedy that she has had to go through, I understand why it is so important that women should have the protection of single-sex spaces and why it is wholly appropriate that we should clarify that law if we need to—to say that sex is defined by biology. Someone is not assigned their gender at birth; they are born male or female. A man is an adult human male and a woman is an adult human female. We should not be disputing those facts in the 21st century—these are the basics of biology that we talk about in our classrooms. I used to be a teacher. As head of year, I had responsibility for the safeguarding and welfare of children; I taught in an only-girls school as well as mixed-sex schools. I understand the challenges that come with some households and young individuals.

The issue is about making sure that women and girls feel protected and that the trans community have their rights and protections as well. It is befuddling to people in Stoke-on-Trent North, Kidsgrove and Talke that this debate should even have to happen—to them it is obvious that in the Equality Act “sex” was talking about the biological definitions of men and women. Of course, they also accept that if there needs to be clarity, we should get on with giving it.

I want my daughter to grow up looking to heroines such as the hon. Member for Canterbury (Rosie Duffield), the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry) and J. K. Rowling, who have been brave and bold enough to stand up for what they believe is important. Their rights should not be eroded because of an extremist minority shouting very loudly on social media and pursuing a very hard-line agenda that is not in keeping with the majority opinion, as we have seen during the national debate.

Sadly, women are being persecuted and facing abuse simply for speaking out, just as much as those in the trans community. The people who made money off J.K. Rowling’s hard work refused to stand beside her—they sit there in their multi-million-pound mansions, taking their private flights and trading on their position as actors and actresses because of her work. They had the gall to cancel her from being present at the show about the books that she herself wrote. It is extraordinary that we live in such times and that those individuals can be so cold and callous. That is why it is so important that we have this debate, which is about making sure that women feel and are safe and have their protections.

[Dame Nia Griffith]

Would the hon. Member like to clarify his understanding of the definition in the Equality Act? As I understand it, the Equality Act defines someone’s legal sex as being either the sex they were assigned at birth or the sex that they have acquired through having a gender recognition certificate. I do not think that that is what he has said in his speech.

[Jonathan Gullis]

I want to make it perfectly clear: sex is not assigned at birth. You are born a man or you are born a woman. Those are indisputable facts. You have XY chromosomes or XX chromosomes. Again, that is not up for debate or discussion. The hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Olivia Blake) talked about XXY chromosomes, but as the NHS website points out, Klinefelter syndrome is caused by an abnormal amount of chromosomes. It does not relate to the separate debate about self-identification. Those two things are separate.

To finish, it is biologically clear that a male has XY chromosomes and a female has XX chromosomes. This is a scientific truth that should not be conflated with any constructed truth. William of Occam had it right that the simplistic approach is the best. Let us keep the Equality Act simple in order to protect the rights of everyone in a civil society. The problem with the debate we are having is that it is set in the context of a postmodern society that thinks that it can get away with dictating to those with universal convictions of truth that they must abandon them in favour of the nonsensical versions of their truth. Although the Algerian philosopher Jacques Derrida once pointed out that society is in a state of flux, he did not say that science is in a state of flux.