“For Women Scotland” Court Ruling: First Anniversary

Debate between Rosie Duffield and Caroline Johnson

Tuesday 14th April 2026 Westminster Hall

[Rosie Duffield (Canterbury) (Ind)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Stringer. I thank the hon. Member for Upper Bann (Carla Lockhart) for securing this debate. We are so used to having small time limits for these debates that I am afraid I have not prepared anything like as much as I would want to say.

On 16 April 2025, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that for the purposes of the Equality Act 2010, sex means biological sex, not gender. A woman is an adult human female, and a male is an adult human male. That is, of course, what the vast majority of the public know simply to be true. The Supreme Court judgment was won by three courageous and formidable women: Susan, Marion and Trina, known as For Women Scotland. It was a victory for women’s rights and for gay rights as well.

Lesbians have been at the sharp end of this campaign to erode women’s rights. If the Scottish Government, Amnesty International and activist groups such as the so-called Good Law Project had their way, anyone at all could call themselves a lesbian. A lesbian would no longer simply be a woman who is attracted to other women, but could be any man calling himself a lesbian. Biological men—mostly those without any reassignment surgery—label themselves as lesbian, but they are simply men attracted to women, so straight men. Yet the lesbians are the “bigots” and “transphobes” if they dare to point that out.

This also plays out daily in the political sphere. Many activists in political parties and politicians, and some political leaders themselves, are wedded firmly to this nonsensical ideology.

[Dr Caroline Johnson]

The hon. Lady is making a very good speech. Does she share my concern that it plays out in the scientific arena as well? The UK Health Security Agency has been collecting data in relation to sexual health infections on the basis of gender rather than sex.

[Rosie Duffield]

Absolutely. Of course, that is the hon. Member’s area of expertise. I know many health professionals who are incredibly frustrated at this simple twisting of facts, which should not be done at all in the NHS. I thank her for pointing that out.

With a few admirable exceptions, many Members of Parliament are unable to identify or define a woman. They reject that women’s spaces must be exclusively for biological women and have decided that those of us intent on the Equality Act being upheld are evil incarnate.

For centuries, women have had to fight for our rights. We have had to fight male threats of violence and male acts of violence. We are used to having to protect ourselves and our spaces. The very least we should expect from our own Government is the leadership and conviction to back those rights with basic and fundamental legislation. The Labour Government did that in 2010, yet here we are, 16 years later, having to force the current Government to uphold and enforce the law, and make it crystal clear to the NHS, sporting bodies, membership organisations and Government Departments that the law must be followed and adhered to—that is their job.

While the Secretary of State says that her Government have

“always supported the protection of single-sex spaces based on biological sex”,

men who choose to identify as women are still permitted to receive care on women’s hospital wards, access women’s toilets—including in this building—compete in the women’s category in parkrun and take women’s places in grassroots sports, and there are still men in women’s prisons. Actions speak louder than words. The law is the law, so what exactly are the Government waiting for, and why are they incapable of showing even the most basic leadership?

The Supreme Court has been clear, and trans-identifying people remain protected in law under the protected characteristic of gender reassignment. None of their protections or rights have been taken away.

--- Later in debate ---

[Rosie Duffield]

That is exactly right. We are not talking about gender identity. We are talking about the law as it adheres to biological men and women.

[Dr Caroline Johnson]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Rosie Duffield]

For the very last time.

[Dr Caroline Johnson]

The hon. Lady has talked about the courage of the people who stood up on this issue, but will she reflect on the people who felt censored? For example, I spoke to a young lady in my constituency who participated in a hockey club, but she stopped going. The parents of another girl stopped her going to the same club, because there was a man on the young ladies’ hockey team who insisted on using the changing room and the girls felt uncomfortable changing in front of him. The issue is reducing the participation of particularly young women in sport, which is regrettable. Guidance from the Government to make things clear will help to ensure that women can participate in sport fairly and safely.

[Rosie Duffield]

The hon. Member makes a good point. MPs on my side of the argument will certainly hear that time and time again from parents. There is a group called the Bayswater group whose members have gone through the problems and difficulties of their children wanting to transition from a very early age, with all the categories of sport that they should or should not go into. Guidance would really help those parents, but certainly girls should not feel that they should not participate.

All women on this side of the argument have felt intimidated at some point, not just by the death threats—those are passé by now—but by the signs and the balaclavas outside, and by the rubbish about it coming from both sides. I have lived this for nearly a decade; it is not both sides. It would be lovely to end all the intimidation. I have been in the Labour party for a long time, and, sadly, there are women now in government who have always been on my side in secret gender-critical groups but do not have the courage to speak up when in government. That is a drastic lack of leadership and lack of courage. I feel very sorry for them.

I say to the Government that women are watching and men are watching. Women will be voting at the local elections, and most people in this country are women. The Government have a problem. Their problem is not that the Supreme Court ruling is too complicated to understand or implement, but that it is too clear for people to continue to misrepresent our activists.

East Kent Maternity Services: Independent Investigation

Debate between Rosie Duffield and Caroline Johnson

Thursday 20th October 2022 Commons Chamber

[Dr Johnson]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his comments. I note that he has been a doughty campaigner on this issue, and I know how much it matters to him personally, as well as as a Member of Parliament. I would of course be happy to come to Margate to meet the staff he describes.

[Rosie Duffield (Canterbury) (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for her statement, Dr Kirkup and his team, and the families and staff who took part in the inquiry. It is clear that there has been an utterly toxic and dysfunctional culture within maternity services at the East Kent hospitals trust. It is shocking and disturbing, and made so much worse by the revelation that the trust tried to cover up these cases. Mothers were treated appallingly and babies died. I cannot comprehend what they have had to endure, and I am so angry on their behalf. How can the Minister assure my constituents that action leading to immediate change will not involve any of the staff and managers involved directly in these cases? And given that former staff and a governor have said publicly that they cannot recommend the service, how can MPs in East Kent tell our constituents that our maternity services are now safe?

[Dr Johnson]

I know that this is a matter on which the hon. Lady has been campaigning furiously on behalf of her constituents. I share her anger, and her shock when I read the report, at some of the cases and some of the ways in which patients have been spoken to during their time at their hospital. It is truly unforgivable.

On the question of safety, that was my first question when I read the report: are we sure that patients going in today to have their babies are safe to do so? So I met Anne Eden, the regional director of NHSE, yesterday to talk to her about safety, and I have been reassured about both quality and outcomes. On outcomes, I have been reassured that, looking at crude data, which I appreciate has not been published yet, the numbers of stillbirths and neonatal deaths over the last year or so have fallen substantially. On quality, it is doing a review, so each woman is contacted six weeks after her delivery to ask about her experiences, and where experiences have not been as they should be—although they are in almost all cases—that has been further investigated in each case.