Kemi Badenoch had trouble explaining how her plans to change the rules on equality would work if the Conservatives win the election.
In order to make sure that biological sex is what the law means, the minister for women and equalities has promised to “redefined meanings of the word.” She said that the changes will make single-sex areas safer for women and girls.
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But when asked about the specifics of how the changes would be made, Ms. Badenoch got angry and told BBC host Mishal Husain that he was “trying to make light of what is a very serious issue.”
There were questions about what paperwork transgender people would need to get into services like rape crisis centers and to get into jail when Ms. Badenoch appeared on BBC Radio 4’s Today show.
The future Tory leader candidate, on the other hand, said, “This is not a paperwork issue; this is a practical issue.”
But an angry Ms. Husain pointed out that the government already tells people who have officially changed their gender to order new birth papers.
“I’m sure you’ve given this some thought…” “What kind of proof do you need or won’t let someone with an actual male gender use to support their claim in order to officially keep them from going to a rape crisis center?” she asked.
“Nobody should be able to do anything at all,” Ms. Badenoch said the question made it sound like.
When asked how transgender women would be put in jail, Ms. Badenoch said, “The truth is that the prison authorities will know… they will know, and they will put them in there based on their biological sex.”
She stated that choices would be based on what sex a person had at birth, which is what she meant by “biological sex.”
She said, “Mishal, I really appreciate that you are trying to get into very technical scenarios…” when asked again what papers would be needed. Making this about papers is, I’m afraid, a distraction that tries to make a very serious problem seem less important.
It was Ms. Badenoch who told LBC radio, “We want people to have privacy and dignity.” It is not meant to stop trans people from having privacy and respect; this is about keeping people who are weak safe.
“That’s why we have said you should have unisex toilets, a disabled toilet is an example of that, or where there are shared spaces, they should be on the basis of biological sex.”
“Changing your clothes doesn’t change who you are,” she said. “We want to protect transgender people too. People who want to change their clothes shouldn’t be able to take advantage of the scenarios we’ve planned and the laws we’ve made to protect transgender people who suffer from gender dysphoria.”
“Just putting on a different set of clothes does not make you transgender.”
They say that the Equality Act, which was passed by Labour in 2010, hasn’t kept up with changing ideas and isn’t clear enough about when it refers to sex and when it refers to gender.
The document says that the planned change to the law will not take away the Equality Act’s rights against discrimination based on gender reassignment.
People who have a Gender Recognition Certificate will still be legally recognized as the gender they chose, even if the Equality Act doesn’t apply.
The Conservatives’ new plan also includes making it a private issue for gender recognition. As they put it, “this will mean that a person can only have one sex in the eyes of the law in the United Kingdom.”
The promise was made by Rishi Sunak after his party fell further behind Labour in the most recent poll. He said, “The safety of women and girls is too important to let the current confusion around definitions of sex and gender persist.”
“The Conservatives think that this change to the law will make protections stronger in a way that treats everyone’s privacy and worth equally.”
“We are looking at this issue based on facts so that we can keep building a safe future for everyone in the country.”
Kemi Badenoch, who is the minister for women and equalities, wrote to the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) last year to ask for more information on the subject.
She said that public groups are doing what they’re doing because they “fear being accused of transphobia.”
“It is clear that public authorities and regulatory bodies are confused about what the law says about sex and gender and when to act, often out of fear of being accused of transphobia or not being inclusive,” she said. “For example, rapists are housed in women’s prisons, and men play sports in which they have an unfair advantage.”
Because of this, we promise that if we become the government after the election, we will make it clear that biological sex is what the law means and not new, different meanings of the word.
“It is too important to let the confusion continue to protect the spaces of women and girls.”