WDI UK News
Jan 2024 - WDI UK signed the Sex Matters letter to GANRHI calling for it to stand up to the EHRC
Dec 2023 - WDI UK signed the Fair Play For Women letter to UN Women objecting to the appointment of Munroe Bergdorf.
Nov 2023 - WDI UK’s Position on Conversion Practices and Safeguarding
In February this year WDI UK took a delegation of women including six speakers to the House of Lords to address a meeting with cross-party Parliamentarians and discuss the various implications of the Conversion Practices Bill on women and girls. They were mothers, lesbians and a schoolgirl and her mother from the Republic of Ireland, where affirmation-only is practised and self ID is already in place in law.
Baroness Nicholson hosted this meeting as a follow up to our delegation in January which focused on the implications and impacts on lesbians if the Scottish Gender Recognition Reform Bill was passed by assent into UK law.
Amid ongoing concerns about conversion practices, we set out here WDI UK's position.
- There is no evidence to suggest this Bill is needed. Five years of evidence gathering has found that there is no practice that needs criminalising that is not already covered by existing laws.
- The current Parliamentary agenda is full enough without additional legislation for the sake of being seen to be doing something, to placate lobby groups such as Stonewall.
We urge Parliamentarians to vote against the Conversion Therapy Prohibition (Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity) Bill introduced by Baroness Burt and any similar legislation.
We call for an enquiry or commission into how children are being indoctrinated, especially in schools, into believing that it is possible to change sex. This should include consideration of the funding sources of the outside groups that are being paid to deliver PHSE.
It is becoming increasingly clear that gender non-conforming, autistic and LGB young people are particularly susceptible to gender identity ideology. The Cass Report into the GIDS service at the Tavistock and Portman NHS Trust highlighted this.
Article 9 of the Declaration states that 'Children should receive accurate information about human biology and reproduction, and not gender stereotyping through their education. Children should not be subjected to the use of drugs and surgery for ‘gender reassignment’.'
Click for full text of Article 9
January 2023 - A lesbian delegation to the House of Lords
March 2022 - WDI Scotland writes to Scottish government
December 2021 - WDI submits evidence to the UK consultation on conversion therapy.
Local Gender ID Laws:
April 2021: Press release - NHS trusts in England and Wales are reintroducing dangerous mixed-sex patient accommodation through the back door of “gender identity”
Women's Declaration International, a leading grass-roots organisation campaigning to protect women and girls’ sex-based rights, has recently carried out research into the provision of single-sex accommodation in NHS trusts in England and Wales. Download PDF copy of research here.
Our research indicates that many NHS trusts in England and Wales are:
- Failing to consider the needs of women when making single-sex policy
- Failing to inform patients of their rights to single-sex accommodation and a same-sex medical practitioner
- Reinterpreting the Equality Act 2010 to replace ‘sex’ with ‘gender identity’ as a protected characteristic
- Allowing patients to self-identify into single-sex accommodation of their choice
(Sample size: 52 out of 217 NHS trusts (24%) in England and Wales were surveyed)
Mixed-sex accommodation in hospitals places women at greater risk, as evidenced by previous research. It is an affront to dignity and privacy, and is loathed by the majority of hospital inpatients, both male and female. The UK government has been committed to ending mixed-sex accommodation since 1999 and in 2012 single sex accommodation was included as a patient right within the NHS’s own constitution. Since 2019 confusing NHS guidance has appeared to privileges ‘gender identity’ over biological sex. In doing so the NHS has created a worrying contradiction within its own guidance.
The WDI Declaration on Women’s Sex-Based Rights reaffirms the sex-based rights of women as set out in CEDAW. Article 8 reaffirms the need for the elimination of violence against women, including the provision of single-sex services and physical spaces for women and girls to provide them with privacy, dignity and safety. Article 1 reaffirms that the rights of women and girls are based on the character of sex and allowing men who claim a female ‘gender identity’ into the protected category of ‘women’ constitutes a form of discrimination against us.
WDI asks the NHS to:
- Return to recognising ‘sex’ as the protected characteristic, as written in the EA2010, particularly within mental health settings
- End the practice of allowing people to self-identify into single-sex accommodation intended for the opposite sex
- Correctly inform patients of their rights to single-sex accommodation and a same-sex medical practitioner
- Enforce a single, consistent approach across all NHS trusts in England and Wales
April 2021: Press Release – NGO CSW must reinstate wrongly removed WDI exhibit hall and booth
[Download PDF copy here.] WDI was delighted to be involved in NGO CSW65 in March 2021. Attended by around 25,000 people from all over the world, the event was the ideal place for WDI to promote our Declaration on Women’s Sex-Based Rights, which campaigns against the replacement of sex with ‘gender identity’ on the grounds that it undermines women and girls’ rights. Our webinar, recorded during the event, featured women from across the globe sharing their evidence of the harms that ‘gender identity’ ideology has caused in their country. It is available on our YouTube site here.
On 26 March 2021 the exhibit booth and handbook advert of WHRC for NGO CSW65 were removed from the NGO CSW65 forum virtual platform. We paid $1000 and $500 respectively for these, a considerable outlay for an organisation funded entirely by donations. We were informed that our removal was because Jo Brew, WDI co-ordinator had ‘disrupted discussion’ during an event and made ‘offensive comments related to gender, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, disability, mental illness, physical appearance, political affiliation, age, race, national and/or ethnic origin, immigration status, language, religion, or indigeneity’.
WDI co-ordinator, Jo Brew, contests this, “My only comment in chat during the whole event was that the opening meeting was inspiring and that I was looking forward to the NGO CSW65,” she said. “It is therefore impossible for me to have done the things that the NGO CSW/NY says that I have. Chat transcripts from conference events would confirm this.”
Furthermore, seven women from WDI were removed without warning from the Joyful Disruption on 26 March. They received emails to say they had been removed for ‘sustained disruption’ but had not disrupted anything or broken any of the stated “safety” guidelines.
WDI have asked the NGO CSW/NY to reinstate the advert and exhibit hall booth, but have received no response to a series of emails.
For more information contact WHRC press officer at [email protected]
January 2021 - read the WDI submission to the Women and Equalities Select Committee on the reform of the Gender Recognition Act here.
In the UK there is no "gender identity" law.
WDI statement: Women's Declaration International welcomes the news, reported in the Sunday Times on 14 June 2020, that the UK government has shelved plans to reform the Gender Recognition Act to allow self-identification of sex. We ask that it continue to listen to grass-roots women’s organisations as it reaffirms its commitment to single sex spaces as set out in the 2010 Equality Act and investigates the role of heavily funded lobbying organisations such as Stonewall in contributing to the unauthorised replacement of the protected characteristic of sex with “gender identity” throughout public life.
14 June 2020 - UK government to scrap proposed changes to the GRA which would allow self-ID. Plans are also likely to include national guidelines on provision of women-only spaces and safeguards put in place to bolster the 2010 Equality Act on single-se provision. The government also seeks to prevent children under 18 from accessing any treatment that would permanently alter their bodies. Article in The Sunday Times here.
The current age to access medical treatment without the consent of a parent or public authority is 16 in Scotland, 17 in England and 18 in Wales.
Latest news:
The UK government halts plans to alter the Gender Recognition Act 2004 to make it easier to change gender. Times article here.
Verdict in Harry Miller case - February 2020 - police found to have acted unlawfully over "transphobic" tweets. Article here.
Kate Scottow found guilty of sending "transphobic" tweets. Article here.
Maya Forstater loses employment tribunal. Tribunal finds that belief in biological sex is not "worthy of respect in a democratic society". Article here.
Click here to read a recent blog from think tank Murray Blackburn Mackenzie: "Gender recognition reform in Belgium: Lessons for Scotland"
Click here to read an excellent article containing up-to-date info on sex-based rights.
Click here to read a summary of the current situation in the UK from Feminist Current.
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