The government has responded, by issuing a statement, to a petition by a women’s group to keep in place the provisions in the Equality Act 2010 that allow for single sex spaces such as toilets, refuges for domestic violence victims and other services that cater for women. This petition was raised in response to fears that the Equality Act would be amended to take these rights to women only spaces away, in order to kow-tow to the small, but noisy, well-connected and sometimes violent Trans lobby.

I happen to believe that women, and men for that matter, have a natural right to spaces appropriate for their sex. We should have a right to single sex toilets, changing areas in sports centres and a medic of the same sex when required. Those who suffer from domestic abuse also deserve refuge among members of the same sex and not to be housed in a mixed sex environment. There are damn good reasons why a women or a man would request to be handled by a member of the same sex when there are intimate or sensitive issues at stake.

For example there are some medical procedures that are embarrassing enough in themselves and put the patient in a vulnerable position which should be dealt with by a medic of the same sex as the patient. Cervical smear tests are probably the most common example of this sort of procedure and one woman walked out of a hospital after being allocated a ‘female’ nurse who turned out to be a bloke with stubble, deep voice and tattoos wearing a dress. The patient had requested a female nurse, as is her right to do so, but instead got a nurse who was obviously a man but who was self identifying as a woman. In another case a vulnerable mental health patient suffering from the delusion that men’s rights activists were ‘out to get her’ was sectioned when her bipolar disorder became unmanageable in the community and she was placed in a psychiatric hospital. Despite her medical notes showing that an unreasonable fear of men was a factor in her mental illness, she was placed in a ward containing a male to female transsexual whom the bipolar patient could easily ascertain was a man. This caused her great distress and is the sort of thing that hampers recovery from this sort of mental heath distress. The response of the mental hospital staff to this distressed patient was to call her a bigot, even though the patient’s response was linked to her fear of men and her delusions about them.

Jack Buckby of Rebel Media recently made an excellent video on the issue of the government response to women’s groups calling for the defence of same sex spaces and services. Like me, Mr Buckby appeared to view the government’s statement as a bit of a win for common sense and reality. It is that, but this apparent climb down and acknowledgement of reality may not be the win it seems. This is because things on the trans issue are still in somewhat of a flux and the government has been ‘consulting’ over this issue. The woman’s group, WomansPlaceUK, set up a petition to keep same sex provision as they feared that these services would be watered down if the government caves in to the Trans lobby (as it is likely to do) over the issue of ‘non medicalising’ gender transition.

The government’s statement that they will not be amending the Equality Act 2010 and removing single sex provisions, looks like a bit of a feint by the Government. The statement that they will not be amending the Equality Act in this way looks good but it could be ultimately meaningless. When, as is likely to happen, the government does what it is told to do by the aggressive trans lobby, and allows people to apply for a gender recognition certificate without any gatekeeping by the medical profession, then there will be no need to change the Equality Act. If men are allowed to self identify as women and for that to be legally recognised without any input from elsewhere, then they will be able to legally claim they are women and use what have hitherto been women only spaces. These men posing as women will not have to go through any period of living as a woman overseen by medical staff, as is the case at present, they will just be able to put on a dress and apply for their gender recognition certificate and then they will have to be treated as a woman because the law says so. The Gender Recognition Act changes will force women’s spaces to take in those who are plainly not women and we could end up with the scenario where even women’s domestic violence refuges contain men with male genitalia claiming a right to a service that has quite rightly been restricted to women. That’s not to say that female on male domestic violence doesn’t go on and more needs to be done to tackle that issue, but it is inappropriate in the extreme to mix sexes in sensitive environments such as domestic violence refuges.

It looks to me very much as though the Government is being disingenuous about this issue. They’ve issued this statement about the Equality Act in order to shut up and shut down critics from groups like WomansPlaceUK. Any changes in the Gender Recognition Act will probably trump the provisions in the Equality Act for certain sex separated facilities, and the Trans lobby, assisted in large part by Government ministers who wish to appease this lobby, will get their own way.

I must admit that the Government statement on the retention of single sex facilities is welcome, but unless they abandon their commitment to allow self identification when it comes to gender, with all the problems that will cause, this statement is just empty words. I don’t think that a victory has been won here, I think the government are merely trying to evade criticism for appeasing the Trans lobby and to keep a lid on things until they can push through the changes that the government and the Trans lobby want to make.

We should not look at this statement in isolation, instead we should look at in in the context of the legislative trajectory of both the May and Cameron governments. Neither of these governments has shown any inclination to stand up to the Trans lobby even though they represent a tiny slice of the population. The government has never seemed to listen to or take on board those views that ask awkward questions about the gender ideology and has nearly always sided with the trans lobby. When you look at the single sex facilities statement alongside the entirety of Government actions when it comes to the gender ideology, you can see a pattern of appeasement and virtue signalling. I doubt very much that this statement will mean much at the end of the day and the apparent clarification of the single sex issue is little more than empty words from a government that at the end of the day will cave in to the trans lobby, even if it makes life worse for genetic women.