Westminster is scheduled to elect one of its own to head up a highly influential Commons group on Wednesday, September 11th. While the group has “Women” in its title, two leading candidates for the role have a track record of arguing that people born male who identify as women (‘transwomen’) are women.
Commons select committees exist to oversee the work of UK government departments and agencies, Established following the 2015 general election, the Women & Equalities Committee is designed to scrutinise the Government Equalities Office. For close to a decade, its brief has included sex, age, race, sexual orientation, disability and transgender/gender identity. Its chair, as with all commons select committees, is elected by a secret ballot of MPs.
With only two candidates in the running, there is concern that either candidate for chair will treat sex, sexual orientation, and ‘transgender/gender identity’ as interchangeable (or ‘intersectional,’ in the jargon). Apart from the now customary disregard for biological facts, this belief has serious implications for ‘safeguarding’ (such as when biological males enter women and girls’ spaces), women’s sports, and for same sex-attracted people, whose autonomous spaces are compromised.
Kate Osborne is an existing Committee member, who deputised for the Chair in the previous parliamentary term. It’s not ‘offence archeology’ to remind readers of previous social media statements, such as “some women have a penis” in response to a campaign to doorstep MPs for their opinions on trans issues. As part of the newly elected Labour Government this summer, she described herself as “very concerned” that Health Secretary Wes Streeting would ban puberty blockers. She has smeared critics of her viewpoint as ‘TERFs’ (trans-exclusionary radical feminists) motivated by bigotry. While posing as the Committee’s ‘continuity candidate,’ her embrace of the ‘LGBTQ+’ label and terminology indicates its future priorities.
In contrast, Sarah Owen MP presents herself as both new to the Committee but as someone whose personal history and ethnic ancestry make her “a unifying and productive voice on often divisive issues.” On the now often divisive issue of ‘What is a woman,’ she tweeted in support of Transgender Awareness Week 2020, saying “Trans rights are human rights. Trans men are men. Trans women are women.” Running for the position of committee chair, she promises
This new Parliament is our chance to bring an end to the culture wars. People’s experiences and identities are so much more than a cheap headline.
Neither candidate appears to realise that the claim that ‘transwomen are women’ is a divisive issue. Nor, apparently, do the dozens of MPs from across most of the major parliamentary parties willing to support these nominations.
