If you’re a Labour Party member – have you taken a motion to your CLP about Self-ID or anything related to GRA? That’s how party policy will get changed. There was no such motion at last years LP conference, nor at the Women’s Conference in Telford.

Guest post from Diane Jones

Below is a model motion asking that a ‘gender’ audit is conducted on the impact on women of the ‘gender identity’ change which was put in the 2017 LP Manifesto.

This is how they say they will change the law: “A Labour government will reform the Gender Recognition Act and the Equality Act 2010 to ensure they protect Trans people by changing the protected characteristic of ‘gender assignment’ to ‘gender identity’ and remove other outdated language such as ‘transsexual’.”

And they also say  “A Labour government will gender audit all policy and legislation for its impact on women before implementation.”

They really need to do the audit before deciding the policy!  But no such audit has been done.

Labour Manifesto

The motion just asks for existing policy to be implemented. Not controversial  surely…

Get some support

It’s a good idea to find someone who’s agreeable to second the motion – and a couple of people to agree to speak, or at least to support it if you can. It’s also worth asking for a secret ballot at the meeting, rather than a show of hands – because of the intimidation that may prevent some members from being seen to support it.

How about it?  Follow me on Twitter if you want to discuss in DMs.

Solidarity!  #sexnotgender  #defendwomensrights

Model Resolution

Manifesto commitment on Audit for Impact on Women

This CLP notes that the Labour Party Manifesto 2017 (p109) says “A Labour government will gender audit all policy and legislation for its impact on women before implementation.”

and

“A Labour government will reform the Gender Recognition Act and the Equality Act 2010 to ensure they protect Trans people by changing the protected characteristic of ‘gender assignment’ to ‘gender identity’ and remove other outdated language such as‘transsexual.’ ” No official definition of ‘trans people’ exists.

Changing the protected characteristic of ‘gender reassignment’ to ‘gender identity,’ (which cannot be observed or tested) would make implementing or enforcing this in law almost impossible and risks undermining the purpose of the legislation.

It would also effectively introduce ‘self-declaration’ for trans people, even though those words are not in the manifesto.

Women have expressed grave concerns about the potential impact of sex Self-Declaration (Self-ID) as proposed.

This CLP calls upon the Labour Party to:Conduct, as a matter of urgency, a thorough audit on Labour Party policy on GRA and Equality Act for their impact on women

The audit to include the potential impact on:

◦the definition of ‘woman’

◦women’s prisons, shelters for women seeking refuge, changing rooms in leisure centres etc, toilets in public places, work places and community resources.

◦official data gathering, particularly relating to the sex-gap and disparities in education, employment, pay, crime, and health statistics.

◦monitoring of sex based discrimination.

240 words (+title)

Good luck!