‘Labour activists cannot dismiss women’s concerns over single-sex spaces’

“No, I won’t be voting Labour. They don’t know what a woman is.” The door slams in my face on a cold Saturday morning.

So started Chris Carter’s piece entitled “Welsh Labour prepares to fight or fall in the culture wards as Reform threat looms”.

Chris doesn’t tell us how he would have responded if he had been quick enough before the door slammed. The textbook response, of course, is: “What makes you say that?”.

With luck the man, or more likely woman, will tell you about David Lammy opining that a cervix was something a man could grow, given the right medication, or Keir Starmer saying that 99.9% of women don’t have a penis.

They might even mention that Mark Drakeford, Welsh Labour Leader until 2024, was firm in his belief that “trans women are women”, despite many women from both inside and outside the Labour Party trying to point out to him the problems that this belief created for women and for our right to single-sex spaces when carried into public policy.

In any of these cases, we are able to truthfully reply that none of these men had quite understood the issues, but that nevertheless the Labour Party were elected to government in parliament in 2024 on a manifesto which promised to defend women’s right to single-sex spaces – a pledge which has been repeated a number of times since that election.

‘The NHS is overwhelmingly important to women’

In Wales, where the threat posed by Reform became manifest last week when they got their first councillor candidate elected in a by-election in Torfaen, campaigners can point out that we do in any case do things differently from the way they are done in the rest of the UK.

In fact, we have a women Leader, Eluned Morgan, who most certainly knows what a woman is. What’s more, one of the first things Eluned did on being elected Leader was to travel around Wales listening to what mattered most to the people of Wales.

As a result, Welsh government is putting the extra money it now receives through having a Labour government in Westminster into the basics – the NHS, jobs, transport and housing.

READ MORE: ‘Ten years ago, I was Labour’s first trans candidate. Too little has changed since’

The NHS is overwhelmingly important to women. The health and social care sector is the largest occupational group in Wales, women make up the majority of the workforce and women make more use of the NHS than do men.

Since becoming Leader, Eluned Morgan has seen the publication in December 2024 of The Women’s Health Plan by the NHS Executive, something on which she had worked in her previous role as Health Minister. This plan had already seen the creation of the post of Clinical Lead for Women’s Health and new money has been allocated for research into women’s health needs.

The Women’s Health Plan is very clear about what a woman is, stating that it is recognised that some individuals who need to access women’s healthcare do not identify as women or girls – the terms ‘woman’ and ‘women’s health’ are used with the understanding that some trans men and people who identify as non-binary are included.

‘Most people in Wales are not ideologically obsessed’

Alternatively, campaigning members could highlight the sterling work of Tonia Antoniazzi, MP for Gower and ex-rugby international.

She has repeatedly spoken up about the importance of the female category in women’s sports, at all levels, to ensure that women can compete against each other on a level playing field. Having gone through male puberty gives men a significant performance advantage over women and in the interests of fairness and of safety women should not be expected to compete against them.

What campaigners cannot afford to do is to dismiss those who are concerned about women’s sex-based rights, as indulging in culture wars. Still less can campaigners accuse these voters of being under the influence of, or aligned with, the far-right.

READ MORE: Scottish Labour chiefs lose conference vote for biology-based single-sex spaces

Most people in Wales are not ideologically obsessed – however, the majority of voters understand the difference between men and women. They care about whether they, their daughters, mothers or sisters can access single-sex facilities when they need them, whether for reasons of dignity, privacy or safety.

It may be true to say that the obsession with gender identity and the failure to recognise sex as a significant determinant of social experience – as well as being a protected characteristic under the Equality Act 2010 – is part of a toxic ideology which has arrived in Wales from elsewhere.

However, it is playing into the hands of the far-right to walk away with attempting to find out what lies behind a voter’s concerns when they say that the Labour Party “don’t know what a woman is”. It is not far-right to stand up for women’s rights – it is a central and long-standing part of socialist tradition.

Women in Welsh Labour understand this. We need the men in Welsh Labour to understand it, too. Then we can get out together and challenge the posturing of Reform with facts.

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